one: You have been active on the market with commercetools for 11 years and were a pioneer in the field of cloud-based headless e-commerce systems. Nevertheless, 2021 was a special year for you. Why is that?

Dirk Hoerig: You're alluding to Accel's entry and our first acquisition. Yes, everything got a few sizes bigger last year. However, even in the years before that, we regularly had to reinvent ourselves. We are constantly working on product topics and thinking about what our customers need. From this perspective, 2021 was similar to previous years, only a few dimensions bigger. With Accel, we have brought a top investor on board who has invested in numerous large US tech companies such as Facebook and Slack. And with a valuation of one billion, we have cleared the hurdle to becoming a unicorn. Last but not least, we took over our first start-up. We are delighted that we were able to convince our colleagues at Frontastic to join us.

one: You just mentioned it: commercetools has been a unicorn since 2021 - one of the few German companies with a valuation of over one billion euros. What does that mean for a company?

Dirk Hoerig: First of all, the rating helps our company to become more relevant and visible to a broader public. Since 2021, we have been one of the top 5 software companies worldwide in terms of size that offer online retail technology. In Europe, we are number 2 after SAP, and in terms of growth, we are number 1.
Another and more important aspect for us is the cooperation with our shareholders. Both Insight Partners and Accel are among the most successful technology investors in the USA. This expertise is now available to us and is helping us to sort out the challenges and issues that lie ahead. Last but not least, it is important for us how we are positioned internally. We are constantly looking at our long-term orientation and whether we have the best team on board - unicorn status is also a plus in this respect. Overall, we have been the fastest growing company in the industry in recent years and that is simply down to the product.

one: The figures for 2021 are impressive: over 150 new customers. And they come from completely different industries and also have different target groups - from B2B to B2C. Is specialisation no longer necessary?

Dirk Hoerig: It's like this: The companies that come to us are basically facing growing pains. They are wondering how they can grow even faster and have often already earned many millions or even billions in online retail. Now they are reaching the limits of scalability and flexibility. And that's exactly what we give companies. They can grow faster with our products and no longer have any limitations. That's because we've geared our products extremely towards the customer and don't try to respond to the problems of the future with customised old solutions. That would be like putting a combustion engine in a Tesla. That wouldn't make a modern car either.

one: Many tech companies owe their success in recent years primarily to the pandemic and the associated growth in online retail. How sustainable is this success?

Dirk Hoerig: Overall, online retail has been growing for years and the pandemic has given it a further boost. However, you have to differentiate in which categories. Preferences differ depending on the occasion, whether it's food or non-food and also by region.

But generally speaking, I assume that the trend is sustainable and that we will see even more growth. You only have to look at the figures: 4 out of 10 items of clothing of the same price are now bought online. We have a total market share of 20 per cent in non-food retail.

If you look at the growth, it is also clear that there is no linear development in online retail. It used to take around 23 years to achieve a market share of 20 per cent. But we have achieved the last 5 per cent in the last 2 to 3 years. This means that in the next 5 to 10 years alone, we will grow at least as much in online retail as in the previous period combined.

one: What does this mean for bricks-and-mortar retail?

Dirk Hoerig: It certainly doesn't mean that bricks-and-mortar retail is irrelevant. And it depends on whether we look at food or non-food. Customers experience non-food retail differently today. It's more about the experience. If you take the city as an example, customers go to the city centre to be inspired. But afterwards they want to go out for a meal or to the cinema. Then they still have their shopping sent home because they don't want to walk around with the bags. In short, the model of retail being an on-site logistics centre where I help myself is becoming increasingly obsolete. After all, we no longer travel through the city by coach. Things are changing and we have to think about what the right answer is for our customers.

one: It was only last autumn that you acquired your first start-up, Frontastic. How does the company complement your services?

Dirk Hoerig: Frontastic offers a product that allows online shopping worlds to be put together very quickly on PCs, smartphones and tablets. Frontastic specialised in commercetools customers years ago. Frontastic primarily helps customers who want flexibility but need someone to pre-configure many settings and applications as a first step. To stick with my Lego image from the beginning: It's aimed at customers who would like to have 80 per cent of the Lego model already assembled, but with the option to take it apart again later and add functions.

one: Looking ahead to 2022, where should we go next?

Dirk Hoerig: For the current year, we are focussing on three things: Firstly, we want to further extend the lead of our products and, among other things, provide more functionalities for the B2B sector. This is because demand and our customer base are very high in this area and this gives us the opportunity to differentiate ourselves from the competition. At the same time, we will double our production capacity and open a third development centre in Valencia in addition to Berlin and Durham in the USA.

The second focus will be on expanding our market presence in our core markets of North America and Europe. We will almost double our sales and marketing activities there. We are very confident that we will have another very good year in these regions.

The third focus is on areas where we are trying something new. There are a number of topics that we are now taking up. These include China, which we have been looking at for some time. We were slowed down here by the pandemic. But now we are focussing on the country again.

Overall, we want to maintain and expand our leading position. We therefore expect to double our personnel capacities. This means that we also have a lot of recruiting challenges.

one: Mr Hoerig, thank you very much for the interview.