What we learned from TauschToni

TauschToni was one of those projects that starts with a very simple idea and suddenly becomes much bigger.

Together with Chris Palatinus, Nicola Rinderknecht and Armin Apadana, I developed the app to support the circular economy. Users upload products, swipe through other offers and can trade when there is a match.

The idea behind it was simple: pass things on instead of throwing them away and consume more sustainably.

We quickly learned how difficult and expensive it is to bring enough users onto a new app.

That led to a second approach: offering TauschToni as a white-label solution. Other brands could use our technology under their own name. Together with feey, for example, we created PlantSwap, an app for trading plants.

We generated some initial traction. At the same time, it became clear that someone would need to fully commit to the project to turn it into a real business.

None of the four of us could or wanted to take on that role. We also had to admit that monetisation would be difficult.

Development was therefore stopped and the tech stack was no longer updated. Bringing the app back to a current technical standard would require further investment.

The main lesson was simple: a working idea and a good product are not enough. You need a realistic path to growth, monetisation and someone who consistently drives the project forward.

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