About Us

The founder

Hi, I'm Sverre, 17 years old, and I come from Hamburg. One evening in the summer of 2022, I was thinking about what I wanted to do after school, and the idea of ​​running my own business took root in my mind. That was the beginning of my journey, and at the beginning of 2023, the idea finally came to me. I wanted to launch my own product, and not just any product; I wanted to create something special. And so, with the great help of my supporters, the company "dat Flundertje" and our first collection of matches were born.

How it all began

At the beginning, I was a 10th-grade student and had no knowledge of how to create my own product. Luckily, there's the internet, and I was able to teach myself a lot quickly.

But what is it really like to be an entrepreneur and want to launch your own product? I gained direct insight into this during my internship with two self-employed entrepreneurs, Stefan Thiel and Demekssa Duresso. Together they run a rapidly growing company, and since they built it from the ground up, they were the perfect people to talk to.

After many discussions, the idea arose to launch matches in round cardboard boxes and offer you, the consumers, something new and innovative. Of course, I needed a brand for the new product, and a company was also still missing. So, together with my father, I founded the company "dat Flundertje," and since December 2023, the "Flundertje" brand has been officially registered.

Most people are probably wondering what this term actually means. It comes from Low German, and the literal translation of "dat Flundertje" is "the little flame".

From idea to finished product

I met Petra Sauer during my internship. She was the perfect designer for this project and guided me through the entire design process, from logo and slogan development to the finished packaging design for the three variations of the matchboxes.

To kick things off, we met for a briefing at the offices of her design agency, SAUER Markenstylisten, in Hamburg's Schanzenviertel district. After numerous brainstorming sessions, idea generation, design proposals, and mutual exchange, she was able to present me with what I considered the perfect design. I truly appreciate this, because without her, this project would never have been possible, and she invested a tremendous amount of work. But that wasn't the end of it.

To ultimately produce and print the design, it had to be adapted to a printing template. This had to be done with millimeter precision to ensure the cans appeared correctly in print and could be produced accurately. Fortunately, Petra Sauer works with the right production manager and graphic designer for this task. Ilja Kaschewsky took on the challenge and created the appropriate templates with varnish finishes, barcodes, and other requirements.

And so, the first collection of our matches and our
A unique logo was created as a result.

The production

Then came the question: where should production take place? I had to think about that a lot. My primary concern, of course, was offering the highest possible quality. So I contacted several manufacturers around the world and ordered samples to test their quality. The quality and prices varied considerably. But finally, one manufacturer convinced me. They were able to offer me very high-quality products because they already had extensive experience with matches and cardboard boxes. Thus, development and production began at their factory. After more than a year of work, the first shipment finally arrived in Hamburg at the end of January 2024 aboard the ship COSCO SHIPPING LIBRA.

My supporters