Where would we be without our supporters?

16. March 2020

We are firmly convinced that success can only come through cooperation with the best. For us, dissociation, fear of imitators, or even deliberate misinformation are only signs of a lack of confidence in our own abilities. We believe in ourselves and our vision. We want to implement this with high pressure and quality, and for this we need exceptionally good cooperation partners. With lots of trust in each other and focus on our own core tasks, we can create something truly great.

In addition, working with external partners has two very decisive advantages. On the one hand, one’s own ideas and points of view are permanently subjected to an external stress test. Thanks to the trust that has been built up, you always receive strong feedback on your own results at regular intervals. On the other hand, working is simply so much more fun.
In view of this basic philosophy, today we can rely on a unique network of cooperation partners. Our partners want to help us realize our big goals, with a lot of commitment and passion.

Tyclipso.net

Tyclipso.net have been partners from the very beginning. With only a confused, barely thought-out idea and a budget that was far too small, we went in search of professional support in 2017. We wanted to develop first mock-ups as a basis for subject tests. Tina, Raja, and Claudia got directly involved. Despite many, certainly not always easy, loops, successively developed something like a first concept with us. In the process, we discovered how different the language and perspective on different things can be. Reason for that were our different backgrounds. This helped us learn a lot about our communication.
Together we visited machine operators all over Germany and had conversations with potential users. Our first mock-ups were then created in intensive workshops. These visualizations helped us a great deal with internal and external communication. Moreover, they ensured that we were better able to engage in conversation with potential customers and partners. Building on this, the real implementation of our software prototype began in 2019.

While the Peers at Peerox took care of the backend, the algorithm and the infrastructure, our Peers at Tyclipso, building on their own CMS, further developed the existing screens with us and converted them into software.
We are still involved in a very close, intensive exchange and meanwhile have already implemented the second version of MADDOX. Today we can say with full conviction that we would not be where we are without the strong commitment, the high level of trust and professionalism, and the top skills of the many colleagues at Tyclipso.net.

Our advisory board

For many years we have maintained a very good, friendly network with Dresden entrepreneurs in various industries. After the foundation of Peerox, we decided quite quickly to merge this network into an official advisory board. Our goal is to be able to discuss our short, medium, and long term strategy openly and honestly with people with experience. Although their own added value is very manageable, we have been able to convene an extremely high-caliber group with Dr. Stefan Hennig (SQL AG), Prof. Marius Brade (FH Dresden, MindObjects GmbH), Ronald Claus von Nordheim (watttron GmbH), André Pinkert (queo GmbH), and Dr. Lukas Oehm (Fraunhofer IVV Dresden).

In regular meetings, we present our ideas and receive very constructive, critical feedback. The preparation of advisory board meetings in a strategy day also always ensures (despite the intensive day-to-day business) that we do not lose sight of our entrepreneurial tasks. In particular, the interdisciplinary composition of software development, UX design, mechanical engineering, media design, and research are very valuable for us. The advisory board also helps us in its advisory role to resolve any stalemates between the shareholders

Successful spin-offs from Fraunhofer – watttron GmbH has been demonstrating how well this works since 2013. Ronald Claus von Nordheim is Founder and CPO. As a member of the advisory board, he supports us with valuable best practice experience. His expertise and network connections in the packaging industry support us as well.

Founding an agile software company with production companies as customers and machine data interfaces as technical hurdles is a very special challenge. It is precisely in this area that Dr. Stefan Hennig, as founder of Monkey Works GmbH, initiator of the Dresden Product Owner Stammtisch and Chairman of the “Marktplatz I 4.0 e.V.”, is a rare expert. We appreciate his participation in our advisory board!

Dr. Lukas Oehm heads the ‘Digitization and Assistance Systems’ working group at the Fraunhofer IVV Dresden. In this function, he plans and coordinates research projects for future technologies for digitized production systems and operator assistance. As a member of the advisory board, he ensures that we also take long-term technology trends into account. He also inspires us to consider the latest research topics and develop them into innovative product features. That is very important in our dynamic day-to-day business.

From an enthusiastic start-up with sometimes only a three-digit monthly salary to one of the top 30 owner-managed agencies in Germany – as the driving force behind this success story spanning 15 years, CEO of queo Ventures GmbH, André Pinkert has an enormous range of entrepreneurial experience. That is why we are very grateful to have had such an experienced advisor at our side. Especially during the sometimes stormy first years of the company.

More than half of the features we test never make it into the release versions of our software. Much of our knowledge advantage comes from knowing exactly why certain things don’t work well.” With this high demand for UX functionality, Dr.-Ing. Marius Brade, Professor of Media Informatics at the FH Dresden and CEO Mind-Objects GmbH, implements scientific findings in his own projects. Since positive user experience and psychological aspects are among the most important objectives in the development of MADDOX, his participation in the advisory board is a particular stroke of luck for us.

Brand Team

Immediately after founding Peerox, we had an intense discussion within the team. How much time and money do we want to invest in public relations? With our B2B business and direct customer contact via the circle of consultants, the focus did not necessarily have to be on strong marketing.
Nevertheless, we decided early on to focus on core tasks in this area as well, and to work with professionals.
If MADDOX is to take over knowledge management in production operations, this requires a certain amount of trust on the part of the customer. That is why professional corporate management and a corresponding external image have always been important to us.

In Markenteam GmbH we were able to win a professional, creative, and very reliable partner for these tasks. Thanks to Markenteam, we now have a respectable homepage, an attractive pitch deck, and a (in our opinion) great logo. In close cooperation and through a lot of listening, their colleagues have helped us identify very well with our image. The speech bubble especially is as simple as it is ingenious. In combination with the colors red and blue, it conveys exactly the mixture of human communication and technical innovation. This combination is the foundation of our work.

It is also thanks to the work of the brand team that we were even able to win the LogiTech Startup Prize.

Our wishes and ideas are often much bigger than our budget. Even though, we work fairly, patiently, and with a lot of fun, and look forward to our next steps together.

Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV, Institute Section Processing Technology.

Our idea of a self-learning assistance system originated during our work at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV, Institute Section Processing Technology. Since then, we have been and continue to be highly supported by the institute’s management in pushing the idea forward. Furthermore implementing it, and even turning it into our own company. For the very founder-friendly atmosphere, the institute section head Prof. Jens-Peter Majschak even received 2^nd place at the FutureSax Transfer Award for the spin-off Watttron GmbH at the beginning of 2020.

Then as now, the subject of trusting cooperation is the foundation of a joint, successful collaboration. Our mutual goal is to continue with the current close cooperation. At the Fraunhofer IVV Dresden, numerous innovative research projects are currently underway in the context of assistance systems and potential features. While we, on the part of Peerox, return suggestions regarding real needs from the industry to the institute, we are supported in research-heavy work and projects.

Chair of Engineering Psychology and Applied Cognition Research (TU Dresden)

We got to know each other in 2015 in a joint working group. We have been working very closely together since then, especially in research projects at the Fraunhofer IVV Dresden. Thanks to our colleagues, we have rethought our “engineering mindset” in many areas, and have adopted completely new perspectives. We were able to benefit from exciting research results and, in turn, contribute use cases from our industry. This strongly interdisciplinary work is often quite exhausting and discussion-intensive for all partners. However, at no time were there any doubts about the usefulness and the great added value for both sides.

In the meantime, the successful model of interdisciplinary cooperation has even given rise to a lecture module of its own that enjoys great popularity among students: the FLIK module.

Industrial Advisory Group

Even with our first basic ideas, we approached potential customers and partners very openly. In most cases, our very innovative ideas received a kindly smile, but were rarely taken seriously. However, there were also innovative partners at the beginning who believed in the possible success of our ideas. We brought together these partners from the fields of mechanical engineering and production in an advisory group. The members of the circle of advisors support us as discussion partners on the business model or technical implementation, but also with user interviews and tests with test persons. These collaborations are an essential cornerstone of our strategy to align our product strongly with the needs of our customers.