The EXIST Lebenslauf: how to write the CV reviewers actually score

The EXIST Gründerstipendium pays a person a monthly stipend to spend a year building. That structure means the question reviewers cannot get past is not "is the idea good" but "can this specific team execute it." The Ideenpapier argues the opportunity; the Lebenslauf is the evidence that the opportunity is in the right hands. A brilliant idea attached to a team that has never shipped anything is a borderline application; a solid idea attached to a credible team is fundable.

So treat the CV as an argument, not an archive. Every line should answer one of two questions: does this person have the skill to fill their role, or do they have evidence that they finish things. A semester abroad is archive. A side project with two thousand users is evidence.

Open each founder CV with one line that states the role: "Technical lead - responsible for the ML pipeline and infrastructure" or "Commercial lead - responsible for go-to-market, pricing, and first customers." Then organise the rest under that role. Reviewers reading a stack of fifty Anträge do not want to reconstruct who does what from a list of job titles; tell them in the first line, then prove it.

A complete Gründungsteam covers three bases: someone who can build the product, someone who can sell it, and a third role that fits the specific venture (regulatory for healthtech, design for a consumer app, hardware for a deeptech). If your team is two technical co-founders, do not pretend one of you is commercial. Name the gap and explain how you close it - a named advisor, a planned hire funded by a later round, a co-founder search already running. Reviewers respect a named gap far more than a faked competency.

Across hundreds of EXIST CVs the same four signals separate the credible from the thin. Make sure each founder CV contains at least three of them, explicitly.

Two pages per founder is the right length. One page reads as thin for a person you are asking the state to bet a year of stipend on; three pages reads as padded. Use a clean, consistent format across all founders - mismatched CV styles in one application signal a team that did not coordinate, which is exactly the doubt you do not want to plant.

Cut the things that add nothing: hobbies, your Abitur grade if you have a degree, language levels below B2, a photo unless the call asks for one. Add the things founders forget: the exact role split, dates with no unexplained multi-year gaps (name a gap if it exists - sabbatical, illness, care work), and a one-line statement of why this team, for this idea, now.