GUIDEGUIDE AG
Not much remains from the early days of Hecken's .com era. A few mugs that still look brand new, a book on the shelf. Behind them lies much more.
Michael Schwartz dedicated an entire chapter to the company in 2001 in the Springer anthology "Virtuelle Organisationen im Zeitalter von E-Business und E-Government", edited by Walter Gora and Harald Bauer (Print ISBN 978-3-642-63981-4). Guideguide is described there as a case study of a new form of B-to-B platform — at a time when academia was still struggling to even name the phenomenon called Internet.
Founded in spring 1995 as Mediaconsult Ltd in London, which equipped the first German Embassy with a CMS system as early as 1996, as well as the French Embassy London/Berlin, Granada Group (ITV), Storm Models (Virgin), and others. After completing studies in London, the company transitioned in March 1999 into Guideguide AG — a very early precursor of what would become the dominant business model of the Internet a decade later under the name Software-as-a-Service.
Small and medium-sized businesses received a standardized, professionally programmed Content Management System, complete with website, email, cloud storage, even a personal website — without needing a PC to get started. The customer received a "Guidebox" (Hecken had filed a patent protecting the combination of forms and analog camera for website creation) containing a disposable camera, manual, and pen, filled in their data, sent the package back — and had a web presence online 48 hours later. Each site was assigned to an industry portal; up to 200 such vertical Guides were planned, from Gourmet to Architecture to Craftsman Guide. The Guideguide system could theoretically scan and build hundreds of websites fully automatically per day. It's hard to imagine today that in 1999 there were virtually no affordable digital cameras.
Guideguide deliberately avoided advertising-funded banner models like most dotcom companies, relying instead on fees — a recurring subscription model years before the term Subscription Economy existed. By 2001, 52 employees worked for the company. CEO became Achim Berg in 2000 (previously head of Fujitsu Siemens Computers, later board member T-Com, Microsoft CEO Germany, Arvato CEO). Sales partners included Apollinaris, Mensch und Maschine, Hi-Cad, Foto-Quelle, T-Online, Hertie, Karstadt — and as the biggest coup, screw manufacturer Würth with 2,500 field sales representatives as a channel into German craftsmanship.
At the time it was the most content-rich platform for craftsmen, hospitals, restaurants, and galleries in Germany. In the German "Hot 100," Guideguide AG was consistently ranked in the top 5 during the peak of the .com boom. Guideguide was not a brutal cash burn machine but could even show nearly eight-figure revenue in the crisis year 2000, coming from project business with "Old Economy" partners. Always one of Hecken's specialties: feeding companies with project revenues until they can either be sold or, if the plan doesn't work out, wound down. Remarkable from today's perspective is still the name of the software on which everything was built: NCOS, Network Computer Operating System. Guideguide's slogan back then was "The Flying Hard Drive" — no one could have guessed that this would later be called cloud computing and SaaS, but the vision was many years ahead of its time.
T-Online wanted to acquire 25.1% of the company for a valuation of 250 million in 2000, but then stumbled too hard themselves in the .com crash. For comparison, Google had about $36M VC funding in summer 2000, virtually no revenue, and was valued at $100M. Hecken had received a handshake with the then board members Keuntje, Reichard-Berg, and Eck at CeBIT 2000, along with a project contract for 3 million euros to further develop what would later be called T-Guide under high pressure. A heavy blow when, weeks and months later after the T-Online IPO in April 2000, the board members were ousted by Ron Sommer, then CEO of Telekom. An internal power struggle had erupted over the billions from the IPO. Content vs. Cable — how fatal Sommer's wrong decision was is clearly visible today. The triumph of the "Big 7" speaks volumes about who was right back then.
All in all, the company was chanceless on the wrong continent from today's perspective, with its universal principle against Google and Co. Guideguide had about 2 million euros in seed capital at the time; Google started with about 15 times that amount at the same time. The €62.5 million injection plan that sat as an ace up the sleeve of T-Online's board was ultimately run into the ground by a Walkman salesman who never understood what software actually was. A recurring German pattern: putting conservative forces in charge of future-facing projects — which is, predictably, fatal every time. For Hecken, the topic of software was finished with the end of the .com era — the Neuer Markt was closed forever on June 5, 2003, and he had no desire to continue with small-scale IT projects.
Hecken, who had lost his brother in a tragic accident on January 1, 1999, in the midst of all this madness, left in 2004 after a tough restructuring phase from over 50 employees to 5, and handed over leadership. His goal of avoiding insolvency under his leadership had been achieved. The race for "bigger Models" had been won decisively by the Americans, and so Hecken devoted himself to his old childhood dream of becoming an industrial designer, and turned toward vehicle construction, which he was convinced at the time would better fit the rigid world of Germany. With his brother's death, a move to the USA had already become impossible in 1999.
The websites, with several thousand SMEs under contract, ran until about 2020 without a single permanent programmer. A beautiful proof of how stable the Perl environment was programmed, which was created under the leadership of Christoph Damian and his brother Thomas Damian in London with 25 programmers. His father Karl Hecken was chairman of the supervisory board at the time, who pulled through this difficult phase for the entire family completely from beginning to end.
What remained was the school. Structured sales organizations, B2B partnerships, the subscription model — principles that run through every subsequent project to this day. And what remains to this day is the certainty that in a country other than Germany, such an enterprise could have been elevated to a completely different level.... And a few colorful mugs.
