Why Beam exists

Beam is the company builder of the family-owned, German BEUMER Group (BG). BG is a world champion in intra-logistics. Intra-logistics: Something gets transported from A to B within a specific area. Beam is based in Berlin.

To understand why Beam exists today, let’s step back in time: A few years ago, BG was one of the largest vendors of CD sortation equipment in the USA. Business gradually dried up. It became apparent only later that this was due to Spotify: same customer need, different business model – and large consequences for BG.

So if it happens again, the disruption might just as well come from Beam. That’s why half the startups we build annually are focussed on intra-logistics opportunities. The other half is free to innovate on logistics business models. Beam aims to disrupt BG’s core business. In the future, its companies will contribute substantially to BG’s revenues and profits.

That’s why Beam can think and act like a family business: long-term. (The source of yet another competitive advantage.)

Beam’s values

We are part of a family business. When we say ‘values’, we affectionately mean it. They are the foundation of our relationship with our founders (and all other stakeholders).

1. Independence. We act with responsibility and expect maturity and ownership at Beam. Our work is specialized within a lean operation with care for results and processes to enable independent decision-making.
2. Enablement. We provide Questions more than Answers. Our team supports confident stakeholders to enable them to take advantage of opportunities.
3. Focus. We are specifically focused on building value for BEUMER Group in next-generation startups. We move fast into opportunities. We maximize our unique value proposition from this lens – we don’t try to do everything.
4. An elite sports team. Our EiRs are our players on the bench. We prepare them for a fast-paced, uncompromising journey.We enable outstanding Founders via their hard work and determination to be truly results-oriented, with a heightened sense of urgency in the game. For our Founders and ourselves, we look for the Ego-less, the developmental focused, for maturity and balance. 
5. Transparency. We are honest with our opinion. We act with Integrity, without a hidden agenda. We set and align expectations upfront. We provide clear and simple directions, along with high-quality feedback.
6. Intentionality. We treat each other with respect. Time is precious, both ours and yours. We make conscious and intentional decisions to respect it.
7. Singular success. Only 1st class problems. Only the optimum solution. With rigor, thoroughness, and excellence, we seek an insightful path.

Excellent execution

Beam exists to empower and serve its startup founders. If they are successful, then Beam (and ultimately BEUMER Group) is successful.

The opposite of success is failure. As important as failure is for learning, we don’t want to be surprised by it. Failure is driven by risks. We want to help our founders understand and mitigate risks – primarily regarding ‘unknowns’:

• You know what you don’t know: We will connect you with experts so that your team gets up to speed and a best-practice solution is implemented. We will also support your evaluation and decision making. These aren’t costs, but investments.
• You don’t know, what you don’t know: That’s the tougher one. First and foremost, you have to stay humble, vigilant and spend sufficient time on reflection. We will support you with relentless independent thinking and joint workshops. We will also continuously connect you with people in our network that can contribute their relevant experience and perspective.

We share the mindset of an entrepreneur. And we know what it means to walk that path. Our team is small and equally dedicated. We value teamwork over showmanship. We add value through our service attitude and by leveraging our network to support our founders hands-on in your most urgent and important issues.

We want to be a long-term partner, not a short-term accelerator

We love our work. And we carefully choose the words to describe it. We don’t say “deals” or “exits”. We consider ourselves partners for the long term. We want you to build legendary companies. If, as a founder, your initial goal is an exit, you are setting up a financial product, not a company. That’s not for us. But why? Someone very successful once said to us:

Humans have two legs; money has four legs. Two legs are never gonna catch four legs.

It definitely helps if you genuinely enjoy the topic you work on and the people you work with. The notorious Valley saying is “you win or you learn”. Better make sure the trip was worth it either way.