Speaker
Book Maximilian Alexander Rupp
What things actually cost.
Founder of HACOY, painter, and the writer behind More Than One Thing. I speak about honest pricing, neurodivergent founders, making things by hand, and owning your own tools.
Approach
My talks are not about best practices. They are about first principles.
I run a fashion brand that has never had a sale, closed my own shop after a year and wrote about why, paint at night in the showroom, and run every AI system in my company on machines in my studio.
None of that is four separate stories. It is one question asked in four materials: what does this actually cost, and what would it take to be honest about it. I am useful to an audience that is tired of being told to be authentic and would rather see someone show the numbers.
Topics
Better, Not More: What Honest Fashion Actually Costs
- A brand that is better, not more cannot also be forty percent off.
- Real numbers from the production in Italy and Lithuania, and what a permanent discount does to trust.
- For fashion and retail conferences, sustainability programmes and business schools.
More Than One Thing: ADHS, Non Linear Thinking and Building Anyway
- Diagnosed at 28. Before that, years of assuming the problem was effort.
- What actually helps, as opposed to what productivity advice claims helps.
- For founders, leadership teams, universities and neurodiversity programmes.
Own, Don't Rent: Restoring Accountability by Owning Small, Local AI
- Why renting intelligence quietly moves accountability out of your company.
- How a small business actually runs its own models on its own hardware, with the real costs and the real limits.
- For leadership teams, academic audiences and anyone weighing sovereignty against convenience.
A Surface That Does Not Let You Hide: Making Things by Hand
- On painting late without a plan, and why the hesitation and the lines painted over stay visible.
- What a practice with no commercial purpose does for the work that has one.
- For creative industries, design schools and culture programmes.
Selected appearances
7 October 2026
Der Weg zur transparenten Umweltbewertung von Textilien
Dialog Textil-Bekleidung (DTB) and DIN, online
Der digitale Produktpass in der Praxis. Das Beispiel Meet your piece des Münchner Unternehmens HACOY
An online event on methods, standards and practice in the environmental assessment of textiles. Maximilian gave the practice example: a short talk with a live demonstration of Meet your piece, then questions.
1 October 2026
TW Sustainability Day, Cologne
dfv Conference Group for TextilWirtschaft, KOMED im MediaPark
Perspektivwechsel DPP: Vom Konzept zur Umsetzung, Chancen und Herausforderungen des DPP
A moderated conversation at 15:50 with Stefanie Sumfleth of bonprix, led by Kirsten Reinhold of TextilWirtschaft, on taking a product passport from concept to practice, with Meet your piece as the HACOY example.
13 July 2026
MAIA 2026, Management in the Age of AI
Institute of Management and Quality Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland
Own, Don't Rent: Restoring Accountability by Owning Small, Local AI
An international scientific conference on managing human organisations in the era of intelligent agents. Maximilian presented in the business session on why HACOY moved off rented large model APIs and onto small models it owns and runs itself.
2 March 2026
Paris Fashion Week, Atelier Neerlandais
EIT Culture and Creativity, NEB Fashion Adaptor programme
HACOY, as the sole German representative of the programme
Selected as the only German participant among twelve emerging European fashion brands from nine countries, pitching HACOY during Paris Fashion Week.
Written on these topics
AIFOD member blog
Four essays on owning your own AI
You Cannot Own the Harvest If You Rent the Seed. A Model That Cannot Speak Your Language Is Not Yours. Why A Small Business Should Own Its AI, Not Rent It. You Cannot Own What You Cannot Run.
Green Urban Lifestyle, September 2025
Wie ADHS meinen Blick auf die (Mode)Welt verändert
Diagnosed at 28, and what changed once the way I think finally had a name.
maximilianrupp.com
Own, Don't Rent: the full written argument
The MAIA 2026 talk, written out in full.
Press
Languages and formats
English and German. Keynote of 20 to 45 minutes, workshop, panel or fireside. Based in Munich, travelling from there.
Fee
On request, and reduced for universities, students and non profits.