With their screens to save consumers paying the GIS fee, the two Upper Austrian founders Thomas Höffinger and Andreas Hackl caused quite a stir. Their company NoGIS (Trending Topics reported) sells large, TV-like displays that can be used for streaming, console games or corporate presentation devices.
Since no tuner and antenna connection are installed, the NoGIS monitors in Austria are not regarded as a broadcast receiving devices and are thus exempted from the GIS.
With the start of the new year, the two founders are now taking a big step. They take over their previous logistics partner Lalotra (short for warehouse logistics transport) from Wels by a five-figure amount. Lalotra would have wanted to lock up last year, but the NoGIS founders leap into the breach, keep staff busy – and pursue a grand plan with them.
“Complete solution for startups”
“We want to develop a complete logistics solution for startups,” says Höffinger in an interview with Trending Topics. This year we want to make an offer for hardware startups who want to ship many products in Austria, but also worldwide.
Until then, the logistics company will handle the shipment of their own goods (the monitors are produced by a TV manufacturer) and the logistics of other companies. “We ship our own equipment and also ride for other companies as a logistics provider,” says Höffinger.
“We do not want to be forever dependent on the GIS fees. Whether the GIS will still exist in 30 years is questionable, “says Höffinger. To date, the business is doing well, you could have sold more than 4,000 NoGIS monitors.
But this is not future-proof, and that’s why he and his co-founder Hackl want to break new ground. In addition to the now ten employees, the two have a storage area of around 5,000 square meters. “If the idea is well received, then more locations are planned.”
Also published on Medium.