Company: forma GmbH
Founding team: Alicia Grein, Johan Grotkopp, Cilem Cizgili-Grotkopp, Samira Laibach, Adil Nasri, and Nabil Nasri
Date founded: October 17, 2024
Industry and company: App development

What drives you? What is your motto?
We want to help people understand bureaucracy—simply, clearly, and with a good feeling at the end.

What is your start-up about and what makes it special?
We founded formie to spare people the jungle of bureaucracy. Starting with the parental allowance application, our app transforms complicated forms into simple questions – uncomplicated, convenient, and intelligently automated. This way, everyone receives the optimal support and exactly the amount of parental allowance they are truly entitled to.

What are your first successes? We won
our first pitch right away (InnoStartWi in the state capital of Wiesbaden), made sales immediately on launch day, and had over 1,000 active app users after just three weeks – these successes clearly show us how great the need for our solution really is and that we are on the right track!

What is your professional background?
Johan is an experienced consultant, and the rest of the team has years of experience in process optimization, digitalization, and software development. Friends and long-time colleagues eventually became a strong founding team—and forme was born.

What prompted you to start your own business?
Our start-up began with Johan's experience with parental allowance: €300 turned into €1,600. It became clear that the application process was unnecessarily complicated. When we talked about it, we realized that this was not an isolated case, but a structural problem.

With our expertise in digitalization, process optimization, and software development, we saw an opportunity to make a difference—to simplify complex issues in a way that really helps people. 

Our mission: forma puts an end to the bureaucratic jungle and makes government support more accessible. 

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors? I
received a lot of support from my co-founders, with whom I have been working for years – they not only give me advice and assistance, but also a lot of support and confidence. 

After the company was founded, the Wiesbaden Chamber of Commerce and Industry and StartHub Hessen also helped with valuable discussions and advice.

How did you experience the first days as founders?
The first days were more about organization, but things got really exciting months later, shortly before launch: uncertainty, spontaneous adjustments, and a lot of hope. So the joy was all the greater when the app finally went live and immediately aroused great interest.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
The biggest hurdle was the intelligent automation of the complex application. Delays, pressure, and night shifts led to some frustration within the team. But through appreciation, compromise, and a constant focus on our vision, we managed to do it together.

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea? We gain
the most attention through social media, where we can reach parents directly. Recommendations from satisfied users are particularly valuable. Direct cooperation with parental allowance offices would be ideal, but we currently lack access to them.

How did you finance your start-up?
Our financing is mainly based on our own funds, supplemented by funding from InnoStartWi since the middle of the year.

What dream would you still like to realize?
Forme is known throughout Germany and supports people with all important applications, and I get to work with a great team.

Please complete the following sentence: If I had more time, I would... give more
space to small moments.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders?
Don't wait for perfection: start small, test, learn. An MVP (minimum viable product) grows with you—and still helps people.