When I started thinking of a name for my startup, I did not yet know what I was going to be doing with it. I had no product, no team, and no fundamental idea for a business model. All I had was a nerdy passion for reading philosophy and the conviction that I was going to become a founder. So I was looking for a name for a startup that was going to do something, and as my absolute favourite discipline within philosophy had always been ontology, I chose the name Ontoworks. The prefix onto comes from the ancient Greek τὸ ὄν (pronounced to on) meaning simply being. I considered it a safe bet that whatever my startup was going to do would have to do with being in one way or another, how couldn’t it be.

Another thing that was clear, given my background in physics and neuroengineering, was that it was going to be a tech startup. I have written and taught extensively on the philosophy (specifically the ontology) of tech and it just so happened to be that generative AI was making its monumental rise to prominence during the final years of my studies. In my final year, ChatGPT was first released, image generation was popularised, and for the first time, my university’s lectures on Deep Learning and NLP included sections on the architecture of the newest generative models.

Video generation was still in its very early stages. In its current form, it did not exist at all. I started playing around with Deforum, an open source code that allows you to interpolate generated images in order to render into a flickering animation with trippy psychedelic visuals. Many of you will have seen this type of animation on social media.

Given its early stage and artsy look, there was no way this could be used for any professional productions, however, I immediately saw its potential for music videos. I called up my friend Kevin, a music business student at the time who was managing the studio recording and music video production for small artists in his area. Kevin was willing to ask the musicians in his network whether they would be interested in getting a custom-made AI music video production for one of their songs. This is what got the ball rolling.

Fast forward 18 months and we have launched our first music video platform that allows everyone to simply upload their music and describe what they would like to see in their music video. Within 15-20 minutes you can have a complete, rendered video, tailored to the audio you provide.

The amount of progress we made has been astounding. Not only has our team grown to 8 people, but we have also received funding from the Hamburg Kreativgesellschaft, as well as the German founders’ program EXIST. I got to speak at several events, such as the Reeperbahnfestival, MusicWorx, The Art of Music Education, Live ‘n Digital, and, just recently, a keynote at the yearly IMUC conference for music business leaders in Germany.

My network has grown to include so many sophisticated founders, engineers, and scientists whom I met via various programs that I had and still have the privilege to be a part of. Whether it was Xplore from my former university (TUM), MusicWorx from the HMTM in Munich, or the incredible Sigma Squared Society, every experience has allowed me to grow as a person and develop skills I would have needed many years to learn otherwise.

Me and my now cofounder Kevin have recently returned from the Step Dubai conference, where we validated the particular needs for high-quality generated video content for social media marketing. I learned that the market is not something you can pin down or control, but if you are a competent founder, the tides will guide your ship in the right direction. We are seeking to gain traction in this vast new world of ever growing an accelerating video content demand. If you are someone that would like to leverage new technologies in order to express the true being of your brand, do not hesitate to get in touch, because that is what we stand for and being, that is, onto, just works.

28.02.2025