![]() ![]() Naturally, a big part of our own adaptation process is to make sure we sustain our recent success by convincing the market that our tools are for life, not just coronavirus, but I think it’s something we’re doing quite well. Interest in both MindMeister and MeisterTask has grown significantly as a result. With so many companies forced to change their ways of work in such a short space of time, remote working solutions are in demand. Then there is the question of the products themselves. It’s not exactly life “as normal,” but it’s a normal sort of life in comparison to the experiences of many companies. Firstly, the restrictions haven’t been overly stringent in Vienna, where most of our team is based, which means that the office is still available, even if we encourage the team to work from home whenever possible. Michael Hollauf: In terms of COVID-19, we’ve been lucky in quite a lot of aspects. Et voilà … innovation! How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your business? How are you coping? Then, we apply the principles of stunning design and simplicity to technical concepts in order to do things no one else on the market is doing. We choose our features carefully based on user feedback and our vision of what our tools should and should not achieve. Whether this is during the ideation phase with mind mapping or the implementation process in task management, our contribution to innovation is to find ways of making these tools easier to use, taking focus away from software and onto productive work. In short: what are we actually good at? At Meister, we’ve always been clear about what our strengths are, namely our knack for creating beautiful, easy-to-use software products that help teams work more productively together. Michael Hollauf: Innovation is such a broad topic that I think the key to defining it (and therefore achieving it too) is to narrow down the areas in which we can really bring progressive change. ![]() We want to maintain that special startup feeling, which keeps our work fun and drives our creativity, for as long as possible. We’ve taken concerted steps to broaden our base - adding a task management software (MeisterTask) to our portfolio, working on a new collaborative documentation app (no spoilers, sorry), and hiring wisely. However, there is a difference between creating great software and a successful company, and while MindMeister has matured well as a product, our infrastructure had to be upgraded to handle this too. We recently celebrated the 14th anniversary of the initial beta, which is remarkable: if you think of all the software startups that have boomed and busted in the intermittent time, I think our longevity actually speaks louder than the size of our user base. MindMeister has grown from a tiny beta group of 200 volunteers to a powerhouse with over 20 million users, albeit slowly and steadily. We realized this was a void that we could fill, but we knew we’d have to start slowly and build from the ground up. What we saw was a gap in the market: although mind mapping has been a popular technique since the 1970s, no collaborative online mind mapping tool existed at that time. Like the great mind maps made with it, MindMeister all started with an idea. Without MindMeister, the company wouldn’t exist, so our drive to found the start-up is inextricably linked to the concept of mind mapping itself. Essentially our flagship product, the collaborative online mind mapping software MindMeister, came first, and the company sort of formed around that. Michael Hollauf: I founded Meister, together with Co-Founder Till Vollmer, in 2006. Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded MeisterTask. I’m just thankful that my family (and the Meister Family, of course) is safe, warm, and well. However, it could be so much worse: there are millions of people around the world who have lost loved ones to the coronavirus or who are struggling as a result of the economic impacts of lockdown. Yes, we miss socializing with our friends and the wider family, especially in a great city like Vienna where the café culture is so symbolic and central to our feeling of normality. Michael Hollauf: We’re fine, thank you! Obviously, no one likes the pandemic, but I think perspective is the key here. First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? Michael Hollauf, CEO and co-founder of MeisterTask, about effective task management. ![]()
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