The

Moodie Davitt 25 May 2017 15 Years | 2002-2017 e-Zine Issue 216

incorporating

Calling for a hands-on approach to omnichannel retail Kian Gould – Airport commerce’s positive disruptor

Sense of Place Hallyu heaven The Foodie Report A colourful centenary Lotte Duty Free gets Germany’s casualfood on celebration in Finland a K-Pop boost creating emotional concepts

Digital and e-commerce analysis

in association with Yesterday’s passenger

CHANGING THE FACE OF OUR INDUSTRY

The Martin Moodie Interview: Kian Gould, the positive disruptor of airport commerce

Kian Gould is pioneering a range of That platform – and related activities In a compelling interview that should exciting e-commerce breakthroughs in that fused the interest of multiple be mandatory reading for any airport or airport retail. The young German industry stakeholders (airport, airline and travel retail executive concerned about Today’s passenger entrepreneur’s firm, AOE, was responsible retailer) – was the big talking point of adapting to the digital age, Gould spoke for the technical implementation of a last year’s Trinity Forum in Mumbai. to The Moodie Davitt Report Founder KXJHO\DPELWLRXVbRQOLQHUHWDLOSODWIRUPDW & Chairman Martin Moodie about his Frankfurt Airport in 2016 designed AOE’s OM3 platform is quickly becoming enthralling life and business journey WRbHQKDQFHbWKHVKRSSLQJH[SHULHQFHIRU the leading platform of choice for and how he sees the future of airport travellers and to improve retail digitally transforming airport non- commerce. penetration and turnover. aeronautical revenues. hen Kian Gould learned in 2013 Wthat Frankfurt Airport was planning a major omnichannel retail platform, it spelled the beginning of an intriguing, ultimately far-reaching partnership between two sharply contrasting organisations. Gould’s AOE was a dynamic, young entrepreneurial digital solutions company; the firm’s prospective client Germany’s most powerful airport operator, the flagship of the Fraport group. All images and graphics courtesy of AOE “We had the first meeting with them, where they presented us their first vision; it was not concrete yet,” Gould all up just from the basic briefing we nearly two months to respond to it,” “We ended up winning it, and we ended recalls. “They basically said, ‘We are had received.” recalls Gould with a laugh. up building the first release version thinking of digitalising everything that within 12 months, which was very, very the airport can offer, and we’re thinking It was a positive meeting but things “To be perfectly honest I was quite difficult, because we had to build up a of how to do that.’ Our CTO, Daniel, went quiet for nearly a year. Then, in sceptical that we could win it, and was development team from zero to 70 Kian Gould: “Airports tend to think in ten to 20 year terms. Digital people went to the whiteboard and drew them 2014, AOE received an invitation for the concerned about the high cost of the people within six weeks. don’t even think more than three years ahead. They say, “We need this live the entire architecture in ten minutes, firm to submit a Request for Proposals tendering process; but Steven, our in six months. We’re going to be disrupting the industry in 12. We want to and said, “I believe this is the type of for Frankfurt Airport’s e-commerce CSO, said, ‘Look, let’s just try it, “We built that team very quickly, and be a market leader in three years.” modular, service-oriented architecture business. “They sent us a nearly 1,000- because this is such a huge the interesting thing is that Frankfurt necessary to achieve this.” He drew it page RFP set of documents! It took us opportunity. We should take that risk.’ had always planned to run this project

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The 62 billion USD global Travel Retail Market is beginning to be disrupted as a waterfall project [a sequential, delivery also went live. The legal Retail Urban Myth 3: The personal touch is most essential to in-store sales non-iterative, design process, used in foundation took much longer than software development in which everyone had hoped and planned for. progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards through the phases from Talk us through what is now live EUROPE Q conception to implementation –Ed]. at Frankfurt Airport. $18.9bn For compliance, procurement and Ļ7.7% MIDDLE ASIA PACIFIC AMERICAS EAST billing they needed to approve every You have to distinguish between what $11.3bn $5.9bn $25.2bn single step of over 3000 functional is live and what is technologically in Ĺ2.6% Ļ3.8% Ĺ0.4% requirements.” place. Technologically in place we have AFRICA most of the features that you see in $0.8bn Ļ8.6% AOE convinced the client that it could the video (see page 25), but in reality implement a combination of the two a lot of it is not live yet for internal 4.6% global passenger growth in the next 20 years will not be enough to stop the downward trend methods to stay agile yet still adhere process reasons. Runners, collection - Middle East 6.0%, Asia Pacific 5.6%, Latin America 4.7%, Western Europe 3.6%, North America 3.4% SOURCE: 2015 GENERATION RESEARCH to Fraport’s strict processes. But that points and partnerships are all things Only 2% of shoppers spend after getting advice from Sales Staff was easier said than done. “Just that take time to establish within a weeks into the process we slow-moving engine such as an encountered major external problems airport. But we have just under 20 that forced us to switch the roadmap,” retailers live on the platform, which he remembers. covers the majority of the airport’s Urban Myth 1: You can‘t sell luxury cars online retail revenue and SKUs. Shopping behavior has changed radically “That forced us to change the whole release plan and development So we are nearly at completion when it Planned vs Impulse Purchase schedule around completely because comes to covering the full product deliveries couldn’t be met – and range. You can of course shop from a without an agile methodology at that mixed basket. You can do home point the project would have escalated. delivery, but only with Heinemann goods so far. The other retailers are 71% 29% “Thanks to the method we adopted, it coming onboard with home delivery, didn’t. We launched in time, with other but the difference is that Heinemann Planned in advance Bought on impulse features than originally planned for that can do home delivery straight from what they wanted to shop while at the airport release. This did cause major delays to their warehouse – the other retailers some very important features such as actually have to do it from their stores. payment and home-delivery but it was 83% 79% 75% 44% 42% 40% Alibaba sold 100 Maserati Levante in 18 seconds on Single‘s Day a successful launch nonetheless.” That is part of the issue, because they need space to do central packing and SOURCE: M1ND-SET In the following Q&A, Gould then ship it out. explains the nature, challenges and success of the project. It is coming though – the digital team

Urban Myth 2: Some brands will never sell online at Fraport is doing a great job, but they Moment of Decision of Duty Free Purchase Q When did you start work on the are limited by a lot of physical Frankfurt Airport e-commerce restraints. Building a simple collection retail project? point at an airport takes a lot longer Assure to sell and market to customer before they start their trip than you would think. We started development work in At home 35% On the way to At the In the Duty January 2015 and went live that The end goal? before Leaving the airport Airport Free Shop Q for the airport December. We did manage to get the Importance of making in- store experience unique! planned four initial launch retailers fully integrated, and went live with The goal is that everyone – every 6% 14% more than 50,000 SKUs. retailer that participates – offers a 31% After looking around complete product range with the full At destination After Getting Advice before leaving 10% It was just pre-order back then? scale of delivery, pick-up and payment 2% from Sales Staff Q for the airport solutions and a seamless integration After buying 2% into all other non-aviation revenue another category Every day hundreds of Chinese shoppers buy luxury bags via WeChat Yes, it was just pre-order initially. Two streams such as parking, lounge SOURCE: M1ND-SET months ago online payment and home access etc.

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Q For the new reader who doesn’t The Trinity / Quaternity? | When the pie gets smaller, partnership is the key This was one of the core thoughts know anything about AOE or behind it all, and behind the loyalty your OM3 platform, let’s pretend I’m a programme. If you are a frequent German air passenger. Where do I find Participation traveller through the airport it makes Raj Mahindra (49), Indian Customer Information in the international Pen Liyun (38), Chinese -TravelsBusiness out about, say, Heinemann products, e-commerce growth sense – because you can earn points Michael Madden (59), British Airports/Airlines know much - Lives in Bangalore -TravelsBusiness -TravelsFirst Class - Always uses Uber Black more about passengers than - Lives in London and about other retailers’ products? on all kinds of things and then in turn - Lives in Beijing - Loves BOSE Gadgets most retailers do - buys his wife Chanel - Buys 1 handbag each trip - Buys Hugo Boss Shirts - wears mainly Ralph Lauren use them on almost anything. - Ususally orders to lounge - No Loyalty member - has 10,000 loyalty points Integrated - has 250,000 loyalty points - Drinks Chai Latte - Drinks Double Espresso We built the whole platform as a Advertising - Drinks Earl Grey responsive web platform, so it is Digital Devices Via Wi-Fi, Smart Panels The minds at Fraport that started this and Info-Terminals at Create new transaction airports offer unique accessible through the Frankfurt and communication project had a big vision, and they had abilities Airport website, but it is a subdomain, channels full backing from the top management. which is not ideal. Airports are Customer Building something this complex and Excellence sometimes conflicted as to how they Digitalization real-time for the first time ever was a Attractive digital offers show their retail offering as they still Digitalization of the travel and services form unique huge challenge and showed real vision journey creates new customer experiences consider themselves mainly a hub for touchpoints and forward-thinking. travel. The digital team would love to be much more prominent of course. Q So you’re offering home delivery We are constantly working on ways within Germany, but not abroad? with them to find compromises that drive conversion without turning the It’s set up for the EU eventually, but Frankfurt Airport airport into a shopping platform only. What is missing is a holistic approach to Omnichannel Customer Engagement right now it’s Germany. | The Digital Airport

Q What about other channels? Q For all goods?

Gate / Lounge / Home Delivery The number of passengers going to Digital Shopping Right now it’s Heinemann only, but the website before flying is of course Assistance not all goods. It is the choice of the limited, so the strategy is all about Mobile retailer to choose what they want to Shopping omnichannel. Initially we only Loyalty offer. The airport gives them that embedded the e-commerce platform Program flexibility. We built a platform where into the airport’s existing app. the retailers can manage all their However, that app was not designed Personal Shopper delivery, tax rules, even volume rules. for commerce but for information so So they can say, for example, “We don’t we are driving a strategy of a much Retail Offerings want to sell more than ten bottles of more native shopping experience for VIP Services that whisky per day” and we can put airports. But omnichannel means much that in the rule engine. They can also more than just web and app – it means run very specific campaigns and making all these services available via APIs (application programming interfaces) so other parties can Key to a great Customer Experience and ongoing loyalty are “The biggest Frankfurt Airport | Omnichannel services fully integrated integrate with them and embed them. risk for airports DIGITAL NOTIFICATION What’s the linguistic INSTANT BOOKING Q BEACON INFO-TECHNOLOGY proposition? is that they ON-DEMAND OFFICES

DIGITAL PARKING ROLLOUT I-AID: We are live in three languages – GUIDE & INFORMATION lose their grip VIP-SHUTTLE German, English and Chinese. Russian was planned to be next. But Frankfurt on retail and AIRPORT SERVICES HOME DELIVERY didn’t want to focus primarily on the PRODUCT DATA SERVICE LOYALTY PROGRAM DELIVERY TO GATE high-spending passengers that margin pressure ONLINE PAYMENT everyone is already focusing on in INFLIGHT SHOPPING INFO KIOSK retail – the Chinese, the Russians, the DIGITAL CROSS-BORDER-BUSINESS LOUNGE SHOPPING Great Product Selection Great Product Data Great Services will kill the little Koreans, the Brazilians etc. – but to FRANKFURT AIRPORT – DIGITALIZED, build something that works for all the competitive FULLY INTEGRATED, YET STATIONARY passengers who usually never buy anything more than a coffee. advantage left”

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promotions themselves. Many of the possibilities are not even being used yet by all retailers as they are still adapting to this new world and ecosystem and building their own digital capabilities.

Retailers have quite a lot of control over how their products are displayed, but the airport takes on a consolidation role. Of course, Heinemann has all the product data, and of a high quality; but there are retailers that send us 40,000 products and only 3,000 make it through the automated quality gate initially. So it takes time to get everyone to the right level; there are very varying grades of digital maturity in this industry. comes in. It took us just six weeks to inflight model is broken, and only a It is WorldShop right now, because that Frankfurt Airport | Sounds easy? It wasn’t… Then there’s a manual quality gate launch a pilot in the lounges, because cooperation between airline and was Lufthansa’s pre-condition for this within the team at Frankfurt that all we had to do at that stage, with all airport can combine the best of both trial. Of course there are still worries checks whether the images are good the technology stack in place, was worlds (the passenger know-how and about overlapping inventory etc. But enough, for example. Is the text free of build a new front-end for a tablet that the time in a spendable mood from the as Kai Schmidhuber [then Fraport mistakes? Do we have the language looks like Lufthansa WorldShop – and airline and the entire infrastructure, Executive Vice President Multi- 120 Servers in 2 Datacenters translations? And so on. There is a to get the products from WorldShop operational capability and retail Channel, now Corporate Digital 130,000 Developer-hours need for manual quality assurance, into our system. footprint of the airport); but as we all &KTGEVQTǡ.Ũ1TȌCNǡ)GTOCP[?UCKFCV

>12 months from start to first launch because Frankfurt is a marketplace know this is not an easy path to tread. The Trinity Forum in Mumbai last year, and they need to ensure that there is a That was it. All the other systems were “Let’s try it first and think about how to 35 Services/Integrations certain quality of product offered. in place. If you were to do that as a Q Where do I collect if I buy split the margins later.” I couldn’t agree 70+ people in 8 SCRUM teams stand-alone project it would be a onboard? more. Many great ideas die in their Q So you have effectively created 12-month project easily. infancy because those involved are too an online information and It’s for pick-up within the airport as you worried about the status quo. But transactional site for Frankfurt airport Q OK. Let’s say I’m in the arrive. It’s currently live on 18 inbound status quo is becoming a fading and its retailers. Where does the Lufthansa lounge at Frankfurt Lufthansa flights, but it’s only a closed concept in today’s economy. airline come in? Airport. How do I shop? beta at this stage. They’re testing it, and they want to roll this out into Of course we would love to augment The airline is pretty much a separate If you’re using a lounge, you can get production as well. These are first the WorldShop portfolio with the entire approach. Frankfurt came to us after a tablet, order from a range of steps, but you can imagine the impact range of products offered at the

OM3 Suite – What is needed to achieve such an experience we had already launched the regular WorldShop products available from the when this is done at full scale. airport. However, in the end these are multi-merchant marketplace. By the WorldShop stores within the airport, business and not technical decisions. 3 FRONTEND BUSINESS SERVICES BACKEND way that’s where the OM comes from, and they’ll deliver to your seat in the Q So in the sky I can only see E-COMMERCE ORDER MANAGEMENT MERCHANT BACKEND because it’s M times three – lounge within 30 minutes. Lufthansa’s range – not, say, Now some of the other airports that Product Data DISTRIBUTED Store omnichannel multi-merchant Heinemann’s? we’re working with are speaking to the AIRPORT E-COMMERCE ORDER Content RETAILER 1 WEBSITE MANAGEMENT ERP/POS Pricing marketplace. We launched this initially as a beta, but ENTERPRISE GLOBAL SEARCH & INVENTORY Inventory Store INFORMATION RECOMMENDATION MANAGEMENT RETAILER 2 we are now getting it into larger-scale & SERVICES Fulfillment & Logistics ERP/POS ON-AIRPORT When we launched it they had already production. We did a similar trial with CRM / BI FULFILMENT Store RETAILER 3 started talking to Lufthansa. They were inflight, so they added a tile for airport “Many great ideas die in their PRODUCT ERP/POS IN-STORE INFORMATION FULFILMENT encouraging them to try our platform shopping in the Lufthansa ONLINE SHOP MANAGEMENT Product Data CALL CENTER PAYMENT BACKEND for a first-of-its-kind partnership, and entertainment system. And then infancy because those involved are Content & CUSTOMER FRAUD/RISK E-COMMERCE SUPPORT MANAGEMENT FRONTEND BOOKING INFO Lufthansa showed interest in doing it basically you can shop while you’re Pricing Booking Info INTEGRATION AND MERCHANT Inventory Travel Info based on their own product ranges flying. The orders come through to us, too worried about the status quo. FLIGHT INFO LOYALTY PROGRAM RETAILER PORTAL APPs & from WorldShop. and we can get them ready while Partner- INTEGRATION LAYER integrations SSO / SECURITY (ESB / Services / APIs) you’re still in the air. But status quo is becoming a fading That’s where we started, and that’s where the power of the platform I strongly believe that the classic concept in today’s economy.”

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their airports into event venues. All of “All the research of the last this can be significantly enriched few years shows, crystal clear, that through digital engagement. Q How do attitudes to your RCUUGPIGTƓIWTGUCTGITQYKPI thinking vary by airport? GPICIGOGPVCPFEQPXGTUKQPKU Each airport is at a very different stage EQNNCRUKPIŭ in their journey too. At one point Frankfurt had no loyalty members, no subscribed users. They had no e-mail marketing. They didn’t know their passengers. They didn’t have a single user to market to. So, of course, growing from zero to full personalised customer engagement is a totally different game than when you are an airport that already has 1.5 million loyalty members or a booming digital parking business. The more data you already have, the faster your success will be.

It gets really interesting when you combine this whole ecosystem into something that is meaningful to the passenger. And we are thinking of taking it a step further because we are building it as a marketplace that is also independent of the airport.

Everything is API-based – that means that every service or product sold can also be exposed to a partner that wants to “resell” it to their customers. If, for example, the airport does a airlines right from the start. Time will 9GǡJCXGUQHCTUKIPGFYKVJHQWT not their market. Why? Because they’re not all the other products you can buy Heathrow Express ticket with the same partnership with a flight booking tell if we can really achieve the international airports in Europe and not a brand. You don’t go to their at the airport. click, or order an Uber or book a hotel provider, they can give them our APIs ‘Quaternity’ [if you add the airlines] as Asia Pacific, with another three in late- website before flying, because as a or a musical, at the same moment? Or so that you can buy your flight and as opposed to ‘Trinity’ that we believe will stage discussions. By mid-2018, OM3 - normal passenger you don’t even know On top of that you’re not going to buy fast-track because you got to the part of the check-out also book make this great for the passenger in powered airports will be serving who the airport duty free retailer is. download an app that will only let you airport late? Or buy lounge access services and duty free items from the the end. around 250 million passengers with This used to work just fine when 70% buy retail goods. So our vision – and because you’re flying economy? And airport the passenger is flying to or digital services every year. The interest of purchases were impulse-driven. We our proposal for OM3 and what we’re so on. We want to make transacting from in one go. In the end it comes down to this – with and welcoming arms we have seen are now at a global average of 29% doing with these airports now – is not with an airport so seamless in the the Trinity or the Quaternity, you need from around the world have truly been impulse-driven (m1ndset study from to transform retail into an e-commerce future that digitally enabled non- That means being able to book services to slice the pie differently. You can’t astonishing. 2016). The changes have been radical platform. It is to create a platform aviation revenue will outperform the directly at the airport through these simply hold on to your piece of it, or to say the least. where the airport can sell every single physical one. APIs without ever having to go on the you’ll be killed by margin pressure Q This is clearly a lot more product and service that they offer – airport’s website or app. When you eventually. All the research of the last advanced than, say, a kind of Typically you must order so far in and even products and services that The more of these services and search on the Google Maps app how few years shows this, crystal clear. ‘click & collect’? advance that you cannot do it last- they don’t offer yet. offerings that you cluster into the to get from downtown San Francisco Passenger figures are growing, minute or on the day you’re flying. The airport’s offering, the higher the to SFO, for example, it will give you engagement and conversion is Yes, and that’s important. With ‘click & retailers also often have a very limited Take Heathrow, for example. A lot of penetration will climb overall. And the options to call a Uber, a Lyft, buy a collapsing. collect’ the numbers are so small for range (few airport click-and-collect people buy Heathrow Express tickets higher the possibility for upselling will BART metro ticket or drive yourself. the travel retailers that they don’t really schemes show more than 1,000 to get into the city. So when you’re be. Some airports are now building That’s what is called the API Economy Q Besides Frankfurt, how many care about it. They’re just doing it products). They usually only have a buying your whisky for pick-up on entire malls, doing partnerships with nowadays – it’s unstoppable and the airports are you working with? because they have to. E-commerce is tiny selection of the duty free range – arrival, wouldn’t you want to buy your off-airport duty free retailers or turning airports need to get ready for this.

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Basically we’re building an ecosystem existing in a world that didn’t exist Everyone is talking today about for airports that is the foundation for when they put together their original marketplaces. You have to either be the digital transformation of their retail model. Do you see a day when, part of a marketplace or you have to portfolios. It’s much, much more than say, Amazon, will work with airports? create a marketplace. But not everyone ‘click & collect’, where all you do is put is in the position to create one, some products in a shopping system I will give you a very straight answer. I because if you’re too small you’re not and then the passenger reserves them can just warn every airport and every going to be taken seriously. and picks them up in the store. That’s airline not to do it. Because the super easy and not compelling. moment you let Amazon in the door Now, an airport that has 30 or Anyone can do that. you’re done. 50-million-plus passengers already has so much traffic that they are eligible to But doing everything in real time, Q In what way? become a marketplace; so they need to connecting all of these dots, changing think of themselves as one. And the key the delivery if a flight gets cancelled, to being a marketplace is controlling having it combined with all of these Because they will control your and owning the information about the other different services, doing margins. They will control your traffic. people using it. A lot of people are trying payment, fraud management etc. – They will control your passenger’s to take the short-cut, saying “Let’s just that is what creates the complexity. information. And they will drive the do a cooperation with Alibaba and margins down to keep their value they’ll give us all the information about Q This is a serious proposition. proposition until you cannot do it the passengers who are coming, so we You’re effectively also saying to anymore. That’s their business model. can do something with them.” I think the biggest risk for airports is people would be using them. Most It’s a volatile, very fast market these airports that they had better build this It’s great for the consumer no doubt, that they lose their grip on retail and people don’t use Uber because it’s days. Airports tend to think in 10 to 20 ecosystem because they’re now but every retailer’s worst nightmare. But that’s a short-cut, because you margin pressure will kill the little cheaper nowadays. At 20% margin year terms. Digital people don’t even never own that information. Therefore competitive advantage left. That’s if how could it be? No, they use it think more than three years ahead. you can never use it to customise they don’t manage to capitalise on because it is incredibly convenient, They say, “We need this live in six results for those people. Whereas, if their passengers through a meaningful fast, you never have to think about months. We’re going to be disrupting you own the information, you can build way digitally. If retail gets disrupted by how you will pay for it and the drivers the industry in 12. We want to be a such incredible intelligence on your outside e-commerce, parking gets are forced to keep their cars clean and market leader in three years.” passengers that you can actually give disrupted by autonomously driven drive well because a bad rating will put them things that they care about. vehicles and the sharing economy and you out of business. Every time I use a Q What other airport businesses airports become so efficient that you taxi today I miss being in an Uber. do you see being disrupted? Q Can you give me an example? can’t even sell fast track anymore, then the only thing remaining is F&B. This is just one example of a business Airports are making a lot of money that virtually disappeared for some on advertising, too; but it’s all non- OK, anyone who has seen my So instead of letting airports turn into huge airports within the space of one to two personalised advertising. The next shopping in the past few weeks knows food courts, maybe it’s better to transform years. That is how quick these things disruptive thing is that good that I’ve recently fallen in love with the them into marketplaces that connect happen today. advertising will have to be Montblanc Extreme line. I bought a people with personalised products and personalised. So, if I’m walking past a bag, a wallet and a passport holder services in a meaningful way. banner it will show me advertising that from that range. Yet no-one is offering is interesting to me. And you can’t do me something from that range, Q It sounds grim, doesn’t it? “So everyone that if you don’t own the data. because no-one is connecting the dots. So everyone offering me offering me My strong belief is that, through our something else than what I like is just Yes, but if you think this is too bleak an platform and through collecting this spam to me! That’s how most people outlook, let me give you an example: something else single customer view data, the airport under 40 think today. Airports used to make quite a lot of will be able to provide such data at money from taxis. And then Uber than what I like quite a premium to how they’re So just knowing that a valuable came. Within one year many airports currently selling advertising spots. Chinese passenger is coming to my suffered major hits from losses in taxi is just spam to airport – but I don’t know anything revenue. They tried to work around it by And it will potentially become far about them – doesn’t help me at all to banning Uber from the airport premises me! That’s how more valuable than simply selling make them an offering no-one else can. or charging them fees too, creating most people retail goods to passengers. They will annoying Uber waiting lots etc. have millions of people walking Q Is there a doomsday scenario for under 40 think through their terminals every year airports if they don’t embrace But if the airport could offer more that they more or less know quite a new thinking? Uber-like services in the first place, today.” bit about.

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trading platforms also appeared and e-commerce was starting to become relevant in the US. An early entrepreneur “And so these guys said, “Look, you’re all by yourself in that office. Why Kian Gould started on the while I was doing that I got interested Gould had set his heart on attending don’t you move to Wiesbaden, to our entrepreneurial road in 1997, at the in the Internet.” an acclaimed boarding school in the offices? We’ll give you space for free.” age of 14. “I was very interested in Czech Republic called Townshend Those were early days for the I moved there in 2003, and within moviemaking,” he recalls. “Back then International School, paying for most Internet. Google was still in its three years my company was bigger my big dream was to become a of the tuition costs out of his own infancy and Amazon had only recently than the client. We had to move into a director and my biggest goal was to pocket. “I moved to the Czech started selling books. “The Internet new space, first for 40 people or so, be able to buy myself some movie Republic for the last two years of my was mainly news channels that you and we ran out of space there within equipment.” education, and thank god I did, could subscribe to, and static two years. So we moved into another because if there are three things that I Raised in a little town called websites,” Gould recalls. learned there it was English, business space that could fit 80 people. We Tönisvorst near Düsseldorf by his “I got into HTML and building very and psychology.” grew out of that within another two teacher parents, Gould took a holiday simple websites. Then one day I went and a half years, and then we moved job working “crazy hours, something Crucially, the school put a lot of effort to my carpenter boss and said, “If into the current space in Wiesbaden, like eight to ten hours a day”, into social skills and presentational you’re interested, I can make you a which we are continuously expanding. Today AOE employs close to 200 people in the head office near Frankfurt, preparing copper plates to fund his skills. “All my homework was always website,” and he said, “Oh wow, that In parallel we opened offices in San while globally it will reach around 300 by the end of the year. dream. presented in front of class; it was sounds interesting. No one has a Francisco, Zürich, Hong Kong and rarely written essays or multiple- “But they were actually one of the first became so good that they asked us, “After doing this for two months, I website that I know. So how much is Dubai as we started working for more choice. The headmaster of the school mobile virtual network operators in ‘Why are you the only ones that bought myself my first video camera. it going to cost me?” I said, “I don’t and more global companies.” was a business coach before he took Europe to sell without a single retail deliver on time and in budget?’ We I was very excited. I started doing know yet. You have to pay me by the that role, and he saw my business Today AOE employs close to 200 store. After a year of working with told them about agile software some film stuff, but also continued hour, and you have to pay me twice as sense and my business interest. He people in the head office near them and having a very good development. ‘We don’t think in fixed doing this kind of jobbing all around much as you pay me for carpentry made me a kind of protégé, and he Frankfurt, while globally it will reach relationship, they came to us and prices, and we plan differently. We to earn more money. The next thing work!” He said, “OK, sounds fair.” ended up being my business teacher around 300 by the end of the year. said, ‘We have run into a grid-lock with work in iterations.’ was to buy a Steadicam, a camera Gould duly designed and launched also in school. I graduated with our existing IT infrastructure and crane and other equipment. So I In 2005 Gould’s firm made another “They were so impressed by those the website, earning around 1,800 honours… and then I had to do one need to start from scratch. Do you started working for a carpenter, and key advance, one that would lead methods that they began to transform Deutschmarks, a lot of money for a year’s obligatory civil service.” indirectly to its first foray into the think you would be capable of doing it the entire congstar company to work 15-year-old. “He had quite a network, All the time Gould kept his business aviation world. AOE snapped up the end to end for us?’ like that. They’re now the most because he was doing high-end going. He gained some important account for Cisco WebEx [formerly successful telco in Germany by far furniture for all kinds of people. “That was a big leap of faith for them, clients in the finance sector and WebEx Communications; a company when it comes to time-to-market and Basically every time he went to deliver of course, because we had never done began building the company very that provides on-demand internal cost structure, because of the furniture to people he gave them the something this massive. But we were quickly. “Because I didn’t have time to collaboration, online meeting, web way they changed their business card with the website address on it. confident we could and said, ‘Yes, we code any more, I began hiring people conferencing and videoconferencing completely. And this, again, opened They would say, “Who made this can do it.’ overseas. I built up little teams in applications], taking charge of a some doors. website for you?” Ukraine and Belarus; I had six or global website relaunch across all the “I have a very brilliant CTO and “We won some major global accounts The fledgling entrepreneur started seven people coding for me, and I was company’s markets. partner, and he and his team did it. for Sony, built the world’s highest getting calls from all kinds of just project-managing.” There were a lot of other parties “Basically that opened the door for traffic e-commerce portal (for a day) companies and dedicated his involved that had to do, for example, a At just 20 years of age, his business everything, because they were such a for Angry Birds, and started doing a weekends to building websites, and the billing system and another one that started taking off, including a key big brand. At that point everyone lot of work in innovation sectors such afternoons trying to juggle school and was doing the SAP system, but we did contract with a leading German started taking us seriously, and our as Connected Driving (for BMW), IoT the job. He built a website for the basically everything from the financial firm which was the country’s major breakthrough was winning the and Fintech.” Rotary Club in the industrial city of e-commerce to the campaign first to sell investment funds online biggest mobile virtual network Essen and then the sites for a business management; the CMS, the customer The next, arguably most important, with no fees (https://www. operator in Germany. They’re called tycoon who owned one of the biggest self-care, all of the integration, most breakthrough came when AOE seized fondsvermittlung24.de). congstar, and are owned 100% by paper manufacturers in Germany, the of the business logic – everything. on an opportunity in the aviation world Deutsche Telekom. biggest paper logistics company and “At that time it wasn’t really viable yet (see main story). That breakthrough “It was a really massive project for us, also a document scanning company. to do transactions on the Internet,” “Initially they asked us just to build would not only change the course of and we were the only ones who “I built all of those sites, and then Gould recalls. “They were still more or their website, which was non- the young entrepreneur’s life (he’s still delivered on time and within budget. more and more websites for less informational, with contact forms transactional, because they had a only 33) but also, quite possibly, how Contact: companies represented in the Rotary and subscriptions and so on, but stand-alone shop to buy their “Everyone else was nearly a year late, airports see retail in an increasingly [email protected]; www.AOE.com Club and their business partners.” around that time the first online products. and our relationship with them digital future.

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