Company: CuMo GmbH (business name: IN VINO veritas)
Founders: Andrea Cubeddu and Anna Moldawa-Rhazi
Date of establishment: November 14, 2023 (notarization of the limited liability company)
Industry and business: Gastronomy & tourism

What drives you? What is your motto? We are driven
by a passion for hospitality, good taste, and the high standards we set ourselves in offering the best possible service. Our motto is: "Everything will be fine in the end, and if it's not fine, then it's not the end" by Oscar Wilde and, of course, "IN VINO VERITAS" – in wine there is truth.

What is your start-up about and what makes it special?
We are passionate about hospitality and want to create a place for our guests where they can enjoy excellent wines, spirits, and beers with delicious salumi and traditional Sardinian carasau bread. 

This leaves room for our creativity. We want to create an inviting and aesthetic atmosphere that allows us to connect with a variety of people from different cultural backgrounds. 

What are your first successes?
We cannot yet report any economic successes, as we have only been open since December 8, 2023. For us, success is already the fact that, despite all the initial difficulties and setbacks, we still believe in our idea and fight every day to be able to work the way we think is right.

What is your professional background?
Mr. Cubeddu has always been a restaurateur (with heart and soul). He has been living and working in Wiesbaden since 2015. Ms. Moldawa-Rhazi is a business economist (BA) with a passion for culinary travel. During the coronavirus pandemic, we had the opportunity not only to talk about our dreams, but also to slowly make plans for everything we want to do when public life becomes possible again. Mr. Cubeddu has now devoted himself entirely to self-employment, while Ms. Moldawa-Rhazi continues to work as an employee and the limited liability company is her second source of income.

What prompted you to start your own business?
After the pandemic, on the one hand, it was very difficult to find a good job in the restaurant industry, and on the other hand, many businesses were forced to close, making it much easier to take over than before. In addition, starting our own business gives us the opportunity to be our own bosses, make our own decisions, and run the business the way we think is right from an entrepreneurial perspective. 

The risk is entirely ours, but we also reap the rewards of our work—that's fun and motivates us again and again.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?
Our parents supported us both morally and financially. The "Start-up Day" at the Wiesbaden Chamber of Industry and Commerce in July 2023 and the subsequent discussions with their employees helped us a lot to take the right steps in the right order. 

In addition, through the EXINA GmbH network, we got to know our biggest supporters, namely the commercial customer advisors at Naspa Wiesbaden (Mr. Eiser and Ms. Kaya), who not only supported us financially with a business loan, but also think our ideas are great on a personal level and thus provide us with moral support in what are currently very difficult times. 

How did you experience your first days as founders? Due to many
circumstances beyond our control, the process of founding our company took a very long time, and when the time finally came, we almost couldn't believe it. The first day was surreal, but on the second day we congratulated each other for not giving up, and that is still our strongest motivation today: no matter how difficult it is, you can achieve great things if you believe in yourself and your idea, despite all the obstacles! But you have to really want it. 

You can't just put self-employment on hold for the weekend or call in sick at short notice when it gets too much – it's forever. But that's also how you grow as a person – day by day.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
We still don't have a sales tax ID, which means we don't have a cash register and have to create every receipt manually and then post it manually due to double-entry bookkeeping for limited liability companies, AND we don't have an accountant yet... it's all very complicated and exhausting.

The belief that you're doing the right thing, the desire to make your dreams come true, and all the lovely people on the path of a founder who support you, give you professional advice, reassure you, motivate you, even when you've almost given up. That's great!

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea?
Through our exclusive products from the local winemaker "Die Mühle" in Wiesbaden-Delkenheim and the northern Sardinian winemaker "Costadoria" in Valledoria, and the cultural mix that we ourselves create, live every day, and thus captivate our guests...the Italian charm of our restaurateur Andrea does the rest. Visit us and find out for yourself!

We have a very good programmer who designed our website to be unique and beautiful – and not just in our opinion – and who continues to provide technical support for us – many thanks to Götz M. from XATA!

Our advertising budget is quite small, so we rely heavily on our friends and family for word-of-mouth advertising. But Instagram and Facebook also offer us the opportunity to put ourselves on the map.

How did you finance your start-up?
EXINA GmbH enabled Andrea to attend a three-month seminar for start-ups, where we not only received assistance in drawing up a business plan, but were also able to network with many professionals from the fields of tax, finance, marketing, etc., and ultimately found our lenders and business angels at Naspa Wiesbaden. 

However, we also had equity capital—every founder should have at least 15 to 20 percent of the total capital; this makes it much easier to obtain a loan.

What dream would you still like to realize? In a
few years, we want to run our travel agency directly from Sardinia and also set up a mini version of our wine and coffee bar right on the Mediterranean coast—you can ALWAYS dream!

Please complete the following sentence: If we had more time, we would love to sleep through
the night for a week... and do that at least once a month.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders? Don't just
keep your start-up idea in your head, write everything down; you can't always remember all your brilliant ideas when you're bogged down with paperwork, for example. 

So keep everything, because there will definitely come a day when you need those notes. And take every helper and every contact seriously!!! – you always meet twice in life! 

These people are like keys to a magical garden. And if you're really serious about starting a business, listen only to yourself and your inner voice, no one else—and then get started!