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Energy-eaters announce the fight!

LifePole mobile app that connects the most diverse life situations of people with the associated companies and services

Please introduce yourself and your startup LifePole to our readers!

My name is Peter Oberlik, 29 years old, Founder & CEO of LifePole Inc. and originally from Gmunden / Upper Austria. At LifePole, we are developing a mobile app that connects the most diverse life situations of people with the associated companies and services. We also develop an algorithm that can drastically reduce fake ratings so that ratings are considered true and verified.

How did you get the idea of LifePole?

After my 3 year training at the Agricultural College in Altmünster, I worked a lot in the field of assembly and in renowned production companies in Upper Austria, where I was able to expand my knowledge in management, staff management and project management.This was boring and I wanted to be my own boss. Build something own. After some reflection on what I could do to develop it, I came up with the idea of supporting companies to stop the dying of small businesses. After a few pivots and changes to the business model, LifePole Inc. has now become.

What is the vision behind LifePole?

Our vision at LifePole is to make people’s lives easier.We want to make it as easy and fast as possible to search, find and evaluate a company. Without having to know any specific product names, company names. Furthermore, we want to help companies to get real reviews and to verify them, so that finally the fake ratings disappear and you can rely on a rating.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

I come from a down to earth family and always had to work hard for everything. Hard setbacks in my life never taught me to give up. I did not study and had to teach myself everything about startups, technologies, programming codes, marketing. And that takes time.It was relatively difficult to motivate a team without financial resources that could identify with the idea and share the vision.

There were many who called me crazy or dreamer and told me that the idea had no market.

After some job interviews and discussions I found my current core team. The founding in Silicon Valley from the small Gmunden was the next challenge. However, I was then able to convince a Swiss incubator, who also works in Silicon Valley, who supports us in founding LifePole Inc. as a public limited company and advises us until today.

In January 2017, I traveled to Silicon Valley for the first time to set up a network and move into our office in the world-famous Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale. I had to learn that everything is much faster and not long talked about the bush. At a meeting in the Facebook headquarters, I was able to witness how work is being done to change the world.

In February 2017, I was able to land the first private investor from Austria who invested € 15,000. In March 2017, I returned with new friends on Google, Facebook, Paypal, Stanford and was ready to form the diamond. Another challenge is to catch up with the technological advances of tech giants and to take the transformation of digitalization as well as possible. By the end of the year, we will bootstrap our baby ourselves and any costs incurred will be borne by me personally. After that, an investor should support us with the market launch.

Who is your target audience?

The target group of LifePole are clearly people who want to travel a lot, discover new places or get to know new services and companies. However, our target audience is actually much larger. Everyone in the world is looking for customized solutions that fit their own needs / life situations.

Whether the first day of school for children, their own wedding, a training or tragic events such as funerals. In our database are ALL industries that are available worldwide and thus all the life situation is covered there.

What is the USP of your startup?

LifePole lists different life situations (marriage, hunger, education, wellness, gym to name a few) and links them to related businesses and services. The benefit is obvious: no more precise information or names of services, products or companies are required. Simply select a need or situation and find the right one. We are not reinventing the wheel here. There are already providers such as the market leader Yelp.

Yelp is very criticized because of the topic of reviews and does not have a good reputation in the US anymore.But what distinguishes us most is our system, with which we want to curb fake reviews and thus verify reviews, so that the companies, but also other users with the reviews can do something. We have developed our own algorithm here. Fake ratings are the other providers rather care and difficult to remove from the network. To that we say the fight.

Where do you see yourself and your startup LifePole in five years?

The way will hopefully continue for a long time (laugh).

Our prototype is currently being completed and then tested with selected test users.If this turns out well, we will launch the product for the public in the first quarter of 2020. We are in the process of setting up a round of financing to push developments and looking for great business angels to help make people’s lives easier. I would be happy if you could find a partner through this path.

In 5 years we are clearly a technology startup from the Silicon Valley that can and wants to have a say with the big ones. We want to build our team in the USA and develop our many ideas.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

The team! Look for reliable and motivated co-founders or employees! It takes time and patience, but do it carefully and accurately!

Never give up! No matter what happens, go on and develop solutions to the hurdles. There are sure to be hurdles and challenges. 90% of founders give up because they think they cannot or are overwhelmed.

Energy-eaters announce the fight! Surround yourself with people who help you and do not steal your time or pull you down!

More information you will find here

Thank you Peter Oberlik for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

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