Reimaging mantro

Starting the conversations and the process of this reorganization was one of the most important decisions we've ever made in the mantro journey. It was the culmination of more than a year of work.

When we started mantro in 2005, we wanted to earn money to advance our startup. No one had any idea what it would become. Here's the complete journey of what we've gone through in the last 17 years:

– 2005-2007 / Manfred, Markus, and Ben get to know each other and start working on shared ideas

– 2008-2011 / mantro.net GmbH starts its business of developing software for corporate clients

– 2012-2014 / Start of company building with the development and launch of mantro’s first software products/ventures

– 2015-2018 / First exit and the start of corporate joint-venturing

– 2019-2021 / Rapid growth and build-up of organizational debt

– 2022 - Future

In general, we've always been profitable and had decent revenue toz grow sustainably. With our success in venture building, however, we grew too quickly. We began seeing dilution in our organizational structures, culture, and strategy.

It was not long before we decided to reorganize and restructure. We wanted to get back into the driver's seat of our organization to build a better company for our employees and clients.

For many, mantro had become more of a network than a company. It had become a kind of ecosystem due to the diverse ventures and its multitude of different individuals. After comprehensive analysis and what felt like a thousand conversations we came to the conclusion that, mantro had in fact, developed into an ecosystem of organizations and individuals. Knowledge, experiences, methods, tools, and belonging are fluid in this environment. And this identity, this circumstance, is what we are structured mantro for.

What may now seem sudden is the result of a long and organic transformation, a volatile journey with many ups and downs.

What we ended up doing is relatively simple. We went back into our history to figure out why we started mantro. We talked to our employees, partners, and friends to find out who we were. We analyzed everything we have done so far and what opportunities are out there for us.

We've split mantro into different companies. While fundamentally different in their core business, they serve the same overall mission, to help our clients master the challenge of digital transformation. We approached every employee to figure out which organization of the mantro ecosystem would be the right fit for their talents and aspirations.

As of today, the mantro ecosystem is home to six companies (venture studio, product studio, intelligence studio, growth studio, software studio, integration studio). All six studios share the same vision of the future but interpret their contribution differently. With our newly sorted understanding and positioning, we have realigned ourselves for the future and our partners.

We genuinely believe we should be talking more about transformations like these as an industry. We hope our experience can be helpful to those considering a similar path.