froglogic is a software tool vendor located in Hamburg, Germany. The company’s main two products are the Squish GUI Tester and Squish Coco, which are used to automate software tests and measure the coverage, and therefore quality of software tests. We spoke to CEO, Reginald Stadlbauer who gives us an insight into the success of froglogic.
Reginald Stadlbauer is the successful CEO of froglogic, and he is always open to learn and listen to others and their ideas and opinions, before providing an honest view on these ideas. Constantly looking to improve, Reginald has successfully run the company and enabled it to adapt and produce a variety of successful solutions and outcomes for clients. He talks to us about the typical clientele that the firm works with.
“Offering a variety of services, our customers are software developers or software testers across many industries such as automotive, medical, financial, IoT, aerospace, visualisation, oil and gas and many more. Pretty much any company which develops software, for internal use or for sale, is a potential customer for us.”
Starting out at University, Reginald began working actively as a software developer on the open source project, KDE. At the time, this was very exciting as Linux was transforming into a more professional environment. He explains how this helped him to gain experience and improve as a person and a professional.
“Working on KDE allowed me to not only improve my coding skills, but also to learn how to work in larger, distributed teams. The challenges of not seeing the people you work with are often under estimated, and I believe being exposed to such a distributed, international environment very early on has helped me a lot for my future, professional career.”
Citing this project as a vital part of his education and subsequent improvement, Reginald went on to further his career at other companies, before successfully founding and launching froglogic.
“After university, I joined a company in Norway called Trolltech as a software developer. Trolltech is the company behind Qt, a cross-platform library for developing user interfaces.
“In my four years at Trolltech, I took on many responsibilities on the development side leading different development projects. While at Trolltech I also learned what it is like to work for a company which received VC funding with the goal to do an IPO. This certainly influenced my decision to found froglogic. In 2003, I left Trolltech on good terms to found froglogic alongside Harri Porten, who I worked with at Trolltech.”
Giving him the inspiration to establish froglogic, Reginald is very complimentary of his time at Trolltech. Telling us about the current state of froglogic and its humble beginnings, Reginald explains that the company is still growing and these are exciting times for the firm.
“Having moved on from Trolltech, we decided to bootstrap froglogic which is still growing today. Today, we are a team of just over 30 people and are doing very well. We are happy that we have chosen this path instead of going for investments and being controlled by others. This has provided us with a lot of freedom.
“In the early years at froglogic, all of us did pretty much everything. Over the years, I have started to focus more and more on the business side of the company, and this has become an important part of my role as CEO at froglogic.”
These aspects have been vital in contributing to Reginald’s subsequent success as CEO. He describes his responsibilities as CEO to us, commenting on his leadership style and what techniques he uses to get the best out of his staff.
“As one of the two founders of froglogic, I have split responsibilities with my co founder Harri. While we both come from a software engineering background, I am focusing more on the business and sales side of the company, and my main responsibilities are to run the sales and marketing organisation and also to form the product vision for the future.
“Integrating all of our staff and ensuring they feel comfortable working here, we are a company with very flat hierarchies and empower our employees to take on responsibilities. I strongly believe that people are most successful when you allow them to take their own decisions and also to make their own mistakes.”
Contributing to the success of the company is the working environment at froglogic, and the internal culture is vital to making firm what it is today. Reginald is of the belief that people working well together is the sign of a good company, and he makes sure that there is real cohesion amongst staff members, resulting in the best outcomes often being produced.
“Throughout the company, we try to provide a relaxed environment. Given that everyone spends a significant amount of time at work, we want to ensure everyone likes being in the office. This includes the possibility to take a break by playing a round of ping-pong, table football, pool or darts.
“Ensuring that everybody gets on well with each other, we all eat lunch together, and this is provided by our company every day in our large conference room. Additionally, we regularly go out for a company dinner. Alongside having a relaxed environment, we also ensure that everyone can concentrate well at work. For this reason, we never have more than two people sharing an office.”
Furthermore, Reginald believes that an open office is counterproductive, and he is aware that his employees work better in a quiet office, and they find this much more enjoyable. Listening to his staff and putting certain methods in place are key aspects in the success of Reginald as CEO, and he states that he wants his staff to approach him confidently, meaning that he can quickly deal with any issues or challenges which may arise.
“Finally, I try to be always available for any problems and complaints to ensure that if there is an issue, we can find a solution soon instead of allowing an issue to become a big problem.”
Reginald is excited to have been selected as 2017 CEO of the Year in Germany, and of course feels honoured. This is a recognition of his achievements as CEO, and he shares with us what advice he would give to someone looking to make a success similar to his own.
“Regarding my success, we started the company because we saw a challenge for which there was no solution. This is something we continued and now we listen to our users and try to find solutions which really help. By following that approach, success will just happen. Success is nothing one can plan for.”
Moving forward, Reginald predicts exciting times ahead for froglogic. He tells us that the market will change and continue to be volatile, but the team will adapt accordingly, particularly when it comes to Artificial Intelligence, leading to a brighter future for froglogic thanks to the extensive research procedures it already has in place.
“Looking ahead, our market is certainly changing very quickly and it is very important to recognise and adapt to changes. Currently, there is a lot of hype about A.I. in our market and how it can be applied to test automation. This will lead to big changes of how test automation will be done in the future and which role test tools will play.
“Ultimately, it is important to understand the real impact and challenges. Nevertheless, one also needs to differentiate hype from real value. We, as a company have started our research on this topic a while ago and will have our first A.I. powered testing products available in 2018. It will be very exciting to see how the market will react to this and how the competitive landscape will change.”
Company: froglogic
Contact: Reginald Stadlbauer
Address: froglogic GmbH, Gasstr 18 Haus 1, Hamburg, 22761, Germany
