No: This text was not generated by AI – at least if I can consider myself as being „Naturally Intelligent”.
It really would be a bad omen if I needed support of AI to write down some thoughts on occasion of the 26th anniversary of a company that was co-founded by me, the basic structure, business idea and mode of activities of which sprung off my brain nearly three decades ago.
AI, of course, is a great tool to support stupid activities, to find and to sort information, regardless of being true or false. However, if one needed such tools to congratulate a good friend, relative or a talented team of co-workers, one should think of the real value of the very relationship and probably actively end it before it becomes ridiculous or awkward.

Having said this – and continuing writing – it hopefully becomes clear that I am really involved in my relation to ChiroBlock and thoroughly touched by its remarkable anniversary. Twenty six years of continued business is quite a number, especially for a formerly start-up in chemistry and life-sciences. According to statistics (easily to be found by AI tools), only 10 to 20% of such new companies survive the first ten years, much less than 10% additional 15 years.

So, the simple fact of 26 years alone justifies a cordially congratulation – and, yes, a moment of silent reflection….

…Now: It really was (and is) kind of a marathon to run a business over such a long time-span.
The main requirements of running a long distance on the one hand and running a business on the other hand are comparable. Apart from a “good condition” (whatever this means in detail) you need stamina, endurance and a good portion of humility. Everything else that might come to mind when thinking of start-up companies and business – such as sparks of innovation, investors, market conditions, competitors, marketing etc. – really only comes second to these basic traits. In other words: they are useless without these basics.

“Good condition” at ChiroBlock has mainly been meaning to have motivated, skilled and engaged employees and (yes) managers all the time. So, the very first I wish to do is to thank each of our actual and former staff members for their engagement, their ideas, their contributions – simply for their life time they have devoted to this company! I know, in many cases, meanwhile thanking the team often has become a meaningless routine – but I do not see any other “factor” or “parameter” or “stakeholder” that really matters that much. No brilliant idea, no money, no market perspective, no grant, no equipment – and, yes, no “AI” – can replace the value and importance of the team members of a company. Thank you soooo much!

However, in this brief reflection of our 26 years journey, I do not want to repeat commonplaces and remain vague resulting in a boring and non-specific text. I would rather like to highlight some very singular – but typical – incidents and facts to show what is special about ChiroBlock.

First: “The value of (potential) employees”: Despite all the widely disseminated basic rules of “human resources”, most companies do not care too much about applicants – especially if it is unlikely to need them soon. So, many applicants do not even get a basic – let alone an individual – answer to their application. Contrary to this, we are fully aware that behind every application stands an individual and a potentially valuable new staff member. Furthermore, we know that the world of chemists is small and one would meet again sooner or later. So, years ago, we decided to not just inform refused applicants by mail but we sent each of them a small parcel with a bottle of wine as an expression of our gratitude. Sounds strange? Maybe is. However, more than once, such an applicant later remembered ChiroBlock very well either as a new customer or as a new employee. I do admit that this probably can not be replicated by every company and not for thousands of applicants. I also confess that we have given up this habit – but less because we regard it as a waste of money but more because alcohol nowadays is not necessarily appreciated as a welcome gift anymore.

Second: “stamina & endurance”:
Every chemist knows: These traits belong to the very dna of everyone who deals with chemical reactions. (Good preconditions for chemists to run a business, by the way…)
So there are numerous examples where the success only materialised because of our stamina, of our stubbornness. To just name a few examples…

Finance: ChiroBlock’s journey would have been stopped already at an age of about 10 years. Our foundation was supported by a silent partnership bound to a specific initial business idea. Ten years later, the money became due plus interests plus a “success related” fee. As usual such “success related fees” are substantial and at that time would have posed a threatening financial risk for our company. So, we insisted on having had “no success” resulting in no “success related” fees. This opinion was justified as the originally supported business idea did not work and we meanwhile had (successfully) completely revised our business approach. However, the (originally silent) partner kept on demanding this bonus very firmly. After months of negotiations and numerous nerve-racking meetings, we just offered the only two options possible: either closing the company (with all the money lost) or continuing business and to just pay back the lent money with interests but without any success fee.
This was convincing in the end and saved our further development – however it required two years of continued activities and many hard negotiations with our investor.

Chemistry: Here, in the very core field of our business, the examples of our stamina, stubbornness and endurance are merely countless…they are simply the basis of our success:

• With our worst “results based” project, we invested nearly four times the money of the contract volume. A disaster from a short term financial perspective. On the other hand, with the final result in hand, our customer was convinced to close a long term contract resulting in an overall win-win situation.
• An electrochemical reaction did only work once – and never again. A nightmare for every chemist as they know: One parameter had to be different! But which one? We checked (nearly) all parameters to identify the reason. It took us more than six months, countless DoE approaches and seemed to be wasted time. But then, after another careful evaluation of all results, the unusual parameter was found: not the electrodes, the electrolyte, the concentration, the temperature…not the voltage or the current – but the very velocity of rising the voltage to the (re)active value. Now, I guess, we are the only ones capable of performing this reaction.
• We tried to replace the toxic selenium dioxide by a more benign oxidation agent for one single, sensitive synthetic step. It also took more than 10 months with little chances to expect and with all short term financial figures plummeting – but finally we succeeded and found a substitute. Every chemist who ever has dealt with this matter knows what I am talking about… One more happy customer and an immeasurable benefit for employees and environment.

IT: To summarise it at the beginning: we have taken the long and bumpy road and not fallen for tempting easy solutions. Looking in the back-mirror, we had chosen the best IT-support and IT-approach right from the beginning. Our service provider always values data safety, integrity and ownership higher than connectivity, one-stop solutions or widely distributed platforms. And he already stressed the value of independence at a time when cloud computing, social media or AI still were just an imagination. So, despite all tempting offers aiming at the comfort, the “easy-going” attitude, at the idleness of IT-users, we resisted to lock into one of the famous worldwide dominating software packages.
Right from the beginning we decided to keep all relevant data in-house, to avoid SaS offers as far as possible, to run our servers on a Linux base, to only invest in new software if there is a real benefit in usage and not just a new release number. We preferred to invest into IT-competence of the own staff rather than into sophisticated but closed boxes of software packages.

So, these are some facts of our today’s IT reality:

• There is no single SaS licence for any kind of office software. Instead we rely on older, once purchased full-licences and open-source software. (Can anyone tell us the advantage of writing a text page using the latest software packages compared to an older one?).
• We have not become dependent on one complex business management software but combine single products of different origin. This – of course – requires more efforts to get these products interacted but it pays off as you only invest into really required features, you know the entire architecture and single packages can easily be replaced by others.
• It is not possible to send emails from our labs and there, in the labs, only exist white lists for pre-selected internet access.
• We only use three cloud / internet based services that never deal with the relevant core data of our r&d, production or customers: accounting, general quality management and video conferencing.
• By the way – Video conferencing: As to avoid any potential conflicts with data safety, we have chosen an entirely European tool already seven years ago (yes, they do exist!) and do not use the famous ones such as Zoom, Teams or the like.

And AI? We are open to innovation and, naturally, are destined to make use of knowledge in the most efficient (but safe!) way. So, first, we are about to configure an in-house tool for r&d related AI pattern recognition. Second, we also access the worldwide information on the internet – but again: completely separated from internal data and only using European algorithms. We do not think of feeding one of the famous large AI machines with our and our client’s information.

Sounds very old-fashioned or even paranoid? It may sound so – but safety is a much higher asset than flexibility, interconnectivity, fashion. It is a more bumpy road, requires stamina and stubbornness – but it definitively pays off in the long run.

Customers: Unfortunately, many of our initial customers do not exist any more. Others have changed their strategies or activities. Such is business. So, there is a natural drop of clients over time. This results in intense marketing activities to attract new ones and in individual, continuous account management to keep existing relations active.

Just four facts of our 26 years history:

• The longest customer relation: 24 years
• The number of accounts with at least one quote request: 1809
• The average number of actively, individually contacted leads and account staff per year: 196
• The strangest way of getting a new customer: a simulated application of one of our employees at the target company (again – odd, not advisable – but finally effective)

Third – Humility:

We do not succeed every day. There have not just been sunny days during the last 26 years.
We remain to be aware of our weaknesses, of our drawbacks to main competitors, of our limitations.
Having only natural scientists in our management, we have learned to be realistic, conservative, earthed. We do not dream of disruptive technologies and approaches. We are simply not able to do this. We try to avoid positive promises or outlooks without a sound background. This is not our cup of tee.
Instead we listen to our customers, to our staff. We ask nature by performing experiments. And we humbly accept their answers. If the answer is disappointing, we do not question it but change the setting of our request. We value the little success moments – knowing how much work is behind them. We are aware of the privilege to earn money with one of the most exiting activities: performing innovative synthetic chemistry.

So, again: Congratulations to ChiroBlock and thanks to all who were part of the journey so far.
After so many reflective words on our history, I now will devote my energy to our core business again. We have planned much for the next few years. But I definitively will not comment on this in advance. The next pit stop with thoughtful reflections is still far ahead: 30 years of ChiroBlock in 2029!