From March to June 2019, Team Tumbleweed participated in the GATE program organized by the WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business). This program is a university course where individuals with an innovative and technical solution collaborate with business students, who help these entrepreneurs build up the foundation of their business within a semester. After the semester, the students are free to choose whether they want to continue working with the entrepreneur or not.

Through the program, we aimed to define our business model, receive advice on becoming a private limited company, as well as find other sustainable sources of income to finance our first Mars mission.

As the program kicked off, Amy and Julian met Nic, Thomas, Johannes, and Camille. They were so intrigued by the Tumbleweed that it was immediately clear to them that they wanted to become part of Team Tumbleweed’s core team and mission to Mars.

Throughout the course, they all worked together on the business model, conducted several interviews with industry experts, conducted market research, competitor analyses, and more. They figured out another source of income through licensing subparts of the Tumbleweed’s technology. Beyond that, the students helped the team to apply for the AWS and ESA BIC incubator program by constructing a pitch deck and a business plan.

At the end of the GATE program, Nic, Camille, and Thomas pitched the results in front of experts from different industries. Together, they managed to introduce Team Tumbleweed to more people and to enthuse them to follow us on our road to Mars.

Overall, the program was a huge success for us as we learned a lot and found motivated and competent members that will help us further develop and manage the business side of Team Tumbleweed.