Christian Reber

Who is Christian Reber?

Christian Reber is a German entrepreneur and product builder best known as the co-founder and CEO of 6Wunderkinder, the Berlin company behind Wunderlist, one of the most celebrated to-do and task-management apps of the early 2010s. As he recounted in his SaaStock Europe 2017 session, the company was founded in 2010, and the product that the world came to know as Wunderlist quickly grew so popular that it effectively became the company's identity, with most people knowing the team through the app itself rather than the corporate name 6Wunderkinder.

Reber's story is a defining example of a European consumer software founder who built a product people genuinely loved across desktop, web, and mobile, and who turned that affection into a landmark outcome. Wunderlist won acclaim as an App of the Year and ultimately became the subject of a high-profile acquisition by Microsoft, a deal that placed a Berlin-built productivity app at the center of one of the largest software companies in the world. That trajectory, from a small Berlin startup to a Microsoft asset, made Reber a frequently studied figure for founders thinking about how design-led products and well-timed exits intersect.

His SaaStock talk, titled "Exits On Value, Not Revenue," framed the Wunderlist journey around a deliberately provocative idea: that the value of a company, especially a beloved consumer product, is not always captured by its revenue line, and that founders can be acquired for what they have built and the user love they command rather than purely for what they monetize. This page collects Christian Reber's recorded SaaStock talk, with transcripts, so founders can revisit the Wunderlist story in his own words.

About Wunderlist

Wunderlist was the flagship product of 6Wunderkinder, founded in Berlin in 2010. It was a task-management and to-do list application designed to help individuals and teams capture, organize, and complete their work across every device they used. The app spanned desktop, mobile, and web, and it earned a reputation for thoughtful design and an approachable, delightful user experience at a time when productivity software was often clunky and uninspiring.

The product's appeal was such that it overshadowed the company name entirely. As Reber noted, the product Wunderlist became the company name in the public mind, even though the legal entity was 6Wunderkinder. That kind of brand gravity is rare and is itself a signal of how deeply the app resonated with users. Wunderlist accumulated a large, loyal base of fans who relied on it daily, and it became one of the standout consumer software stories to emerge from the Berlin technology scene during that era.

The arc of the company culminated in an acquisition by Microsoft, which folded Wunderlist's talent and ideas into its broader productivity ambitions. The central theme Reber drew from this in his SaaStock talk is that the acquisition was driven by the value Wunderlist represented, its product quality, brand, and devoted users, rather than by revenue alone, encapsulated in his framing of exiting on value, not revenue.

Key lessons from Christian Reber's talks

Exit on value, not revenue. Reber's central argument is that a company's worth, particularly for a beloved consumer product, can be defined by the product itself, its brand, and the loyalty of its users rather than by its revenue line. Founders should understand that acquirers may pay for what a company represents and the strategic position it occupies, not just for its monetization metrics.

Let the product become the brand. Wunderlist grew so popular that the product name eclipsed the company name 6Wunderkinder entirely. When users identify with the product so strongly that it becomes the company's public identity, that is a powerful indicator of genuine resonance and a durable competitive moat.

Build something people genuinely love. The Wunderlist journey from App of the Year to a Microsoft acquisition was anchored in design quality and user delight across desktop, web, and mobile. Reber's path shows that obsessing over a product people love can create outcomes that pure revenue-chasing may never reach.

European startups can produce globally significant outcomes. Founded in Berlin in 2010, Wunderlist became an acquisition target for one of the world's largest software companies. Reber's story is a reminder that ambitious, design-led products built outside Silicon Valley can attract the attention and the exits of the biggest players in the industry.