Thrilling moments: The smartPerform founders tell their story

There were moments when everything depended on seconds.

In this part of the interview, the smartPerform founders talk about live missions under time pressure, spontaneous rescue operations and presentations where nothing was allowed to go wrong – but almost anything could have gone wrong.

Pure thrills – and real stories from the early years.

Werner König

Co-founder of smartPerform. Today Professor for Interaction Design and Usability at Worms University of Applied Sciences.

Which projects are particularly memorable?

Jens Gerken: There are simply experiences like that – many projects that stay in your memory.
For me, it was certainly Millican. Oli Mack comes to me: “Jens, can you fly to the USA next week? They have a showroom. Everything is in place, the hardware is there. But the software they bought just doesn’t work. I’m sure you can fix it with smartPerform.”
We knew nothing. I got there and had to solve it somehow.

The second project is definitely the Savings Banks Academy. I had many exciting discussions and conversations with Mr. Arnold.
I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing him again at the anniversary – and seeing whether he’s still happy that we tried to do something great together back then.
But also because it simply took smartPerform to another level – what is possible in this non-traditional, marketing-oriented context.
And for me, those were two of the highlights.

Werner König: Siemens Healthcare was one of our pilot customers, and there was my namesake – also Mr. König.
And that was then developed further and further. And the sustainability of the project too – in a way.
But it also resulted from the fact that Siemens got involved in opportunities – and then actually used the potential.
And that’s why I still remember it so much.

Apart from that, everything that has to do with traveling is an adventure.
So we had one or two installations in China.
I’ll say: the ones that gave me the biggest thrill were anything to do with television – Voice of Germany, ProSieben, or ZDF. And I sweated when I was there. But I also sweated when I got home and knew that it was about to be broadcast.

Jens Gerken: I never watched it live.

Werner König: I knew that I had no way of influencing it. I can only see it now. So my pulse was often too high.

Jens Gerken: Yes, I can understand that.

What was really great was that there were so many customers who really stuck with us the whole time.
Companies like Trelleborg – they were there right from the start. We also did a lot with Nokia and Siemens relatively early on.
With Daimler or Mercedes, when the MercedesMe stores came along. We were also able to accompany the entire conception of the showrooms and see how interactive technologies could be integrated: How can we incorporate interactive technologies? Those were exciting things.

From projects to principles

As different as the projects were, they all shaped smartPerform.
But what is actually behind the name? In the next part, the founders talk about why “smartPerform” is more than just a label – and what promise was associated with it.