Over a decade of bootstrapping SaaS in Europe — building and scaling with no VC and no shortcuts. Started as a programmer, grew into product and leadership through curiosity and broad know-how. Driven by building things that last: products, teams, and sustainable growth over hype.
Work
Swat.io
Project Manager / CTO / CEO / CEO Product
Started as a Project Manager/Web Developer and implemented lot of marketing campaigns (30+) with the Facebook Graph API. After getting CTO of the company I've exlusively concentrated on Swat.io, a social media management tool. Right now, I'm leading the company as CEO Product.
2024: Got the possibility to buy 2.5% company shares.
2023: Joined the newly created Management Board as CEO Product, focused on Product/Dev
2022: Took over the full responsibility as CEO; responsible for all teams
2021: Joined the founder as second CEO; next to leading the dev team, responsible for Product/Support/Marketing/People & Culture/Finance teams
2019: Joined the newly created Management Board; Officially named
Head of Productnext to being CTO2015-2017: Building/managing dedicated frontend/backend teams
2014: Focusing exlusively on Swat.io; starting to refactor the app/development workflows
2012: Officially named
CTO. Maintainer of company-internal Facebook Marketing App Framework2011: Joined company as 2nd employee.
Büro DIE ANTWORT GmbH
Web Developer, Shareholder
Worked on 70+ different web sites and web applications. Learned all the small details and improved a lot as developer. Hold 20% of company shares.
PHP, Ruby on Rails
MySQL
Prototype.js, script.aculo.us, jQuery
SVN
Hagenberg Software GmbH
Developer, SharePoint Consultant
Worked as Software Developer for Customer Facing projects. I also contributed in internal SharePoint projects and worked on commercial SharePoint plugins.
C#, .net 2.0
Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2008
pmOne GmbH
(Junior) Consultant
Started as an intern, creating a dataware house proof of concept generator on my own. Was working on some customer facing projects until I got named IT System Administrator. In this role I was responsible for all laptops/mobile phones as well as creating/migrating a new Active Directory Setup for the whole company together with our outsourcing partner ACP.
C#, .net 2.0
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (Analysis Services, Reporting Services)
Windows Server 2003
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
siteworx.at / Johannes Nagl e.U.
Being on my own as a freelancer
Started learning HTML/CSS/JS on my own in 2000. After doing some pet projects, dozens of unfinished side projects, I started in late 2004 with client jobs. I implemented couple of websites for Hotels, Car Traders and Management Companies in Vienna.
ASP, ASP.net MVC, PHP
Microsoft SQL Server Express, MySQL
Side Projects
Volunteer
Education
Awards
Becoming a father 👨👧
#proudDadOfAGirl. You're amazing, Laura!
11th place
World-Championship in Fast-Typing (Online Tournament)
Publications
Vom Entwickler zum CEO (German)
Talked with Mohit about falling up the career ladder — from developer to CTO to CEO at Swat.io, remote work culture, and why people management is a CEO's most critical job. Thanks for having me, Mohit!
The Future of Social Media in 2026 (German)
Talked with Verena Grundel about social media trends for 2026, platform dynamics in the DACH region, AI's impact on social media, and why every company needs a customized platform mix.
Swat.io: 14 Jahre Bootstrapping auf 7,3 Mio EUR Umsatz (German)
Talked with Andreas Lehr about Swat.io's 14-year bootstrapping journey, growing to 7.3 million EUR annual revenue with ~50 employees — all without VC funding. Thanks for having me, Andreas!
Content- und Community Management mit KI (German)
Talked with Thomas Hutter about AI in content and community management, from sentiment analysis to AI-powered content creation and Swat.io's AI roadmap. Thanks for having me, Thomas!
Social Media & AI: Do's and Don'ts
Hosted a webinar on the do's and don'ts of AI in social media management as part of the Swat.io AI Academy series, with over 230 registered attendees.
How to Get the Most Out of Remote Onboarding
Discussed with Allison from Meet with Spot how to successfully onboard new team members in a remote era. Thanks for having me, Allison, it was a great virtual walk together!
Embracing cloud technologies
Gave a talk in front of 40 people as part of the Confare CIO Summit together with Marco Tesch from tecRacer. Thanks for having me, Confare!
Über die Übergabe des CEO-Postens bei Swat.io (German)
Talked together with Michael (Founder Swat.io) and Dejan (Founder Brutkasten) about all the challenges and topics in regards to our CEO transition. Thanks for having us, Brutkasten!
Advanced Testing: Do's and Don'ts
Talked at local Laravel Vienna Meetup about software testing with Laravel / PHP.
Replacing REST with GraphQL
Talked at local Laravel Vienna Meetup about GraphQL and how it can replace traditional REST APIs.
Der Pfad zum digitalen Produkt (German)
Gave a speech in front of 50 people as part of the Vorarlberg Umma Hüsla-Hackathon about how to evolve from a software agency to a product company. Thanks for having me, Digitale Initativen!
Lessons Learned: Transitioning from an agency to a product company
Was interviewed about how we successfully left our agency business behind and made the transition to focus exlusively on our products. Thanks for having me, Ali!
Development Workflow by Example: Swat.io
Was interviewed about how we do our development at Swat.io. Thanks for having me, Sebastian!
Technology is always meant to be a silent butler
Was interviewed why we evolved to a product company. Thanks for having me, Tom!
Datenschutz und Informationssicherheit in Social Communities (German) (PDF)
This master thesis deals with privacy and data protection issues arising in social communities in the internet. Together with the usage of social websites, the amount of stored information rises tremendously, which leads to an intensification of privacy-related problems.
Konvergenzen zwischen Web2.0 und Semantic Web am Beispiel einer Tourismusplattform (German) (PDF)
This Bachelor thesis describes the theoretical principles of the Semantic Web and Web 2.0. These technologies are definite improvements to World Wide Web in his current form. A convergence application, which is the combination of both technologies, shows the methodology of creating a semantic net. The net is automatically extended with third party data. The comparison of so called Mashup Creator Applications like Yahoo Pipes or Microsoft Popfly shows the benefits of programs for standardized data aggregation. Finally, an analysis as well as an economic inspection of selected tourist platforms shows the strengths and weakness of convergence applications in contrast to conventional web offerings.
Auswirkungen von Web2.0 auf das World Wide Web (German) (PDF)
This bachelor thesis describes the new buzzword “Web 2.0” and its impact on the World Wide Web. The term was first mentioned on a congress in the year 2004, where Tim O’Reilly described some design patterns, which would revolutionize the Web and its users. Based on these patterns the author analyses the consequences of social participation. The democratization of the internet could change the current media landscape dramatically. But the possibility to issue texts more easily can also have a negative impact on the quality of content.
Das Semantische Web - aktuelle Umsetzungen (German) (PDF)
This paper describes the state of Semantic Web back in 2005.