Dr. Lars Janzik, CEO of PONS Intelligence in Berlin. Thirty years of turning ideas into products, from techno records to language AI.
Innovation is a passion, and you can get addicted to it. It is a positive addiction.
When you think about a business, a company or a product, always ask yourself: what is next? How can we create additional value for customers and users? In the digital world you can rethink things every day. The hard part is deciding what is really worth changing, especially while the business is running well. That is exactly the best time to innovate.
Ask every day what we can do better. And above all, ask the user. The customer should be at the centre of every innovation.
What I bring to a company that needs to change, grow or reinvent its products.
From founding a record label in 1992 to building language AI today. The common thread is new products and the teams who make them.
A carve-out and sister company of PONS Langenscheidt, founded in 2026. As a high-tech start-up we combine artificial intelligence and language to build industry-specific business solutions for translating and conveying content, including the Langenscheidt Language Coach.
Continuing to support the LANIQO team after three years as CEO.
As part of our language-AI initiative we founded LANIQO together with two founders and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, developing industry-specific language solutions on our own language models, tailored to the needs of corporate customers.
Continued the print business in translation and language learning while putting new digital products at the centre. As a provider of language AI for companies we built our own solutions for AI-based translation and correction, and AI-based language learning for different industries.
Built a B2B platform-as-a-service company from scratch. MVP launched after eight months with a small internal team, more than 30 partner suppliers with around 100,000 products and services, first PaaS customer after six months, first revenue after ten, and a team of 13 in year one.
Full P&L responsibility for 60 people across online advertising, events and webinars, career services, content marketing, membership and premium print. Led a lasting transformation of organisation, portfolio and business models.
Digital product strategy for WELT and N24, leading the website and app teams including UX, SEO and A/B testing. Built the new WELT web destination and apps, and new business segments such as WELT travel and a brand studio. Member of the management team.
Led product management for central Europe across B2B and B2C: job board, database, community, apps, mobile and cloud services. Developed regional products such as white-label solutions together with sales and customers. Member of the senior management team.
Twelve years, three roles. Grew the portfolio from two software products to fifteen, built the marketing, PR and product teams, expanded e-commerce and launched cloud services. Coordinated releases in 25 countries and 18 languages, ran strategic B2B projects for Aldi, Swisscom and T-Com, and founded two vertical business units with global P&L responsibility.
Ran a music marketing agency: new product and marketing concepts, client consulting and media ad production for clients such as Axel Springer, Disney and Hasbro.
Founded a record label, SMZ Records, with business plan, marketing strategy, sponsors and distribution partners. The first start-up.
Six convictions from 30 years of building products with teams.
I have worked with many very creative teams, and there was no day without a new idea. The fantastic thing about ideas in the digital world is that you can test them. The user decides whether there is real value behind an idea. The user is the centre of every product.
I remember the old fights between departments over resources, responsibilities and whose fault it was. Cross-functional teams turn that around: common goals, shared responsibility and real commitment from every person involved.
AI is already part of daily life, and we are only at the beginning. Euphoria, scepticism and fear shape the debate, and jobs are changing massively. We need people more than ever to make sure AI is developed, implemented and used responsibly and fairly. It is an opportunity for companies, employees and users alike.
Every change starts with people and mindsets. You cannot transform a product if the team does not support the idea of change. Agile principles make sense in every part of a company, and the more people support them, the better they work. Top management included.
In the late nineties we worked a year on a new release and half a year fixing its bugs. Feedback from users was slow and painful. Today products are built in real time, increments ship continuously and priorities shift often. The passion for products remains.
Trust is the key to success: management trusting the team, the team trusting management and the vision. Trust is what lets teams make responsible decisions on their own. Leadership keeps the frame, and keeps widening it.
Products, research, talks and a few records. Open any entry for the story.
AI-based language training for companies with international teams. With the Langenscheidt Language Coach, employees learn German or English in a practical, flexible way, tailored to their everyday work. We started developing the technology in 2024 and achieved the breakthrough in 2025.
Visit the Language CoachA short interview in German after my keynote at the Zukunft Personal conference 2019 in Cologne.
Open on YouTubeTwo examples of the events we created with the Gründerszene team.
Open on YouTube
A chapter in the book on open source innovation (phenomenon, participant behaviour, business implications), edited by Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt and Daniel Ehls at the TIM institute of Hamburg University of Technology. My chapter looks at what motivates members of online communities to contribute for free. Eric von Hippel of MIT Sloan contributed as well.
See the book
In 2014 and 2015 my German Monster team developed a lean white-label job board cloud solution, in a very short development window, using agile frameworks. It went live as publicjobs.ch.
Innovation and change management are key success factors in any business. A very simple definition, and my personal view of how both play out in practice.
Open on VimeoIn my research on user innovation I identified a phenomenon I call open motivation: a specific mindset you can observe among users in product-related online communities. Driven by new usage patterns in the social web, it is a chance for companies to engage users and bring them into the value chain.
Open on Vimeo
My doctoral thesis. Online communities have become a powerful way to identify user needs and solution ideas, especially when they revolve around particular products or brands. The thesis analyses why people innovate and contribute voluntarily, and helps companies treat community members as an active resource with the right incentives and tools.
See the book
An empirical article in the ZfB journal, written with my Ph.D. supervisor Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt and Prof. Dr. Christina Raasch, categorising motivation in online communities to make it measurable and usable for companies.
See the issue
Interviewed during my research on user motivation. One key finding: attention from others is a stronger incentive for community innovators than any material reward.
In 1992 I started remixing old Beatles tracks with techno grooves, not seriously believing in an official release. After a long fight EMI Publishing gave its support. We could not use the original recordings, so we re-recorded the track with the Beatles Revival Band. Rumour had it Paul McCartney heard the demo and liked it. Virgin Records released it in Germany and the UK in 1994. Experts predicted a number one, but for most radio stations the Beatles were still sacred, and they did not play it.
Open on YouTubeWritten and produced for my formation D-Parture, released on Sony's Dancepool label as CD, 7" and 12". It reached top positions in the dance charts of five European countries. Recorded at Acoustic Arts Studio near Frankfurt with former Frank Farian sound engineer Tammy Grohé.
Open on YouTube