Hi Nick, thanks for having me. Of course, I would love to. We developed a smart water purifier, our ALX1, that monitors water quality in real-time via an intuitive mobile app. With our technology, households and companies can rest assured that their filtered tap water is safe for consumption without the need to continuously buy bottled water. Our latest product, the ALXfizz, extends our offer to sparkling water and even sugar free soda drinks. With our solutions, we provide easy access to clean drinking water and thus reduce the consumption of single-use plastics.

There are mainly two reasons, why we decided to start in Mexico: First, Mexico has the highest bottled water consumption per capita globally. In combination with further factors, such as a solid economic growth, a growing middle class, and the ease of doing business here, this led to our decision to start in Mexico.

Of course and I will start with my most important advice to anybody who wants to start a company: Don’t be tricked to believe that your journey will be linear!

During the development phase of our product, we basically received only feedback from close friends and family and felt that our product is going to be absolutely amazing, and that it will be perceived as a game changer in the market.

In the product market testing phase, we actually gathered the first real feedback for our product. This was very positive and promising. The only thing we neglected at this time was how we use the feedback and the insights of our target market to derive a proper commercial strategy from that.

Thus, we spent a lot of time in the “How do we launch?” phase The neglection of the key question, how do we commercialize our product, led to the issue that we created a great product which received extremely positive feedback from our peers, but nevertheless, we did not know how to reach our future customers. A problem which cost us time and money, yet, could have been solved if we would have spent more time on this question before.

Yes, we found our golden path: After losing time and money for 6 months, figuring out how to commercialize our products, we found our “golden path” and realized that retail outlets are the best way to start selling our products. Luckily, the time of trial and error hasn’t been too long, and we recovered quickly from that.

During the time we incorporated Alxedo legally in Mexico, Kai and I haven’t been physically present in Mexico and did not have any experience with the Mexican corporate laws. Therefore, we decided to initiate the process with the help of an international law, audit and consulting firm. However, I have to admit that we were not happy with their service. We contracted them through a contact, but it became obvious that our account wasn’t a big ticket for them and hence, they didn’t really care about it.
After several weeks had passed, we decided to contract someone smaller and local to help us. With the new service provider, we proceeded twice as fast with less expenses.

As a foreigner, doing it all by yourself when you don’t have the experience, is not recommendable. But the big names are not necessarily the best choice, despite being the costliest option. Retrospectively, I would recommend activating your personal network in Mexico and ask for feedback on how they started off their business and with whom they worked. The German Centre and its network is also a good source to find service providers. This helped us a lot, but we had to learn it the hard way.

In Mexico, contacts and networks are key to being successful. Everything you do works faster and better, if you have contacts supporting you in your efforts. In sales, trust plays a big role to convince someone of our products and services. So it helps to build a relationship with decision makers. This can be challenging, when you are new in the country! But it is worth the effort.

Currently, we are strongly focusing on further developing our retail network in Mexico. We recently launched our retail presence in the shopping centers Centro Santa Fe and Paseo Interlomas in Mexico City. Further new stores are planned in the cities Acapulco, Querétaro, Puebla, and Cancún.

At the same time, we are working on expanding our product portfolio with a new water purifier and flavors for the sparkling water. And maybe new markets? Let’s see, stay tuned!

German Centre Mexico is an important first step for us to get exposure and feedback about our products. It is awesome that you provide the opportunity to showcase our product in the German Centre’s pantries, where all employees working in the German Centre can test them and give us feedback on how we can become better and better. And on top of that, we have even generated some revenue as some companies have bought one of our products already.

Furthermore, we have always enjoyed the collaboration with you, because we felt that there was a lot of respect from both sides. This is not always the case, when you are still a small and new company. The German Centre really cares for its customers and partners like us. And you are completely aligned with our mission to have a positive impact on sustainability in Mexico. In short: our collaboration is a win-win for both sides.

I also like your initiatives to support innovation and start-ups, like the I2 Innovation Camp event series. It was our great pleasure to share our best practices and experiences with the participants from the vibrant start-up scene here in Mexico.

Apart from the business aspect, we suppose any expat agrees with us that every once in a while, it feels also nice to have a bit of exposure to traditions and the culture of your origin which you make possible at the German Centre.

Thank you, Nick. The pleasure was mine.