About Etribes

Alexander Graf

Managing director of Spryker Systems, founder of Etribes, publisher of kassenzone.de

Alexander Graf publishes Kassenzone.de, a leading German-language e-commerce blog, and speaks at a range of tech and e-commerce conferences; he has authored a range of expert articles and books about digital business models. Alex is a founding partner and managing director of the SPRYKER e-commerce architecture – developed in part by the same team as Rocket Internet used and used in the Dafiti and Westwing frameworks for Rocket Internet. This technology is also applied by Project A for Tirendo, NU3 and Contorion. Questions regarding new models for retailers, Amazon, and competitive strategies are of particular interest to Alex.

Tarek Müller

Managing director of the Collins Project, serial start-up creator & business angel, Etribes Connect advisory board

Tarek Müller is co-founder and part of the management team at Collins, an e-commerce start-up and subsidiary of the Otto Group, which develops online shops for the digital generation. Müller has been developing digital business models for online trade for more than ten years and is responsible for Marketing & Brands at Collins.
The entrepreneur founded his first online shop at the age of 13. Later, as managing partner, he built up numerous e-commerce models in various industries. From 2007 he developed service companies to support customers in the conception and implementation of new business models. His company NetImpact Framework GmbH, founded in 2003, developed with more than 70 employees into one of the larger German digital agencies – one of whose customers included the Otto Group. In June 2013, the Group took over the company and the entire team in parallel with the Creative-Task agency for the core team of the Collins project.
Tarek Müller, born in Hamburg, is also a shareholder of eTribes Framework GmbH, founded in 2011, and is active as an investor and business angel. The developer conference code.talks in Hamburg, which he founded together with Sebastian Betz, attracted around 1,500 participants and 130 national and international speakers. In 2014 Müller was awarded the “e-Star Personality Award”, in 2015 he was voted among the “Young Elite – Top 40 among 40” by the business magazine Capital.

Dr. Sebastian Sieglerschmidt

Omni-Channel-Commerce: Strategy – Implementation – Operations, Digital Marketing, User Experience, Analytics, Optimierung

Dr. Sebastian Sieglerschmidt is a renowned E-Commerce Expert with more than 8 years of hands-on experience in building, growing, managing and optimizing digital business models. Since 2013, Sebastian is Managing Director of the Allianz Digital Accelerator which is headquartered in Munich.

The Digital Accelerator is a fully owned subsidiary of Allianz SE. Its mission is to build new ventures for Allianz and – potentially – spin them off as stand-alone companies. The Digital Accelerator is innovating globally, across all lines of business, from Insurance, to Assistance, to Asset Management.In addition to his role at Allianz, Sebastian is majority shareholder and chairman at CommerceBoard, an early stage e-commerce software company. CommerceBoard develops highly customized Java-based e-shop, product data mangement and ERP software for enterprise clients.

Sebastian also has made angel investments and is an active mentor to several startup companies in Germany, the UK and Israel. In 2008, Sebastian founded 7e stores (formerly 7trends-Enamora), an online apparel retailer, with Rocket Internet and Holtzbrinck Ventures as early stage investors. Among other e-shops, 7e built enamora.de into the leading and award-winning underwear specialist online (including a No. 1 ranking from Stiftung Warentest).

In 2012, Sebastian successfully exited from this venture. Sebatians’s work life started in 2003 as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he focused on FMCG/Packaged Goods as well as Marketing & Sales topics. Before that, he studied Business Administration in Vallendar (WHU), Los Angeles and Toulouse and holds a PhD in Behavioral Psychology from FU Berlin. Sebastian was born in 1978 and lives with his family in Berlin.

Jens Wasel

Founder and Managing Director KW-Commerce

Jens Wasel is founder and managing director of KW-Commerce.

Founded in 2012, KW-Commerce has 180 employees worldwide and supplies around 5 million customers annually in the areas of accessories for consumer electronics and home & living. With the distribution of its own brands kwmobile, kalibri and Navaris, the company is one of the largest Amazon and eBay dealers worldwide.

KW-Logistics also offers shipping services from Asia with a team in China.

Jens Wasel also uses his theoretical and practical knowledge to help Amazon newcomers gain a foothold in the Amazon world with his innovative products and is also a speaker at e-commerce and Amazon conferences.

Dr. Gerald Schönbucher

Founder and Managing Director Hitmeister.de, Business Angel

Gerald Schönbucher has been active in the eCommerce sector since 2005. He has helped to establish several online companies and is currently the founder and managing director of the Hitmeister.de marketplace – one of Germany’s leading online sales platforms with over 2 million customers.

In addition to his work for Hitmeister, he participates as a business angel in young Internet companies. Before entering the Internet sector, he also got a taste of corporate air at BMW, Deutsche Bank and Unilever, among others.

Simon Specka

Co-founder & Managing Director ZenMate / Co-founder & Partner CASAVO
Consultant for digital transformation and in the development of digital business models

Simon Specka is founder and CEO/advisor of ZenMate, the leading VPN security solution for consumers. ZenMate is the market leader in several countries with 45+ million product downloads from 160 countries around the world. Simon is also founder and partner of CASAVO, the first innovative company for digital & technology based real estate sales in Italy.

Simon supports startups as a consultant and interim manager in the areas of business development, online marketing, product management, HR, venture capital fundraising and strategy. He also advises corporations, mid-sized companies and private equity investors on digital transformation and the development of new digital business areas.

Simon was one of the very early Lean Startup enthusiasts and experts, and applied the principle early in his companies through his top-rated study thesis on the Lean-Startup product development principle. Lean Startup describes this process as a “Build-Measure-Learn cycle”. Simon brings his expertise in this field and in (digital) company building to his consulting projects with enthusiasm.

Hubertus Bessau

Co-Founder of mymuesli

Hubertus Bessau founded mymuesli in 2007 with two friends from business studies at the University of Passau. The idea to mix everyone’s personal favourite cereals quickly found many fans in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Great Britain.

The startup has received several awards, including the “Startup of the Year 2007” from deutsche-startups.de and the “Young Business Award 2008” from the Bundesverband des Deutschen Versandhandels. Most recently, the three friends were honoured with the German Founder’s Prize in the category “Newcomers”.

Originally only available online, mymuesli now operates its own mymuesli shops in eleven cities and is also increasingly represented in food retailing. From the beginning, mymuesli used only organic ingredients and pursues a sustainable strategy in the development of the product range and the brand.
In addition to premium organic muesli, the company also sells other products from the premium breakfast world. Just one year after its foundation, the range was expanded to include a line of organic porridge called N’oats. Shortly afterwards, the range was expanded to include the juice orange subscription Oh! Since 2011, the portfolio also includes single-finca coffee from fair trade under the Green Cup Coffee brand. Last year, the portfolio was supplemented by organic loose leaf tea – called Tree of Tea.

After the three founders bought back their shares from two Business Angles in 2013, mymuesli is fully owner-managed.
Today Hubertus Bessau is mainly responsible for the marketing of mymuesli.

Stefan Grimm

Founder and managing director of restposten.de

Stefan Grimm is one of the founders and managing director of restposten.de wholesale platform. It is a leader in the market and is one of the pioneers of online B2B sales. Stefan is also versed in traditional wholesale processes and structures and has experience of purchasing in the Far East; he has also been a consultant and interim manager in the consumer goods wholesale trade and worked for brand-name manufacturers.

Matthias Lau

CTO connected-health.eu GmbH, consultant for e-commerce concepts and IT strategies

Matthias Lau works for a range of companies on concepts, coaching, planning, and development of IT strategies, processes, and products. He is an expert on the meaning of and the adequate integration of IT processes in company strategies – in e-commerce above all. Speaking at conferences for developers and tech events, he passes on concepts for technical multi-platform strategies including responsive web design ideas. He is the CTO of connected-health.eu GmbH, a company developing new ways of communicating and new standards for patient-doctor interaction.

Karolin Junker

digital strategy/transformation, product and brand management

Karolin is Managing Director of Vite EnVogue, one of the leading online shops for second hand designerfashion & accessories. Since its founding in 2012, Vite EnVogue now employs over 70 people in Germany, Austria and the UK.

Previously she gained several years of experience in shopper & consumer marketing within a leading FMCG company and holds a masters degree in Management & Entrepreneurship.

Manuel Hinz

Managing director of Hinz Ventures & Consulting, partner of Heilemann Ventures

In recent years, Manuel Hinz has worked in tech start-ups from a variety of management positions: as interim CFO and head of corporate development, he played a key role in setting up DailyDeal and its subsequent sale to Google. He then worked with Project A Ventures on the Toroleo car parts price comparison site, which was then sold to Delticom. He currently consults and offers interim management services to start-ups in online marketing, business development, and strategy; he is also a venture partner at Heilemann Ventures, the holding company of the DailyDeal founders, and also works with investors.

Jörg Kundrath

Co-founder and Managing Director of KAVAJ GmbH and the KAVAJ Academy

Jörg Kundrath is the co-founder and managing director of KAVAJ GmbH and the KAVAJ Academy as well as the author of “The KAVAJ Case.” KAVAJ is a manufacturer of high-quality genuine leather products for smartphones, tablets or wallets. Founded in October 2011, KAVAJ sells its products solely as a marketplace seller via Amazon (Europe, USA, Japan). With over 500,000 KAVAJ products sold and more than 17 million euros in revenue, KAVAJ is one of the biggest sellers on Amazon. What’s special about KAVAJ: All eight employees are distributed throughout Germany and work in the home office.

Before founding KAVAJ, Jörg Kundrath worked as a project manager for Amazon.de in Munich.

Pierre Haarfeld

Consultant for business model strategies in the home & living industry

Pierre is an Etribes Partner since 2014, is an entrepreneur, speaker, advisor and eCommerce expert with operational experience. The business economist has been working intensively on eCommerce and digital business models for many years. As a partner at eTribes, he is responsible for the home & living sector and supports companies in designing new business models with his in-depth industry experience. Pierre Haarfeld is also the author of numerous articles on the strategy of digital business models in the furniture industry.