9 questions for the founders of “The Lion’s Den”
In this questionnaire, we ask the founders and participants of the Vox show The Lion’s Den questions about their products and experiences on the show. This time: Lars Mayer, Jan Winter and Bastian Hehner, the founders of TRIGGin.
Contents
TRIGGid becomes TRIGGin
TRIGGin is a so-called trigger button that can relieve tension and muscle hardening and promote blood circulation. The medical product is relatively easy to use, can remain on the skin for up to twelve hours and act on the muscles there.
Lars Mayer, Jan Winter and Bastian Hehner were able to convince with a special founding story and their product on the VOX show “Die Höhle der Löwen”. The investors Carsten Maschmeyer and Ralf Dümmel entered into a deal with the founding trio.
TRIGGin: pain relief to the point
BASIC thinking: Hello, you are part of the twelfth season of “Die Höhle der Löwen”. How does that feel?
Hello, well. First of all, of course, this is an absolute emotional roller coaster, which you probably only experience very rarely in this form. But in the end there is also a lot of pride in finally being able to present our baby.
And of course we are aware that not everyone gets the chance to receive such attention for their own product.
What makes your product so special?
We invented and developed “TRIGGin – the trigger button”, which can be applied to the desired trigger point on the skin using tape or similar. It is therefore a combination of triggers and muscle tape application.
In contrast to many well-known trigger tools, the small miracle tool, once placed, continues to work independently during everyday movement. This improves blood flow to the trigger point and reduces its activity. In addition, the user can manually exert additional pressure on the TRIGGin and thus enhances the mode of action at the same time.
TRIGGin: The idea and the concept
How did you come up with the idea and your concept?
We would argue that our founding story is worth mentioning as it all started with Lars having a skateboarding accident. Jan and Lars got to know each other as part of the accident. And as sometimes happens, the two got along fairly quickly and quickly became involved in intense conversations discussing various methods of taping.
Jan, who can be described as an expert in the field of taping, had been experimenting with various ways of combining pure taping with trigger point treatment for a long time. Everything from grains of rice to coins and peas was used for this.
The two then chatted about possible application scenarios and Lars implemented the first 3D printing prototypes directly because he has the possibilities as a designer. The results were quickly very convincing. Ergo, there was no hesitation, the team was expanded to include Bastian and Torben and initially a GbR was founded.
You can probably say that a rather negative initial situation has turned into a very positive story and that sympathy was a very important building block for us. just karma.
The lion’s den
And how did you end up in The Lion’s Den?
In fact, the idea of applying for “The Lion’s Den” came up very early on. At one of our first team meetings, Jan said he would like to participate in the format with our product and Lars immediately said that if we all wanted that, then we should do it too.
At first that was just said and nobody really believed that it would soon become serious. The application process went surprisingly quickly. We had only just sent off the application and then we were already on the big stage.
The pitch and the negotiations
What was going through your mind just before your pitch?
Of course you prepare as well as you can for many potential questions, but you don’t know in advance what it will really be like to stand in front of the lions. It has a bit of “eyes closed and through”. For example, Lars used the waiting time to warm up a bit on his skateboard.
How did the negotiations go?
At first we were of course very happy about the great feedback and the interest of the lions. And it was very surprising that we were suddenly in a position where we could choose between different offers.
That gave us a certain certainty that we could renegotiate percentages again.
But it has to be said that it is not easy to make such a decision on the spur of the moment. But unlike the lions, we had the opportunity to work out a preference beforehand.
Medical device TRIGGin
What has happened to you and TRIGGin since filming and participating?
The deal with Carsten and Ralf gave us the opportunity to position ourselves much more professionally in the market. Starting with our website to packaging design, we gratefully accepted any help.
Thanks to the great support, we can now also call our product a “medical device” and have significantly gained safety through international patent extensions. We were also able to positively optimize our pricing for the benefit of our customers.
Of course, after the deal, the workload increased significantly for us and we became equally aware of the seriousness of our actions and our startup.
What’s next? What are the next steps?
Of course, we assume that our TRIGGin will establish itself on the market in the long term. Within the next five years we also hope to be able to make the step from Dach (i.e. Germany, Austria and Switzerland) across the pond.
Our creative pipeline is also full of other product ideas. So I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from us in the months and years to come.
TRIGGin and the lion’s den
Looking back, how do you rate your experience at The Lion’s Den?
In the end everything was actually much more harmless than expected…. You’ve often been able to go into the cave yourself from the perspective of a spectator. And so we had the ulterior motive that you can get pretty harsh criticism.
Of course, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that comes with incredible excitement.
We went into the show with the thought of having a great product in our pockets that we don’t have to hide from.
But of course the Olympic spirit “Being there is everything!” was also present. It’s already a huge success to even get this chance for a pitch. It was not for nothing that Jan and Lars agreed before they applied that they would jump out of a plane together if they participated.
We can only recommend it at this point. If you have a product that you believe in, be bold and take the next step. This does not necessarily have to be such a format in individual cases. But basically such a pitch experience is a very important one.
→ TRIGGin exists here to buy.
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