What a ride! The year 2022 was a very varied and successful year for us. The upcoming holiday season is the perfect opportunity for us to take a look back, recharge our batteries and get back on track next year. In this blog article you will find out...
... how our offsite was in january...
... all about our funding round & why we renamed ourselves...
... and what 2023 holds for us.
Out of day-to-day business and into offsite
The year 2022 started offsite in Gröbern. We used the time outside the office to talk about the big picture - where do we want to go, how do we want to work together and what do we need to change in order to develop further. Our goal for 2022 was to grow together. The year 2022 is to be characterized by significant growth. In order to implement this structurally so that each cog continues to mesh with the other, the focus of the three-day offsite was on cross-departmental collaboration and the roles and structures in the company.
Our business angels who joined seventhings in the 2021 financing round - Julius Göllner, Philipp Herkelmann and Christoph Jentzsch - were also guests. All three spoke about their inspiring vita and thus stayed in the memory of the seventhings team for a long time.
seventhings moved: From Max- to Hainstraße
The next highlight of the year followed shortly after the offsite. At the end of January, we were able to move into our new office at Hainstraße 2 in Dresden-Neustadt. The historic villa, which has been freshly renovated, now offers plenty of space for the growth of our company. It is perfectly connected, has a great atmosphere and is perfectly equipped so that we enjoy coming to work and can work effectively.
During the move, we wanted to set a good example. Especially when it came to inventory items, we took great care to be as sustainable as possible. We included sustainability as a decision criterion when purchasing new inventory items. Many items are made from recycled materials, and we also purchased used items. At the same time, we wanted to dispose of as few items as possible. We gave most of the inventory that we no longer needed in the new villa to our employees. Only 4.9% of the items had to be taken to the recycling center.
How we work together - New Work at seventhings
In the new, hallowed halls, we have entirely new ways of working together in a B2B software-as-a-service company. Plug & Go is the name of the concept with which our workstations are equipped to come into the office and get started right away. Our infrastructure, which is protected with very high IT security standards, is specially designed for working remotely. This allows for maximum flexibility. At the home office, in the Canary Islands, or switching to the office during the lunch break to play a game of foosball or table tennis with colleagues - everything is possible. Employees are more flexible and can achieve a better work-life balance. You can find out everything you need to know about our way of working together in our New Work blog.
Fresh capital to revolutionize the circular economy
What we have already successfully tested in our own relocation, we want to make possible for other companies as well. Many inventory objects lie around unused because they are no longer needed. Their transfer is often associated with high organizational and regulatory costs and is therefore uneconomical. For companies, there are often only two options: sit out or dispose of them.
It would be easy to return them to the cycle. And we want to work on this solution so that our customers can use our software to pass on inventory items more easily - to employees, as a donation to associations, NGOs, etc., or by selling them to third parties. To this end, we have concluded a financing round with renowned business angels. Among them are Christoph Jentzsch, Julius Göllner and Philipp Herkelmann from the 2021 pre-seed financing round as well as the Berlin-based group Saarbrücker21, Thomas Schmidt, Oliver Manojloic, Alexander von Tschirnhaus and Dr. Rigbert Fischer, who are not only contributing capital but also their network and know-how to support us in our ambitious goals. Read our press release to learn more.
ITEXIA becomes seventhings
In order to take off internationally, we decided to drop ITEXIA as a name and become known as seventhings. Why? The association of smart inventory was difficult with our old name. "Seventhings has always been about manageable possessions. And that's exactly what we want to inspire businesses to do. It's a competitive advantage to manage thrifty assets digitally. Supplies that aren't needed can be shared through our app. There are still many touch points and potentials to use inventory more efficiently to set up the company more economically.
seventhings Customer Day + Office Opening Party
If you move and rename yourself, you also have to celebrate it. For this reason, the seventhings Office Opening Party took place on September 9. The seventhings team, partners and customers, with whom we work particularly intensively and who always support us with valuable feedback to further develop our product, were there. Here, we also took the opportunity to hold the first seventhings Customer Day before the party to engage with our customers on a product level. We presented our roadmap for the next year and collected feedback on features we have planned. Afterwards, there was a toast, delicious food and dancing until late into the night. Fact is: It will not have been the last celebration.
With partnerships to the circular economy
Many companies are aware of their responsibility with regard to climate change. On our way to the circular economy tool, we have also found companies that want to be equally active and have already entered the transformation process towards the circular economy. Despite its long history, the Austrian furniture manufacturer Bene, founded in 1790, is known as an absolute trendsetter in the field of office furniture and develops innovative concepts for inspiring offices. Ecological thinking & acting has a long tradition at bene. This makes Bene the perfect partner for us, as we share the same vision of an innovative circular economy in which one creates an endless circle for raw materials and resources. Here, materials are to be returned to the cycles in the highest possible proportions.
Top software, top customers and top followers on LinkedIn
At the end of the year, there were still two pleasing events that prove our successful growth and show that we are on the right track. The online comparison platform for cloud software GetApp named us one of the top 10 software startups in Germany based on ratings on the platform. We are of course very pleased about the average rating of 4.8 out of 5 possible stars, but at the same time it is just as much our aspiration to become even better. We are very proud that many customers are very satisfied with our solution. At the same time, we are especially pleased that many customers have already opted for our solution in 2022, such as TIER, Bertelsmann, AR Informatik AG, LEG Wohnen, Drees & Sommer, MCM, Taxdoo and DeepL, to name just a few. Thank you very much for your trust! On LinkedIn, our company is now followed by more than 1,000 users - here, too, we are very happy about the exchange in a growing community. Thank you very much!
What does 2023 have in store for us?
We have a lot of plans for the coming year. And we want one thing above all: to continue to grow. And help more and more companies around the world to have transparency and an overview of their inventory in order to manage it as sustainably as possible. But before we get down to work, we're taking the opportunity again at the beginning of January to put our heads together in an offsite and talk about the "big picture". This year, we're heading to Zeulenroda on the border of Saxony and Thuringia. Here we use the time to look back on the learnings from the year 2022 and to draw energy to get off to a full start in 2023.
Starting in February 2023, we will release our newest feature for this purpose: the Circularity Hub. Companies will then be able to release inventory for sale to employees & co. at the push of a button, giving items a chance at a next life before they are disposed of. After our pilot project phase, we already have the first customers who have booked this feature and will soon be able to use it.
We also want to become more active with our software beyond the German-speaking market. We have already laid the foundations for this, in order to draw the attention of companies around the world to us and offer our smart inventory management. We have already won the first customers from the UK and Lithuania. In the coming year, we will win significantly more customers here.
In the fight against climate change, we want to be an effective tool that enables companies to operate more sustainably. However, we are aware that much more can be achieved, especially through good partnerships. That's why one of the main tasks in 2023 is to increase the size of our partner network. The great cooperation with partners such as Schreiner, Bene, and SQL AG has also been a lot of fun and has helped us as a company to develop further.
We look forward to an exciting 2023 and thank all our customers for their loyalty in the past year. We look forward to a good cooperation in the coming year. Happy holidays and a happy new year!
The seventhings team