The mentality of a start-up has remained

Matthias Domes

With a quarter of a century of company history in Chemnitz, a number of well-wishers will be gathering next week to shake Matthias Domes' hand. With his software company domeba, the native of Karl-Marx-Stadt is not only celebrating its 25th anniversary, but can also see himself as a pioneer of the Chemnitz IT landscape. A success story from Chemnitz that the founder dreamed of, but never planned for.

The success of IT companies can best be judged by their customer base. Who are some of yours?
Matthias Domes: We are now active internationally. Over two million users from more than 300 companies use our software. These include large global companies such as Paulaner, Henkel, Siemens, the food group Mars, Coca-Cola, Unilever and Procter & Gamble as well as companies from Chemnitz, such as the utility companies envia and eins, but also Schäfers Backstuben and the construction company Hüttner.

domeba GmbH specialises in software solutions. Its core product is the compliance management system iManSys. It offers solutions for the areas of health protection, occupational safety, quality and environmental management. Because if you want your company to be successful, you have to adhere to rules and regulations. A compliance management system supports them in this. If there is no systematic organisation, violations of national and international laws, regulations and guidelines are always attributed to the company and its manager. And this can jeopardise the company's existence.

How can we imagine programmes that support compliance with rules and regulations?
Regulations can be imposed from outside, for example in the form of laws or guidelines. However, they can also be internal company requirements or guidelines, such as codes of conduct or the assumption of social responsibility. In any case, it helps to develop a system for the complex regulations that helps to comply with these rules and regulations. With our software solution, users can record all tasks, duties, responsibilities and regulations. In addition, changes to the rules and regulations can be recognised and documented and any necessary action can be derived. Sounds a bit unwieldy at first, but in essence it's about distributing tasks and information to the right people in the company at the right time and documenting results.

You mentioned that you work with large companies. Is there any competition for you in Germany?
We are one of the leading providers in Germany in this field. Of course, we also face competition. What makes us unique is our user approach: we want every employee in the company to be able to work with our software. That's why we adapt the software to the processes in the respective company and not the other way round.

Matthias Domes and his then girlfriend and now wife started out in 1998 as a classic internet agency in the form of a start-up - at a time when the internet was still in its infancy. "When we founded the company, I was a student of electrical engineering and information technology in my first semester. We recognised the potential of the Internet and had our visions of what it could do," says the now 45-year-old. Then a company in Cologne was looking for training software that didn't exist at the time. He found what he was looking for at domeba in Chemnitz. "We did that and developed something together. From then on, the triumphant advance in compliance management began," says the Managing Director with pride.

Since 2018, the number of employees has more than doubled to around 90. Are you not experiencing a shortage of skilled labour? How do you get employees excited about your company?
We are well positioned in the competition for bright minds. That's why I'm not afraid. Our average age is around 35. We bring enough young talent into the company and rely on a good mix: young, wild, dynamic, not-yet-established ways of thinking combined with experienced minds. The first employee I hired is still with the company today. That also has a certain continuity. The domeba culture is characterised by mutual support. New recruits are assigned mentors within the company who act as contacts during their induction. We also set the company's goals together and employees measure themselves against these. Encouraging and challenging employees is our recipe for success. This is how our people develop into real top performers. We have shown in many places that we can do this. We show ourselves authentically as we are. We don't build up some artificial image or pretend to be particularly trendy. We are who we are. When new employees come by for a taster day, they realise: it just fits. Initially, many people think that compliance, health and safety and duty management are dry topics. However, they soon realise that there is a very exciting field of work behind them. And so our employees experience their tasks as very meaningful: our solutions reduce the risks in companies. That drives you on. One company we work for reported that it was able to reduce the number of accidents by 30 per cent, another even halved it.

Do you recruit many graduates from Chemnitz University of Technology or where do your employees come from?
We recruit relatively broadly. Of course, the university location plays a major role. This is a great advantage from which we benefit. Many people have studied here, including myself. But the universities in Mittweida and Zwickau are also part of our catchment area. We also train apprentices ourselves. Every tenth employee is an apprentice at our company. However, skilled workers also come to us from other companies. We have also been able to attract some returnees with what we do.

Matthias Domes wants to further internationalise the business in the future. "We have foreign activities in Switzerland - a subsidiary, a branch in Denmark, we are already operating successfully in Austria and now we are putting out feelers towards Poland and France."

You always talk about we. Who is part of it?
I founded the company with my girlfriend at the time. She has since become my wife. So we are a classic family business. I am particularly proud that we have managed this without a single euro of outside capital or external loans. But that doesn't mean that we aren't just as flexible or innovative as today's start-ups. We think fresh, we think dynamically, we also try things out. And if they don't work, we put them aside and try again elsewhere. We have retained the mentality of a start-up. Success is also a team effort for us. Every employee counts and will continue to develop at domeba - professionally or as a manager with more responsibility. Most of our managers come from our own ranks; we encourage and challenge.

Chemnitz has many up-and-coming software companies, such as Baselabs, Staffbase, long-established companies like community4you and you. And there are always more to come. As a software veteran from Chemnitz, do you have to smile a little when you see the newcomers and the presumably rocky road they still have ahead of them?
I'm happy to see Chemnitz becoming more and more established and recognised as a relevant location for software entrepreneurs. Ultimately, this will raise awareness of the "gold of the 21st century" for training, studying and immigration to the region. The proportion of value added by IT/software is becoming ever higher and more important. You raise an important point with the rocky road. Resilience in the face of crises, which is of existential importance for a company. If we look back over the past 25 years, we have survived three major crises. The dotcom bubble burst in the early 2000s, the financial crisis in 2008 and, in the last three years, the coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine, high energy costs and rising inflation, which I would summarise as the third crisis. We have come through these times well and have even been able to grow.

Companies like domeba make an important contribution to the flourishing economy in Chemnitz. They give highly qualified employees a professional home and ensure that young skilled workers stay here and do not emigrate. These companies help to ensure that the region is on a solid footing. Through their support, they also create the necessary basis for the rich artistic, cultural and leisure offerings in Chemnitz. Domeba, for example, promotes sport, culture and environmental projects in Chemnitz. For example, employees planted over 6,000 trees in the Sechsruthenwald forest in Chemnitz-Glösa, not far from the company headquarters. The NINERS basketball team and the Chemnitz Film Nights are also delighted with the company's financial support.

Where does this passion for the city come from?
Many employees, like myself, grew up in this city. If you spent your childhood here, received your education and consistently favoured the location from the outset, you have strong ties to the city. We want to do our bit for Chemnitz to help the city move forward. Young, green, healthy Chemnitz - these are the three slogans we have committed ourselves to.

Where do you see your company in 25 years' time? Surely you didn't expect today's success 25 years ago?
(laughs) I wished for success, dreamed of it and worked towards it, but didn't plan for it. We are a family business and want to remain so in 25 years' time. My wife and I have three children and we want to hand the company over to the next generation and set it up in such a way that it continues to run as a healthy, stable, dynamic, fault-tolerant company in the spirit in which we founded, built and operated it. Over the next 25 years, we will continue to make the world of work safer, simpler and more sustainable with our software solutions. Domeba will become bigger, more international and better known.

What are your hopes for the Capital of Culture 2025?
The Capital of Culture is a great opportunity to dispel the cliché of Chemnitz as an ageing city. When I look back at some of the events, such as the Kosmos, I think we are on the right track and I hope that this will continue. The city's history has given us some positive things: one of the first multi-storey car parks was in Chemnitz. One of the first steam engines came from the city; industrialisation in Germany started in Chemnitz. And these stories should also be continued in the Capital of Culture year. The prerequisites are there. When I look at culture, I see famous bands that come from Chemnitz. I see a museum landscape that is known beyond the city and state borders, I see festivals, cultural events, sporting events that radiate beyond the region. I think that's good. That must be maintained at all costs. In this sense, the Capital of Culture year should be used as an opportunity to further develop our own mentality. We should use what has been created to maintain and further promote a lively cultural scene beyond 2025. It is essential to think sustainably here. It does something to people.