This year, andagon people GmbH turns 2️⃣5️⃣ – and it feels like the right moment to start talking about the journey behind it.

On 1 October 2001, the company was registered in Cologne. Back then, it was a small team of five to eight people building custom software. From that small beginning, we grew into a stable holding group, combining software testing and test automation services, our own AI-powered test management platform, aqua cloud, and andagon academy with ISTQB and TÜV certification programs.

Today, we are 120+ people with 500+ projects behind us and a client portfolio spanning major enterprises, public-sector organisations, and international brands that rely on our services and tools.

A whole era has passed. We grew alongside the rapid rise of digital technologies, while living through almost every kind of economic weather Germany has known – from stagnation to one crisis after another.

So what was the key? I have been asked this quite often lately, as CEO and co-founder.

I see three decisions that shaped our growth and made andagon stronger over the years.

✔️ Conscious diversification of both clients and products.

Our early backbone was a single telecom anchor – a project we proudly ran for 16 years. But we realised early that depending on one large client is vulnerability, not stability; and services alone were not enough.

So we broadened our client base, with test automation as our differentiator, and in parallel built our own product, aqua – today a mature AI-powered test management platform and second pillar of the group. This decision carried us through several economic cycles and still works today.

✔️ Keeping quality of work and care for people at the core of everything.

Quality for us is not only technical, but also relational – inside the team and with clients. For me, a company is a living system in which happy employees create happy customers. Our training centre helps us keep service quality high and supports our consultants in growing – because we aim to be “the company to grow in”.

With clients, partnership comes first: long-term relationships, some of them 15 to 20 years strong, customer events for open exchange, and an alumni ecosystem, with many former colleagues returning as clients or partners.

✔️ Continuous innovation, but within an 80/20 balance.

Around 80% of our energy goes into stability, quality, and keeping promises. The remaining 20% goes into innovation and transformation – measured, but ambitious. This balance is where our AI-powered products and new tools, such as our accessibility testing framework, were born.

We may not be the unicorns of this world – yet, who knows! – but I am genuinely proud of what we have built: a stable, healthy environment that creates value for clients in Germany and beyond.

The years have flown by faster than I could ever have imagined. Thank you to everyone who has walked, and continues to walk, this path with us.