Chapter 5: Getting in the Groove

Building a thriving business isn’t just about strategy; it’s about culture. Peek inside Signavio’s unique work environment, where camaraderie, trust, and a family vibe became the secret ingredients for success.

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Transcript

Signavio was always a great bunch of people.

Over time, Signavio practically became the go-to workplace for HPI students and graduates. We had created an open and autonomous environment that we, as students, would have been attracted to as well. 

Berlin’s tech ecosystem was just beginning to find its footing. While Hamburg and Munich were Germany’s established tech hubs in the 2000s, Berlin was only starting to attract its own tech community. At the time, there were a few e-commerce companies in the city, but enterprise software startups were rare and didn’t have the excitement or reputation that made them particularly desirable places to work. This context made Signavio even more exceptional, as it offered an opportunity to work on cutting-edge technology in a city that was still defining its future in the tech world.

I remember my days as a student in Potsdam, working for a small photo-editing software company. The company had an unusual setup - just me, the founder, his father, and his sister. It was an intimate team, yet the dynamics felt unusual, and the work wasn’t as fulfilling as I had hoped. It just didn’t feel right and I quit my job after a year.

After that, I joined SAP as a test case engineer. I had taken a course on database technology and became fascinated by it, so joining SAP’s database development team in Berlin felt like the next logical step. The job was fine - I was paid by the hour, and as no one monitored my hours closely, I had the freedom to earn well and use those funds to travel extensively. Still, while it provided financial flexibility, it lacked the deeper sense of connection and purpose I was searching for.

Meanwhile, friends were joining small software companies around Berlin, but most of those roles involved mundane products and technology. The team dynamics were uninspired. 

Our product wasn’t the sexiest, and the same applies to the business process space, which is rarely seen as the most exciting area of tech. But what we did have was a groundbreaking approach and a team that was truly passionate about what we were building. There was an energy and a dedication that made every day feel like we were on the brink of something truly impactful.

At Signavio, working together was a lifestyle. Not to sound cliche but it really was like a family environment. We started each morning with breakfast as a team, had lunch together, and kept at it until dinner, where we'd wrap it up and unwind together. The whole day was full of energy and collaboration - whether it was coding, discussing a customer use case, or just diving into conversations about the work we loved.

The first office was right across from the Technical University of Berlin campus, where we all crammed together on the long tables in the university canteen. Since most of us still had our student IDs, we scored food at a discount. For those without IDs, we found ways to cheat into the student perks as well.

Our workdays often stretched late into the night, with most of us staying at the office until 10 or 11pm. Dinners were low-key affairs; we’d grab fresh bread from the bakery next door, and someone would bring in a big jar of Nutella. Wednesdays were known as “Mettwoch”  - a night for raw minced meat on bread with onions and pepper. The next day, the smell would still hang in the air, and we’d keep the windows open just to clear it out. Thursdays were “Dönerstag,” where we all went out to have Döner Kebab for lunch.

These routines built a strong foundation of trust. We knew that everyone was fully invested and that each of us could rely on the others to give honest feedback or pitch in wherever needed. It gave people the safety to take risks and nurtured an environment for growth. When we talked through challenges or came up with ideas, everyone’s input mattered. This trust meant we didn’t hold back, and we could share ideas freely without worrying about stepping on toes.

Evenings out or late nights at the office turned into something like a tradition. Celebrating wins together, big or small, helped us feel like we were all moving forward as one team. And when things didn’t go as planned, having that trust and support from the people around us made a big difference.

Our days were intense, focused on test-driven development, but evenings turned into something we called “beer-driven development.” On Fridays and Saturdays, the office transformed into our meeting point before heading out for the night. Sunday was the only day we weren’t together - I usually spent it recovering from the week, just catching up on sleep.

Our connection made us more resilient and helped create the culture that drove Signavio to its continued success. 

We were, in every sense, a developer-driven company. Almost everyone had a computer science background, diving deep into code daily and loving every minute of it. Gerrit, Torben, and I were the only ones not actively writing software. But for the rest of the team, coding wasn’t just the work; it was the culture.

Hiring developers wasn’t difficult either. HPI was full of talented students, and many wanted to be a part of our crew. Great coders naturally attracted more great coders, and soon, we had a steady flow of smart people eager to join us. We knew we weren’t paying them as much as they could be earning and wanted to make it right when the company could handle it.

The office itself was a lively space, perfect for both work and unwinding. Our neighbors on the same floor would often drop by, and in the evenings, friends filled the space, giving the place a casual, inclusive vibe. Everyone was welcome, and we made sure of that. For special occasions, we’d even organize a DJ, and invite a larger crowd.

On Signavio’s first birthday, we interviewed a promising candidate for our very first full-time sales position. Gerrit was still working only part-time, so adding someone to sales felt like a big step. His name was Daniel Furtwängler, he had recently returned from Singapore, where he’d been selling wall paint to architects. Gerrit, Torben and I interviewed him during the day, and by the evening, at our birthday party, we gave him the news that he got the job. He wanted to move to Berlin but only for three years. 

“After that, I’m moving back to Singapore,” he said. At the time, three years felt like a long stretch, and honestly, we had no idea if Signavio would even last that long.

Daniel celebrated hard with the rest of us that night. He was our first full-time hire, and it turns out he’d be around at Signavio for fourteen years - though that’s a story for later.

Daniel dove into his new role immediately, even though he hadn’t yet found an apartment. In typical Signavio fashion, we had an easy solution - Daniel crashed on Nico’s couch until he found his own place.

With Daniel and Gerrit both focusing on sales and the rest of the team dedicated to development, our company roles became pretty clear-cut: you either built the software, or you sold it. There were no other roles at Signavio back then, and we made it work within that simplicity.

But there were certain tasks that didn’t fall into either of these two buckets. We still lived on a budget - and would continue doing so for many years. We wanted to save money wherever we could. For instance, we didn’t have a cleaning service for the office. We rather spent the money on GoogleAds or for sponsoring the next conference. We had a cleaning schedule and everybody needed to pick up the brush at some point. Most people complained when it was their turn.

Our workspace was simple: one large open area with twelve desks, a small room with four desks, a meeting room, and a hallway where Daniel would often pace while on calls with prospects. Daniel signed his first customer just a few weeks into the job. It was a modest deal - €360 euros a year. No, not €360 thousand euros. But he was so proud that he bought champagne to celebrate with the whole team.

This celebration soon became a Signavio tradition: every time we closed a new deal, we’d pop a bottle of champagne, no matter the hour. If the deal came through at 9am, champagne was served at 9am.

We invented another tradition: an all-employee meeting at noon every day, right before we left for lunch. It was a quick stand-up meeting, with everyone already in their jackets, ready to head out as soon as it wrapped up. The meetings were brief, lasting only 3-5 minutes. Each day, one team member would share what they were currently working on or talk about a new customer we’d just signed.

We called it “Prelunch,” and it quickly became a thing. Prelunch happened every day for the next 10 years, only ending when Covid lockdowns forced us to pause the tradition. It started with just a dozen people but eventually grew, with hundreds of colleagues gathering together for that daily in person check-in.

Another chore everyone disliked was responding to support tickets. Customers had a few ways to reach us: they could call our hotline, send an email, or leave a message directly through the product. To keep it fair, we handled it like the cleaning schedule - everyone took a turn - and each day’s support was assigned to a different team member. When it was your turn, a Post-It appeared on your monitor to signal that today’s support duty was yours. This Post-It quickly earned its own name around the office - it was called the “Supportarschkarte.”

It didn’t take long for people to find little ways to avoid taking on tickets late in the day. We noticed that team members would stop answering after 5pm, figuring that the next person on support duty could handle it the following morning. Then it became 4pm, then 3, and so on. Eventually, it got to the point where support tickets were only being answered in the mornings, with almost no coverage for the rest of the day.

This “Supportarschkarte” system became infamous among the team and a constant reminder of how everyone had to pitch in for less glamorous tasks.

With Gerrit and Daniel fully focused on sales, and Torben and myself also spending most of our time with prospects and customers, we started to gain more traction. AOK turned out to be a phenomenal reference for us. 

Still, bringing in revenue wasn’t easy. The previous year had brought us the big AOK deal, sure, but it was just a one-off license, not a big recurring revenue stream. This meant that as we entered 2010, we were effectively starting from scratch. The pressure was high to secure enough revenue to survive and find a path for growth in our second year.

The big savior at that time was Jakob Freund.

Torben already knew Jakob from a previous job, and by then, Jakob had founded his own company, Camunda, a consulting firm using open source software to automate processes. Camunda focused on projects like customer onboarding for insurance companies and billing processes for utilities - essentially, core areas where companies needed efficiency but often struggled with outdated approaches. Jakob’s work at Camunda was innovative, bringing streamlined automation to these crucial but traditionally complex processes.

Both Jakob and I had strong ties to jBPM, the open source process automation platform by JBoss, which later became part of Red Hat. At the time, jBPM was one of the most exciting open source projects in our field, and we had developed a modified version of the Signavio editor to integrate seamlessly with the jBPM engine. Camunda, on its end, was the go-to consulting firm for anyone in Germany wanting to make the most out of jBPM, and they played a significant role in promoting it. This shared background created an instant connection between us, as we understood the potential impact that open source process automation could have on the market.

Jakob was also based in Berlin and part of BBB, the “Berliner BPM-Bierchen” crew (“Berlin BPM beer”). He was this special guy who was well respected in the German process community, despite his relatively young age. At the same time, he was a true rebel, seeing many things very differently than others.

Jakob’s presence and insights became a game-changer for us at Signavio, and his support couldn’t have come at a better time.

Only on one point, Jakob and I wholeheartedly disagreed. He was all into open source operated by the customer, while I argued that cloud software was the future, with a try before you buy approach.

In the end, it was a matter of different target groups. He wanted to appeal to the tech teams of the customer, while we were laser-focused on the business users. Over the years, both of our companies performed extremely well, which proved there is enough demand for both of our approaches.

Our most important new customer in 2010 was United Internet - a recommendation from Camunda. Years before, United Internet had started out as a web hosting and freemail provider. By now, they had expanded into telecommunications and had grown significantly through the 2000s. However, they were managing a major customer satisfaction problem, resulting in significant churn. United Internet was looking to overhaul the way they operated, hoping to engage every employee in shaping a better future for the company. With a strong focus on business process management and continuous improvement, their goals aligned perfectly with Signavio’s messaging and solutions.

The partnership grew quickly. United Internet initially purchased 25 user licenses, then 60, and soon after, a site license with unlimited users. This all happened within just a few months, and adoption took off at a remarkable rate. Within a short time, over 1,000 users were trained and actively used Signavio to drive improvement projects across the company.

For us at Signavio, securing the United Internet site license was a pivotal moment. We had less than two months of cash runway left in the bank when the signature finally came in, making the deal essential to our survival. The €250,000 euros provided a much-needed cash buffer and gave us room to keep operating. Still, it came with the same downside as our earlier AOK deal; by accepting a lump sum, we sacrificed the potential for recurring revenue. But at that point, the cash infusion was crucial, and we were grateful to have it to keep financing Signavio’s growth.

And finally, with United Internet on board, we had real proof that our “business process management for everyone” messaging worked. No other company we knew of had such widespread employee involvement in process improvement at once. Our claim had actually become a reality!

United Internet managed to get their customer satisfaction issues under control, and even their stock price rallied in the months and years after they started using Signavio. While I couldn’t say with certainty how much of that success was directly tied to our software, it became a powerful data point in our customer success story that I would reference often.

That summer, we also won the prestigious “Process Solutions Award” for our project with AOK. This award boosted our credibility significantly, positioning us as a trusted player in the market. It also opened doors for our champion at AOK, Norbert, who began speaking at key conferences on our behalf, further elevating our visibility and reputation.

Financially, things were starting to look up for us as a company. To help with funding, we continued applying for research and development grants, which were instrumental in allowing us to reinvest. We received another substantial three-year grant from the German government, which came with an unexpected requirement - us founders had to pay ourselves a monthly salary. This was a first for us, marking a shift as we began to have some financial stability.

At the same time, Gerrit became increasingly central to Signavio’s growth. He was eager to stay and build the company alongside us. Recognizing his commitment, we decided to bring him on as a “quasi co-founder” and granted him a 10% stake in the company. In return, Gerrit agreed to lower his salary and committed to stay with Signavio for several years - a commitment that meant a lot to us.

Most importantly, we kept having fun as a team. The camaraderie and spirit we’d built early on continued to drive us forward, reminding us of why we were doing this together.

When The Social Network came out - that’s the movie about Facebook - we decided to make a big night of it. We rented a stretch limousine and took the entire team to the premiere. It was a blast and felt like the perfect moment for us to celebrate together. The movie couldn’t have come at a better time, capturing a tech culture we felt deeply connected to.

Watching the story of Facebook’s early days, we saw some of our own journey reflected back at us - the geeky culture, a bit of over-the-top confidence, and that feeling of building something that could make a difference. We dared to dream bigger that night, imagining ourselves as a kind of Silicon Valley-style startup in Berlin, just with less drama and hopefully just as much fun.

Many of us had been total geeks as teenagers, long before coding was seen as cool. But now, the world was waking up to the power of software, and suddenly we found ourselves at the center of this shift. It was like we were the "cool kids" at last, with tech taking over the world around us.

By year’s end, we had hit €600,000 euros in revenue and nearly €200,000 euros in profit. It was another year of hitting our goals and, crucially, not having to shut down Signavio. The numbers showed we were on solid ground, and the team spirit was stronger than ever.