Convinced by a visionary idea

Even as a child, Maya Reinshagen was very creative and had a flair for communication. That's why she wanted to become a graphic designer. She attended the preliminary course at the School of Applied Arts in Bern and was also accepted for an apprenticeship in Thun. But because the graphic artist had to move his studio unexpectedly, the start of the job was postponed for a year. The teenager, full of drive, didn't want to wait that long. "At the arts and crafts school, I had to realize that I was always the best at drawing during my nine years at school. But when you're suddenly measured against the best of the year from all over the Mittelland, you become a little more sober." Maya Reinshagen feared: "I couldn't be creative on command."

So she chose a commercial apprenticeship as an alternative, but then "didn't know for a long time what to do next" - and finally ended up at a bank. Seven years at CS turned out to be a stroke of luck. The creative businesswoman was brought in to work on the Match project. Here, the merger of Schweizerische Kreditanstalt with Volksbank to form today's Credit Suisse was prepared. "I was on the team with the specialists from McKinsey and thus right in the middle of the control room of the historical events." This world fascinated the young woman. Not the bank itself, but the insight that something could be moved here. When the largest merger in Swiss economic history was successfully overcome, Maya Reinshagen knew: "I also want a job where I can make a difference." She gained further experience during the integration of Neue Aargauer Bank into the CS Group. As with the merger of Kreditanstalt and Volksbank, here she trained the staff of all branches in responding to customer complaints received as part of the merger.

"When the two mergers were over, I was kind of left over; there was no job for me anymore. I no longer felt comfortable in the normal banking world. The daily routine was not exciting enough and too slow for me," the entrepreneur looks back today. At that time, an invitation to an event in Bern promised more novelty. Here, the Stauffacher bookstore wanted to present its first website. "That was a real sensation in 1998." Daniel Grossen, the founder of Xmedia, presented the pioneering work, and Maya Reinshagen was immediately "electrified." After the vernissage ended, she intercepted the speaker, asked him for a job - and was lucky that Grossen could use an assistant right away.

In addition to the classic Webfactory business, Xmedia was already operating online ad markets at that time, including the "Autopool", to which every Swiss garage owner had access due to the cooperation with the Swiss Automobile Industry Association. "Grossen was already convinced back then that the future belonged to content. He was to be proven right." Reinshagen took over the administrative reorganization of Autopool customers as his assistant and threw herself into marketing the platform as well as the developing affiliates. A chance encounter with consequences. The Internet slowly came to life. Otto Beisheim and his Metro Group expanded into Switzerland and took a stake in Autopool, which was then renamed AutoScout24. In this pioneering company, later worth millions, Reinshagen was promoted to the management board. The beginnings, however, gave little hint of the gold-rush atmosphere that was to follow. Even before the company was renamed AutoScout24, the Autopool salesmen had been visiting garage owners all over the country. They took a modem with them, connected the garage owner's computer to the Internet and showed him how to place a "line ad" online in AutomobilRevue. Cars advertised in this way automatically ended up online on Autopool. Initially, however, the line ad in the AutomobilRevue was much more important to the garage owners; however, they then noticed that their cars found a buyer via the online ad rather than via the print ad.

While Scout24 continued to grow rapidly, Reinshagen studied business administration at the HFB on the side. Shortly thereafter, she met her current husband - a man from Lucerne. The demanding job and the time-consuming commute between Flamatt and Lucerne gradually became too strenuous, so Maya Reinshagen decided at the end of 2000 to look for a new job in the Central Switzerland area. She found this in the position of online marketing manager at 4MEDiA in Baar, which specializes in cross-media publishing. "The idea of crossmedia publishing was actually ingenious - but unfortunately a bit ahead of its time. The lines were simply still too slow for the fast exchange of content."

Her tasks as Head of Online Marketing also included supporting 4MEDiA customers in the area of e-mail marketing. 4MEDiA already offered its own newsletter solution at this early stage. "After a few weeks, however, I had to realize that the big part of my job was to calm down the angry customers because the technology simply didn't work." The mails weren't going out, were going out twice, or were going out incorrectly. So Reinshagen sought out 4MEDiA's best developer, Boris Chiavi, and described the problem to him. Together, they wanted to fix it. The goal: an email marketing solution that combined ease of use and high quality output. Together, in their spare time, they drew up a business plan, including a concept and database model, and showed how this could solve the technical problems. However, the presentation to the management did not arouse much enthusiasm. No one wanted to invest more money because the dotcom bubble was already showing signs of bursting. As a result, Reinshagen as well as Chiavi looked for new jobs. 4MEDiA actually had to file for bankruptcy a short time later. "But we had invested so much work in our idea in the meantime that we didn't want to just give up."

While Boris Chiavi found shelter at the IT outsourcing specialist Trivadis, Maya Reinshagen continued working at Moneycab and then at the online agency Planetactive. As "a kind of hobby," both continued to tinker with their concept for e-mail technology until one day a former colleague from 4MEDiA called. He was now working at Coop and was supposed to introduce e-mail marketing there. The computer scientist therefore asked if they didn't have "hurti" some good advice. "Hurti" was a bit difficult, Reinshagen and Chiavi replied, because the two had actually been developing for two years. When they were finally summoned to Coop headquarters, they were prepared for a two-hour presentation. But they had reserved only 15 minutes for the "greenhorns." "I therefore didn't even start the computer, but simply told a bit about our ideas and the solution we had already developed." A turnaround with consequences: Coop's IT manager, August Harder, was so impressed that he canceled all subsequent meetings and spent the entire afternoon asking Reinsha¬gen and Chiavi about the details of their ideas and being shown the approaches already developed for the unique new software. "The phone rang the other morning at nine o'clock, and we had our first customer, Coop." Reinshagen and Chiavi were able to convince with their concept for a system that is "highly professional and at the same time very easy to use." The fact that Mayoris was also multilingual throughout was the deciding factor.

Nevertheless, the two still felt "like greenhorns who simply had an idea. They wanted to offer solutions for small businesses that wanted to advertise the low-cost capabilities of email but couldn't hire their own IT specialists to do so. Thus, the system had to be "dubelisicher" and very simple and user-friendly from the front end.

Thanks to her basic training in design and various further training courses in online publishing, Reinshagen was able to design the front end of the new solution as a "clickable dummy" completely according to her ideas and based on a strict usability concept. Chiavi then implemented this "backdrop" technically. The original business plan of the two was to offer a highly standardized solution especially for SMEs, so that they could benefit from the advantages of e-mail marketing. With the order from Coop in 2002, the focus inevitably shifted. "We had to develop a highly customized solution that met Coop's diverse requirements."

At the beginning, the two managed the support for the customer Coop in parallel with their 100 percent jobs at Trivadis and Planetactive. As the number of newsletters for Coop grew and other customers showed interest, the team began to think seriously about becoming independent and founded a limited liability company in 2004. This was converted into an AG in 2006.

During all those early days, Mayoris never had to canvass. "The customers all came on their own." This was to become even more extreme when Maya Reinshagen was persuaded to take part in a TV docu-soap in 2007. At the end of 2006, the Institute for Young Entrepreneurs was looking for suitable candidates for the TV documentary "SF Start up," in which the ten most innovative young companies in Switzerland were to be found and crowned. "What nonsense. Without me," said Maya Reinshagen. There was no way she wanted to be on a TV show in the style of "Dream Job." But the IFJ staff assured her that this was about a completely different broadcasting concept - and adamantly reminded her to submit the business plan. "For the sake of peace," Reinshagen finally sent off her application. The "Mayoris" project was convincing. Out of more than 1000 candidates, Maya Reinshagen was voted into the top ten by the jury. In the ten-part documentary "Start up" on SF, Maya Reinshagen was ultimately the only woman among all the young entrepreneurs portrayed. Naturally, this brought with it a huge media hype. A great opportunity for the young company, which had actually come into being more "by chance". The winning prize at "SF Start up" was the presentation of the business idea to a group of illustrious investors. Heliana Canepa, Urs Wietlisbach, Christoph Ringier and three other business angels were so convinced by Mayoris that they wanted to invest. "Although we had never thought of seeking investors before, we were now offered money to implement our further plans. We were admittedly a bit caught off guard."

Now the moment had come to turn the original idea into reality: A highly standardized email marketing suite for any budget that delivered highly professional results and could be customized to individual needs and any CI at the click of a mouse. The necessary employees could now be hired with the investors' money. The first to be hired were husband Oliver Reinshagen and Martin Bisang. Oliver Reinshagen, before he was hired head and product manager of various online projects, is now head of services and thus responsible for support, customer care and administration. Martin Bisang, an old colleague from 4MEDiA days, is still working at Mayoris as a software developer. With further specialists and consultants in the areas of editing and marketing, Mayoris today employs 18 people.

The continuous expansion also just brought a second round of financing. This time with Luzerner Kantonalbank as lead investor and Zürcher Kantonalbank as co-investor. With the support of these two highly professional financing partners, Mayoris intends to further maintain and expand its position.

Mayoris is already the leading provider of email marketing solutions in Switzerland. The company demonstrated this at the beginning of May with the launch of the "First Swiss Email Marketing Day". 165 interested people attended the high-level presentations by five proven experts at the Technopark in Lucerne. In the future, the event is to become a fixed meeting place for the industry. The strategy behind this idea: In Germany, the market for e-mail marketing is already oversaturated. In Switzerland, Maya Reinshagen sees a need to catch up. "Many foreign providers therefore want to move to Switzerland for their expansion. We can only counter this competition here with quality."

Reinshagen sees its market advantage in the fact that Mayoris offers the quality and personal service that are so important in Switzerland. Another USP is still that with Mayoris, the creation, dispatch and evaluation of multilingual e-mailings are much easier than with competing systems. Last but not least, thanks to data storage at Swisscom IT Services, Mayoris also has a "direct line" to Bluewin - an important argument for customers such as Coop, Swisscard or Mercedes-Benz Switzerland, for whom secure data storage and flawless delivery in Switzerland are important.

For the further growth of the company, Mayoris is focusing mainly on Switzerland for the time being. To this end, the network of partner agencies, which in turn serve their own customers with Mayoris, is now to be expanded in a targeted manner. "Agencies responsible for their clients' communications are able to create, send and evaluate highly professional e-mailings quickly and without technical knowledge thanks to Mayoris. Not to mention the attractive commissions, this gives agencies the opportunity to offer complementary services such as conception, editing and implementation." In addition, Mayoris has also put out feelers to Germany. The first step in this direction is the recently concluded partnership with Rabbit eMarketing. The cooperation with the renowned dialog marketing agency means that the "hares", who are already successful in Germany and internationally, can offer their consulting services in Switzerland using the Mayoris system. "A great advantage for us; because this gives us access to the best e-mail marketing experts in Europe for advising demanding major customers." Conversely, Mayoris is now also distributed in Germany via Rabbit.

For Maya Reinshagen, growth has meant that her duties have increasingly evolved from operationally "building" a newsletter to building a company. "The job has shifted towards management. Now that wasn't really planned - but is actually exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to make a difference". Andreas Panzeri