At first glance, the target group for the Abihome platform seems too small to make a business model out of it – or so says CEO Johannes Kautz. The focus is primarily on the approximately 300,000 students who take their Abitur exams in Germany every year. In a podcast conversation with Bernd Zipper, Kautz, a young entrepreneur, reports that his model nevertheless works thanks to his close proximity to the target group.
Abihome offers services for all aspects of the Abitur. The highlight: The company networks the community with an app. “That’s how we were able to create an enormous market position for ourselves in a niche market,” says Kautz. In addition to individual printing solutions, the focus is on the target group’s natural habitat: the cell phone screen.
Philipp Hofmann, Chief Digital Officer at Abihome, relies fully on the app for this, where all services come together. “Our target group is used to doing everything on their cell phones,” he says. Accordingly, even a website is a “media break” that Abihome would prefer not to risk in the first place. While the young target group naturally moves in the world of app-to-print, not all printers are up to these challenges, as the Abihome team had to discover.
In the textile print sector in particular, the young entrepreneurs still see a lot of room for improvement in terms of innovation. Yet highly individualized print solutions at reasonable prices are already possible today, say Kautz and Hofmann in the podcast. For example, their textile creator tool directly from the app should help replace web-to-print with app-based solutions in the long term.
Because the app also offers help with organizing graduation parties, voting, and funding parties, there is real added value for students right from the start. They are therefore happy to return to Abihome’s various printing services, such as graduation newspapers and invitation cards, in addition to individualized motto clothing. In the current episode of “Zipper’s Insights,” they explain why Kautz and Hofmann are not afraid of a takeover despite their functioning business model.
Find the podcast on ZIPPERS INSIGHTS here – or, alternatively, on Spotify here.
