Company: Heidi Pharma GmbH
Founders: Nina Braun (founder and managing director) and Dr. Thomas Haffner (founder), Katja Sulzbach (managing director)
Date of founding: December 5, 2022
Industry and company: Health

What drives you? What is your motto?
"Don't sit down and wait for opportunities. Get up and get going." Madam C. J. Walker.
You can only realize your dreams and contribute to improvement if you have the courage to take responsibility. 

What is your start-up about and what makes it special?
We develop and distribute natural dietary supplements for the special needs of children's bodies. We place great importance on high-quality and mostly plant-based ingredients, child-friendly and individual dosing, and good taste. Advice in pharmacies is also intended to give parents greater peace of mind.

What are your first successes?
Without outside agencies, we have developed a high-quality brand with a strong design, set up a functioning online shop, successfully launched distribution in pharmacies, and received our first media attention. We are incredibly happy about this and very proud of what we have been able to achieve ourselves.

What is your professional background?
Nina: Physiotherapist with extensive sales experience in the pharmaceutical sector
Katja: Design engineer, most recently gained a lot of experience in the product development of dietary supplements
Thomas: Doctor of Chemistry with a focus on the development of over-the-counter and herbal health products

What prompted you to start your own business?
The appeal of self-employment lies in the combination of personal freedom, professional opportunities, and the chance to actively and creatively shape our own future according to our own standards. After many years as employees, we were ready to take this step and have not regretted it so far.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?
We always support each other, give each other the necessary freedom, but in the end we always decide together! We receive a lot of encouragement and support from our individual networks, from our families, and now more and more independent supporters are joining us who think we and our Herby Family are great and support us.

How did you experience the first days as founders?
For us, there wasn't one specific day when we founded the company. It was more of a fluid period between leaving our old jobs and starting our own business. Nevertheless, this initial period was a time of learning, planning, and then taking action. We knew there would be countless challenges, but from the very beginning, we also felt that we had a real chance to build a really good company.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
Actually, building a start-up is characterized by one challenge after another. The brilliant business idea is probably the smallest of these. Regulatory requirements must be met, financing must be secured, a suitable infrastructure must be created, etc. These are all issues that employees rarely or never encounter, but which are of significant importance.

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea?
We use all possible channels, from social media to classic content marketing, advertising, inserts in relevant magazines, face-to-face acquisition in pharmacies, trade fair visits, press relations, participation in competitions, etc.

How did you finance your start-up?
Equity capital and traditional bank loans. Since we trade in products, we need larger amounts at regular intervals. In the beginning, this is often not possible to do on our own. 

What dream would you still like to realize?
Heidi Pharma should become a real company where our employees enjoy working in the future. We would also like to make a lasting contribution to making the healthcare market attractive for children in Germany and at the same time be the point of contact for questions and development.

Please complete the following sentence: If we had more time, we would... travel
more.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders?
Especially in the beginning, you should perhaps not be too romantic and detail-oriented, but rather very pragmatic in testing many sales channels for your product and building a strong network. Because without a stable business model, self-employment quickly becomes no fun anymore.