For some of us, it was the first time in Texas. We landed in Austin with a suitcase full of chocolate, flyers, and raffle tickets, and within the first hour we understood that this city takes its cowboy heritage seriously, and with a smile. Boots in the hotel lobby, live music in the streets, barbecue that needs no explanation. Staying true to the town's tagline, "Keep Austin Weird," Stibo Systems Connect brought a refreshing twist to the usual tech conference routine.
We came as eight colleagues and as one of two Platinum partners of the Stibo Systems' global event. In 2019, we had been a Gold sponsor in Copenhagen. A lot has happened since then, and most of it happened at our customers' sites, not on stages.
A model that suddenly felt very Texan
At foryouandyourcustomers, we use a simple model to think about teams: pioneers, cowboys, and settlers. The pioneer discovers new ground and listens. The cowboy goes for it and gets things done. The settler builds structures that last. Good projects need all three, at the right time.
In Austin, we met all three, in ourselves and in the people around us.
The pioneers: Conversations at the booth
Our booth was not the loudest in the hall. But it was where many of the best conversations of our days happened, and most of them started with a picture rather than a product.
Our Exploded View shows a company like an architect's exploded drawing, on six layers: customers, experience, organization, performance, assets, and data. Put it in front of someone who is fighting with product data in three countries and five systems, and the conversation changes. Within minutes, people stop talking about their platform and start talking about their customers, and about the layer where their trouble really begins. Most of the time, it sits in the data.
Our giveaways were attractive. Many conversations started off with a question of whether there is real Toblerone inside the little boxes, and the difference about black, white, or milk chocolate. The chocolate knives were surprising, and on the first view, understood as a real Swiss Army Knife. Many ate them on the spot while asking who we are and others took them home for their children.
What it always was is a door opener for a good conversation to make ourselves better known in the US market.
That is how we work in master data projects on Stibo Systems' trusted intelligence platform, STEP: requirements flow top down, from what our customer's customers need; implementation flows bottom up, from clean data structures towards the channels.
The cowboys: The hackathon
During Stibo Systems InnovAIte Partner Hackathon, a team of 10 pioneers and cowboys around Jan Schultheiss built Argus: a planning agent that turns a campaign brief into a complete plan in about a minute, reading master data from STEP to find content gaps, demand signals and supplier actions, and linking every figure back to its source. Or, as our colleague puts it: "The model decides what to ask. The tools decide what is truth." We won, and in Austin we got to celebrate it together.
A hackathon is the most honest kind of competition. No slides, no persuasion, only people building something in a short time and showing that it works. Our team did exactly what our model would have asked of them: understand the need first, build from the data upwards, show the result.
On the river: A dinner among partners
It was the evening most of us still talk about. Away from the booths and the agenda, the conversations became slower and more personal. Somewhere between the second course and the city lights on the water, a partnership stops being a contract and becomes a group of people who know each other. That is the part of Connect no program can schedule.
On stage: A customer tells the story
Eaton joined us on stage, with Florian Reiter telling the story of our work together from their side. Before Connect, we had asked every customer personally whether we may name them. Some said yes right away, others are still thinking about it, and that is fine with us. A relationship that only works as a reference is not much of a relationship.
The settlers: What stays
When the boots are packed and the booth is taken down, what remains is the settler's work. Clean data structures. Governance that people actually use. Platforms that keep running. More than 80 certified STEP specialists in our teams have delivered over 50 master data management and product information management projects for more than 40 customers. And with the Stibo Systems' STEP Health Check, we help customers who already run the platform to keep it stable and ready for the cloud.
More than 80% of our revenue comes from existing customers. We don't see that as a figure to optimize, but as a sign that the settlements hold.
Back home
We still have no logo and no marketing department. Our Platinum appearance was built by colleagues next to their work with customers, and it showed us once more that this is not a weakness. Without a symbol to hide behind, the only thing people can recognize is how we work with them.
Thank you, Stibo Systems, for our days of pioneering, a little cowboy spirit and the kind of conversations that only happen when people take time for each other.
