Kreatives — the first year of our business

OUR FIRST YEAR IN REVIEW.

“You put those hours in and look at what you get — Nothing that you can hold, but everything that it is.”

MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS Ten Thousand Hours

Exactly one year ago, we still remember having unsettled thoughts whether we were making the right decision to leave San Francisco — the city that accepted us for our wild, bold, and differentiated personalities — to Munich, Germany. This was a time when cold-press juice was creeping to $20USD per bottle, you were socially validated if you worked for Google or Apple, you accepted paying a village’s salary for a moldy apartment, and well... there was Trump.

We looked at each other and said, “this isn’t for us, anymore”.

We will be forever grateful for all the friends we’ve made. The lifetime of experiences we’ve created. And the education that gave us the confidence to bring any of our wild ideas to life. San Francisco allowed us to discover who we really were inside — Kreatives.

It’s been one year since we moved and settled in Munich.

None of this would be possible if our mentor and friend didn’t introduce us to the brave Kaiser-X Labs team, who took a risk and adopted us for our first kick-ass project. None of this would be possible without the entrepreneurial and creative community. Or the friends we have made. Or all the clients that made a bold bet on us. We thank you for your courage!

Year one has easily been the hardest and most rewarding year for us. Just watch a video of a toddler taking their first step.

There is ambition and persistence. Coupled with frustrations, new strategies, and the feeling of hitting rock bottom. With every attempt, there is reward. With every step comes learning, growth, and courage to stand on our two feet.

We couldn’t do it without you!

LET’S LOOK AT

SOME

~15 hrs/day 6.5 days week 0 sick days 2 Kreatives = ~10.170 hrs of work

18.967 e-mails sent

20.461 files created

TORONTO MUNICH LONDON INNSBRUCK LISBON SAN FRANCISCO VANCOUVER MILAN PARIS AMSTERDAM BERLIN LONDON SAN FRANCISCO FRANKFURT VANCOUVER SAN FRANCISCO MALLORCA FRANKFURT SHANGHAI TOKYO 108.304 BUCHAREST LONDON km travelled

COFFEE IS OUR SPIRIT ANIMAL

3.5 Cups / Day 2 Kreatives 365 Days

2.555 Cups of Coffee

& 730

liters of Augustiner Beer

projects completed. Ranging from long-term design strategy, product development, internal innovation, graphic design, branding, keynotes, design thinking workshops, and community events.

OUR

HIGHLIGHTS

CONNYUN

connyun is a startup that is shaping what Industrie 4.0 sets to accomplish. They are enabling manufacturers to connect their production lines in the age of automation.

Kreatives supported the team in it’s early stages to define their vision, strategy, and story. You rock! Go connyun!

Photos by weownyou.agency

ALLIANZ SIMPLITHON

Innovation doesn’t only exist outside of companies, the same processes and mindset can be applied internally - that’s what Allianz did! Kreatives had the opportunity to support Allianz’s internal innovation initiatives this year beginning with the Simplithon.

They asked, how can we hack our internal processes to simplify it! We responded with a design sprint with over 50 participants tackling 6 opportunities – all of which is moving into implementation.

AFTER HOURS

After Hours is a community event that we hosted 2 days after arriving in Munich. We wanted to connect the entrepreneurial, creative, and tech community to share the real and unfiltered stories about starting a venture. We hosted 3 After Hours events and will grow the event series into a new format in the new year with new collaborators who seek the same vision.

Photos by Stefanie Sofija, Mateo Udovicic and Sebastian Lehner

VDMA 5TH EUROPEAN MACHINE VISION SUMMIT What other organization can say they support 3,200 SMEs and Manufacturing companies in Germany?

Kreatives was really excited to collaborate with the team at VDMA to share their insights into the possibilities of Machine Learning and Digitization for the Machine Vision Community.

KUKA CONSUMER ELECTRONICS As Germany’s largest robotics company opens their capabilities from the automotive industry to the consumer electronics industry, Kreatives had the amazing opportunity to bring humancentered design to the global team in Germany and Shanghai.

Photos by Silvia Baroni

SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP: INSIGHT OUT What happens when you combine 50 executives and leadership with Singularity University? You get exponential possibilities to shape the future and tackle the world’s toughest challenges. Kreatives were the designers and entrepreneurs in residence to bring everyone’s bold ideas to life.

Photo by Nick Otto

KAISER X LABS ALLIANZ GDF The project and the team that set us in momentum.

Kreatives is humbled to have worked with the talented and experienced Kaiser X Labs team in collaboration with Allianz’s Global Digital Factory to redesign one of their products from end to end.

TWO THOUSAND EIGHTEEN, YOU READY?

2018 will be another ambitious year! We’re kicking off with the VOICE 2.0 project led by Allianz. VOICE 2.0 is an internal innovation program driven from the bottom up.

Together with other collaborators, we are working hard to create a new event series to Munich with the intention of bringing together the design, entrepreneurial, and tech communities.

These communities continue to exist in their own silos.

We’re looking to sustain growth to a solid 5-6 team members and a new space that encourages creativity and collaboration.

As organizations are busy educating Boomers about the digital tools and trying to win the hearts of Millennials. We’ve noticed the neglect for the next wave of customers, the Gen Zs. We’ll be busy creating new initiatives to surface the voice of this demographic.

One of the reasons why we came to Munich was the opportunity to build a design-driven accelerator, solving meaningful problems. This initiative is still top of mind, we will hustle hard pull this off!

And finally, we recognize the one thing we need to do is to put Kreatives out there! We’ll be working hard to share our stories and projects.

AND WE’RE BRINGING IN MUSCLE…

WE’RE GROWING. MEET SEBASTIAN AKA LEHNER.

Sebastian will join us starting January 1st 2018. Employee Number One. He is a multi-discplinary creative. He kicks ass. That’s why he’ll be our head of communications and running the show with us. We can’t wait to have him on board.

THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE RIDE. SEE YOU NEXT YEAR.

EXTRA-SPECIAL THANKS TO Nathan Shedroff, Bjoern Frank, Martin Langkau, Nicolas Höber, Lisa Kay Solomon, Dharmishta Rood, Jeff Rogers, Sarah Rames, Patti Lew, Alan Gegenschatz, Dan Klein, Thomas Rappold, Christian Schloegel, Felix Raab, Stefan Küsterer, Wolfgang Schiller, Chris Jegl, Verena Ettenhofer, Simone Correll, Jean-Marie Carrère, Telina Reil, Konstantin Riedel, Ramona Petzold, Florian Scheiblbrandner, Nicole Boscher, Patrick Schwarzkopf, Anne Wendel, Miriam Breitung, Thomas Mayrhofer, Thomas Escher, Nadia Botzenhard, and our families & friends who couldn’t be more supportive of our craziness. Thank you!

DESIGNING A FUTURE WE ALL WANNA LIVE IN.

www.kreatives.co

K