Jerome Lange went from trying and failing to build a babysitting business as a student (no founder-market-fit) to building an operating system for construction sites (founder-market-fit). It’s badly needed: construction is pretty much the only sector that has become less efficient in the last 40 years. This has become untenable, as we need to build faster, better and more sustainably in light of climate change.

A team of young entrepreneurs decided to tackle this and founded Koppla as a spin-off of the Hasso Plattner Institute in April 2020. They raised funding, now employ more than 25 people and work with some of the biggest construction companies in the region.

But the sector is tough to change as construction companies are conservative and profitable, even if their methods are inefficient. In such a situation, messaging becomes even more important than usual as Jerome and colleagues have to convince a reluctant audience.

In this episode we tackle: