Company: CuMo GmbH (establishment is called: IN VINO veritas)

Founders: Mr. Andrea Cubeddu and Ms. Anna Moldawa-Rhazi

Founding date: November 14, 2023 (notarization of the GmbH)

Industry and company: Gastronomy & tourism

What drives you? What is your motto?

We are driven by a passion for hospitality, good taste and the high standard of being able to offer the best possible service.

Our motto: "All will be well in the end, and if it is not well, then it was not the end" by Oscar Wilde and of course "IN VINO VERITAS" - the truth lies in the wine.

What is your company about and what is special about it?

We have a passion for hospitality and want to create a place for our guests to enjoy excellent wines, spirits and beers with delicious salumi and traditional Sardinian bread Carasau.

This leaves room for our creativity. We want to create the opportunity to connect with a variety of people coming from different cultural backgrounds through a welcoming and aesthetic ambience.

What are your initial successes?

We can't report any commercial successes yet, as we've only been up and running since December 8, 2023.

The success for us is already the fact that, despite all the initial difficulties and strokes of fate, we still believe in our idea and fight every day to be able to work as we see fit.

What is your professional background?

Mr. Cubeddu has always been a restaurateur (heart and soul). He has lived and worked in Wiesbaden since 2015.

Ms. Moldawa-Rhazi is a business administration graduate (BA) with a passion for culinary travel.

During the Corona period, we not only had the opportunity to talk about our dreams, but also to slowly make plans for what we want to do when public life becomes possible again.

Mr. Cubeddu has now also dedicated himself completely to self-employment, Mrs. Moldawa-Rhazi continues to work as an employee and the GmbH is her second mainstay.

What prompted you to set up your own company?

On the one hand, it was very difficult to find a good catering job after the pandemic, but on the other hand, many businesses were forced to close, so it was much easier to take over than before.

In addition, setting up the business gives us the opportunity to be our own boss, make our own decisions and run the business as we see fit from an entrepreneurial perspective.

Although the risk lies entirely with us, the fruits of our labor are ours alone - that's fun and motivates us time and time again.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?

Our parents have supported us both morally and financially.

The "Founders' Day" organized by 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.

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

How did you experience the first few days as a founder?

Our start-up took a long time due to many circumstances that were not of our own making, and when the time finally came, we almost didn't believe it.

The first day was surreal, but on the second we congratulated each other on not giving up and that is still our strongest motivation today: no matter how difficult it is, you can achieve great things despite all the resistance if you believe in yourself and your own idea! But you really have to want it.

You can't give up your self-employment at the weekend or call in sick at short notice if it gets too much - that's then 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 VAT ID, so we don't have a cash register and have to create every receipt manually and then post it manually because of the double-entry bookkeeping at GmbH AND we still don't have a tax consultant.... It's all very complicated and stressful.

The belief that you are doing the right thing, the desire to make your dreams come true and all the lovely people along the way who support you, give you professional advice, reassure you and motivate you, even when you have 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 winegrower "Die Mühle" from Wiesbaden-Delkenheim and the northern Sardinian winegrower "Costadoria" from Valledoria and the cultural mix that we create ourselves, 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 has designed our website uniquely and beautifully - as not only we think - and continues to look after it technically for us - many thanks to Götz M. from XATA!

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

How did you finance your start-up?

EXINA GmbH enabled Andrea to attend a 3-month seminar for start-ups, where we not only received help with 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 - every founder should have at least 15 to 20 % 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' time, 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...

...sleep through the night for a week... ...at least once a month.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders?

Don't just have the start-up idea in your head, but really write everything down; you can't always remember all the brilliant ideas when you're drowning in administrative stress, for example.

So save everything, there will definitely come a day when you need the notes. And take every helper, every contact seriously!!! - You always meet twice in life!

These people are like keys to the magic garden. And if you're really serious about starting up, just listen to yourself and your own inner voice, no one else - and then get going!