Progress, by conviction.
Making progress work — for business and people.
With the bigger picture in mind – from where ideas take shape, through relationships that grow, to where decisions are made. As a founder and lecturer, I connect what belongs together and keep it steadily on course.
Who I am
For over 15 years I've built and led digital products and business software — as a developer, a department head, and a founder. The throughline was never the technology itself. It's connecting technology, processes, and the people who have to live with the change, so that it actually sticks.
I'm at home in both rooms: the one where the code gets written, and the one where the business case gets decided. Transformation usually fails in the gap between them. Closing that gap is my work.
I do my best work in cross-functional, international teams — across markets, time zones, and cultures — where creative ideas get pushed until the data backs them up.
Co-founder and CEO of Mashed Software Solutions and co-founder of Vando — with our team I build the business, not just the product.
Teaching New Technologies and Marketing Analytics in the master's programs at FH CAMPUS 02.
TypeScript, React / Next, Node, PostgreSQL — and I still ship when it counts.
Selected work
A Graz software studio I co-founded and built from the ground up — from incorporation to processes, teams, and P&L. We design and ship large-scale business applications and wire together the systems companies actually run on: e-commerce, CRM, CMS, PIM.
Inventory software built for small teams, with AI only where it earns its place: delivery notes captured straight from a PDF or a photo, image-based suggestions for stock movements, automated reorder lists. Not AI for its own sake — AI that removes real busywork.
The asset register in the Vando family — know what you own, where it is, and who has it. One list for the gear a company keeps and lends out, with QR labels to scan items out and back in, readable IDs, and AI that turns the spreadsheet you already run into a clean inventory.
Teaching
I help students work where analytical rigor meets creative technology — closing the gap between data-driven strategy and emerging innovation.
Reading customer interactions precisely and turning those insights into high-impact marketing strategy — using digital user journeys to drive measurable brand performance and better customer relationship management.
Emerging technologies as catalysts for radical shifts in personal development, branding, and consumer engagement — students learn to anticipate disruptive trends boldly and to shape the future through technology.
Turning customer data into real business value — choosing the right data, methods and tools to build meaningful metrics, surface customer insights and prepare decisions and forecasts, always anchored in the business model and the competitive edge.
Career
Mashed Software Solutions GmbH
Built the company from scratch — business development, product, and the customer relationships behind it, alongside the engineering.
FH CAMPUS 02, Graz
Teaching New Technologies and Marketing Analytics, and coaching students through their master's theses.
Vando WMS
Co-founded a warehouse-management SaaS for small teams — AI where it earns its place.
Vando Inventory
Co-founded an asset register for small teams — track the gear a company owns and lends out, scan it out and back in.
Manuel Penaloza e.U.
Led several teams on large-scale business applications, with a focus on e-commerce, CRM, and CMS integrations.
Blue Tomato GmbH
Built scalable e-commerce functionality and advocated for technology and engineering practice.
Styria Media Group AG
Ad technology for platforms like kleinezeitung.at and willhaben.at; from 2013, bootstrapping new platforms such as wogibtswas.at and gutgemacht.at with a growing team.
Convictions
My inbox is open.
Based in Graz, Austria. Open to leadership roles, advisory work, and good conversations.
