There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

…2019 be like: !?!!?!??!

1 year onTRACK. Thank you, you were part of the beginning. Happy 2020!

The following 2019 retrospective is especially for our crowdfunding supporters, the partners & the companions from the very beginning – a thank you, a conclusion of the old year and a New Year’s reception. Welcome to a quick glance into our journey to everyone.

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TWO THOUSAND NINETEEN…

it was something of everything. Demanding, exhausting, hard – exciting, emotional, educational. It was a bit much. Wasn’t it for everyone?

Now we have had twenty twenty for two weeks and Benni says this will be our year. Since we all have birthday on the 20th, the twenty is ours.
But to the point: A year ago, on New Years Day 2019, an absolutely crazy ride began for us – and you belong to this beginning!

On New Year’s Eve 2018, we shot our crowdfunding video (with that incredibly poor camera focus). Shoutout on Asli’s art of cutting, which could easy make a YouTuber’s channel. Then it started, the donations came and made the Kick-off possible – and we are very grateful for this start full of positive, interested backing and the opportunity and the encouragement that was given to us.

In times where we have to keep reminding ourselves that not everyone lives alone, but we all live together as people in this world, this positive community and support felt very good. And no, we are not the direct-acting solution to the sad problems of the climate crisis, shocking heads of governments or the worsening of mental illnesses in our performance society.

But we hope we can work in the right direction and create fertile ground!

We believe in understanding and further development on a structural as well as on a private level. The promotion, presence and participation in culture & creativity. And the power of emotions and experience through personal stories for an open, empathetic community.

To be able to name these values ​​for ourselves and what we want to achieve – that was an important achievement in the last year. PITCH is our personal hate-love word 2019 and the search for the perfect project management tool is our never-ending odyssey. Also: hustling for applications is also worthwhile. No  matter how crazy some nighttime preparations appeared – it was worth it.

For example, we got on board of BW Goes Mobile. The program has accompanied us throughout the year like we could’nt have imagined better. Shoutout to Mira Kleine and all startup crews. And since everything likes to come all at once: We received the confirmation call on the day of our arrival in Austin, Texas – because Benni, who had just gotten in at that time but was already completely in it, nailed the second application round for us when we were on the plane to SXSW … oh SXSW!

The Austin conference was a huge impulse. Thanks to BW International, we were part of the BaWü delegation that flew to Texas. The inspired founders, the formidable investors, the crazy creatives and the talented musicians. The mass, the type and the quality of input and contacts was highly motivating, showed us completely different perspectives, gave feedback, inspired and last but not least put to the test our presentations and self-conceptions. We pitched at Allez-Hop in Mannheim a little later successfully and are now looking forward to a “start-up month abroad” in Nancy! Ohlala, c’est la france!
But it was even crazier when the shared kitchen in our student apartment of the Lucky Luise was simply not enough anymore as a work space and we suddenly found ourselves – thanks to great, fast people like Oli and Marc (greetings!) – in the Mafinex Startup Centre in Mannheim in our own office. Still surreal. DJing at the Mafinex Christmas party was a great way to say thank you to the community, and for experienced Asli it was certainly only hard to calm Maraike’s nerves on her DJ debut until everything went well (oops, it was funny). And since Asli is not only a DJ in the music scene, she has taken her network and her huge knowledge in hand and off we go. The pulse of the mother city – we start with the birth of German hip-hop here in the south. We found our first partners with the music label Chimperator, the agency 0711 and the venue Stadtpalais and our editor for the first tour, with which the editorial collaboration began.

AND, we did not believe it ourselves when it was in black and white – after a long preparation phase, things suddenly went very quickly in November: We founded our GmbH, the two-oh47 GmbH. Suddenly it was about taxes – suddenly the bachelor in business administration made sense so much… by the way, two-oh47 stands for the combination of numbers ‘2047’. And that again for “twenty for seven”, where twenty stands for us (our birthdays, right) and the “for seven” comes from the SXSW & Reeperbahn Festival – because our favorite agency Sounddiplomacy once mentioned “music tourism” as the solution “number 7” in their program for music cities. Who has understood this derivation in a nutshell – respect.

During all of this, the ‘Magic’ happened behind the scenes: After some design work, Benni started to puzzle and now we actually have a prototype of this ‘onTRACK’ on our mobile phones. After joint conception, he created a backend and frontend, which we will test in the first version this spring. YES, we already had that plan in autumn 2019 – but honestly, from passionate to passionate, beside all the great things that were, we also had to deal with many, many things and faced completely new and complex challenges. From the simple fact that the reasonable pains in the neck like master’s thesis, part-time job and self-employment simply needed their well deserved attention. To many small to big emotional challenges and insights. Accordingly: In spring at the SXSW we were proud as an investor called us ‘Hustlers’ and invited us to an exclusive round – and in autumn we learned: it’s not only about hustling, it’s about aligning. And the difficult task of balancing all the goals and all the health. 

In this sense – we wish you both for 2020. Health and your personal vision 2020.

Keep it simple, but keep it (our version of ‘Done is better than perfect’).
And above all: KEEP GOING.

And that’s what we’re doing now. Continue.
Testing, cooperating, editing, launch. And learn french (lol)

Greetings, thanks & all the best!

The onTRACK Team
Asli, Benni und Maraike

> If you would like to know more about the business background, have possibly exciting input or deeper questions for us: get in touch and let’s chat! hey@discoverontrack.com