Member in the Spotlight: Michael Grundmann of Appdigital

Here at Tribes, we love getting to know the people that make it such an inspiring place to be – the members! Today, we shine the focus on long-term resident and valued member Michael Grundmann, to learn more about him and his digital business.

Can you tell us a bit about your business and the services that you offer?

As founder of appdigital.de together with my team in the western Ukraine we help other companies and organizations to become better and stronger in their digital presence. Starting from professional services for online marketing, e-commerce, building apps to building corporate platforms. Our support ranges from planning to implementation to get the digital business of our clients up and running.
Another service that we have created, is an idea management platform called IdeaJam. We noticed that companies often struggle to make new products and services real, just from their own employee ideas. To solve this, we created the IdeaJam platform. With IdeaJam we provide for each of our company clients a unique, creative and safe online place to pinpoint their ideas, to evaluate them, and develop them from creation to product.

What type of companies do you work with?

Most of the companies we work with are SMEs. However, some of our customers for IdeaJam are larger companies such as BearingPoint, a technology consulting firm and Fresenius Kabi, who are in the medical technology field. They often have a need for a digital platform where they can put their own ideas, to rate these ideas and evaluate which ones will work out for the market. So there really is a wide digital / innovation field that we work with!

How long have you been with Tribes?

I have been based at Tribes Frankfurt Baseler since December 2018, ever since they first opened! I was one of the first renters here, actually.

And what made you decide to join Tribes as opposed to finding your own office space?

At that point I was searching for an office space and some of the things I found really appealing was, first of all, that there was already furniture in the office and a whole infrastructure already there.
The people were really nice and welcoming, and I liked the overall style – it wasn’t so packed, unlike other office spaces and coworking spaces I’ve seen. It was a bit more open and well-designed – I just really liked it! There were many factors for me and I just didn’t have to think about it for long, I just decided quite quickly.

What benefits have you found in being a member of Tribes?

Definitely the opportunity to network. In the past I was in a different shared workspace, but there was not an open culture of communication or networking possibilities like there is here at Tribes. Even if you’re not actively looking to have a discussion with someone here, it just happens naturally! It’s a really good to do some business networking and to create business out of talks that you have at the coffee machine, which is a really positive factor. I’ve also had the chance to work together with Tribes previously to jointly conduct several meet-ups, called “Start Up, Do It (Right)”, which was really positive for everyone involved! This is something that I really like about Tribes, it’s an approachable company that is open to ideas, and that’s something that I really appreciate.

What is your favourite thing about coming to work?

I think to have a certain degree of freedom, that’s quite interesting for me and to have a certain degree of being able to create on my own – so not having a boss! I think that goes for many people who work in shared workspaces. Of course, it also comes with challenges, so where there is light there are also some shadows. The best thing is that by coming to work here, you find many similar minded people and businesses and I have created several projects from the contacts here that I got to know.