The New Normal — Opportunity Analysis
Last updated: March 10, 2026 (discovery call — Alex, Mike, Sabrina)
Sources: Call transcript (Mar 10)
Purpose: Evaluate The New Normal as a partnership opportunity — joint client delivery and AI workshops
Who they are
The New Normal (the-new-normal.de) — German transformation consultancy. 14 people, 3 co-founders. Founded ~6 years ago out of a Mercedes culture transformation initiative — the 130-year engineering company sent management to Silicon Valley, got scared, and needed to change.
Sabrina — co-founder, runs sales, marketing, and communication work. The commercial engine. Long history with Pascal from Mercedes AMG where they "built it all up together from the ground."
Sören — co-founder, runs operations. More reserved, deeper into client projects. Cautious about over-promising on AI: "We are not an AI company. We don't have technical expertise." (per Sabrina). He's the one who needs to be convinced.
Third co-founder (unnamed) — has a tech background, runs a separate HR technology startup. Comes from IT.
Client range is extreme: from 5-person leadership teams (e.g. Pascal's Stout Studios) to 9,000-person divisions (Daimler Truck).
What they do
Transformation design and culture change. Not consulting in the McKinsey sense — they stay for the implementation and insist on lasting change rather than dropping a playbook and leaving.
Core services:
- Participatory strategy development with top management
- Team implementation with OKR frameworks
- Cross-silo collaboration training
- Transformation communication (dedicated multi-year engagements)
- Leadership development — psychological safety, critical thinking, empowerment
- Workshop design and facilitation
They differentiate by insisting on behavioral change, not just strategy decks. Sabrina: "We can deliver how does behavior need to change, how does mindset need to change. And on the other hand, there are always technical problems to be solved because we can't say, well, you should use AI for this... but we are not the ones who can deliver a solution for that."
Service model & pricing
Project type Typical pricing ─────────────────────────────────────────────── A projects (largest) €150K+ for 6-12 months, 2+ people Communication projects €200-300K annually, 2-2.5 people First-year contracts Often €500K+ Engagement length 2-3 years typical
Common pattern: CEO requests small workshop, expands iteratively, ends up paying more than the original quoted contract would have cost. Sabrina told a story of a CEO who now goes around saying "I should have signed that first contract because that would have been a lot cheaper for me than doing it step by step."
Current AI usage
Sabrina was candid: "I wouldn't say we have a strategy. Except if you say become more efficient using AI is a strategy. I'm not sure about that."
What they use today:
- NotebookLM — for onboarding, with thousands of documented processes
- Custom GPTs — one per client, storing client-specific information
- AI for communication — text, graphics, layouts
- Lead gen / CRM automation — working with an external agency, iterative approach
Where it breaks: no holistic strategy, iterative/ad-hoc adoption ("oh, I have this problem, let's try this"), can't build custom integrations, can't deliver technical solutions to clients. NotebookLM is useful but finite — no contextual understanding of how a consultancy works.
Key clients
Daimler Truck — biggest project, 9,000-person division, agile transformation. Long-term engagement.
Tax consultancy (unnamed) — preparing for 2027 full digitalization (DATF system). Discussing AI processes and network organization scaling. Active opportunity for joint work.
Large healthcare agency (unnamed) — doesn't even have MS Teams licenses for all employees. Shows the low end of client technical maturity.
Transformation communication client (unnamed) — 2-year engagement, 200-300K EUR annually, 2-2.5 people dedicated. First year was 500K EUR.
Client maturity spectrum is wide. Sabrina: "Sometimes we have, like, polar opposites" — from no-MS-Teams to advanced AI adopters.
What they want from GG
A technical partner. They keep encountering technical problems in client engagements that they can't solve. They want to be able to say "we've got an answer for that" when clients hit the wall between behavioral change and technical implementation.
Sabrina sees the fit clearly: "I can see why Pascal wanted us to talk, because I have the feeling that we're kind of thinking alike about how work should look like in the future, but you're approaching it then more from the technical side, and we do from the, let's say, behavioral side or organizational development side."
Three specific desires emerged:
- Joint client engagements — TNN does behavioral change, GG does technical implementation
- AI workshops/hackathons for TNN's clients — making AI tangible for non-technical audiences
- Internal AI infrastructure — help TNN scale without growing headcount
What we showed
- AI-powered discovery pipeline (call transcripts → analysis → strategy assets → proposals)
- Proposal copilot system — agency went from 16-hour proposals to 8 hours with higher win rate
- Santa's Workshop game — AI-powered factory maintenance game for Siemens/Lufthansa/Kubota hackathon. Made agents tangible for non-technical audiences.
- NanoBanana image generation pipeline
- Concept of "taste" as encoded business context — the real value is organizing data, not the software
Alex on the philosophy: "We are kind of allergic to the word automate, because I think a lot of people think that's what we're doing here. But I think it's missing the real value." And: "The real secret sauce is, like, the software we build. Software is, like, disposable now. Software price is growing to zero. What really matters is organizing people's data."
The opportunity
Joint client delivery. TNN has long-term relationships (2-3 years) with enterprises going through transformation. Those transformations increasingly require technical AI implementation that TNN can't do. GG fills that gap — not as a vendor, but as a partner inside existing engagements.
Workshop/hackathon revenue. GG's experience format (Santa's Workshop, prototype sprints) fits naturally into TNN's engagement model. Low-commitment entry point for new clients, high-impact add-on for existing ones.
Internal tooling as a demo. Build TNN's internal AI systems first — this becomes both valuable to them and a concrete demo when pitching joint work to their clients.
German mid-market positioning. TNN understands the German enterprise landscape — hierarchical, risk-averse, compliance-heavy, slow to adopt. GG provides the technical capability that makes AI adoption feel safe and structured rather than experimental.
Pipeline exposure: 150K-500K+ EUR first-year client contracts, with GG's technical work as an add-on or embedded component.
What we don't know
Will Sören buy in? He's cautious about over-promising and explicitly pushes back on "we are not an AI company." He needs to see the partnership as complementary, not as TNN over-extending. The one-pager is framed specifically for him.
Which specific client engagements are ripe? No concrete project was identified on the call. Sabrina needs to talk to Sören about pipeline and find the right starting point. We offered to review together rather than put the cognitive load on him.
Is there budget appetite for a tech partner? TNN's clients pay 150K-500K+ for transformation. Does that budget stretch to include technical implementation, or is it a separate line item?
How mature are TNN's clients technically? The range is enormous — from no-MS-Teams to advanced. The right starting client matters a lot.
What's the third co-founder's role? He has a tech background and runs an HR startup. Could he be an ally or a competitor for the "tech partner" role?
Next steps
1. Sabrina talks to Sören. Shares the one-pager and what was discussed. He identifies specific client opportunities.
2. Call with Sören + GG. Walk through TNN's pipeline together and find the right place to start. GG proposed this rather than asking Sören to come with a fully formed brief.
3. Identify a pilot. One client engagement where GG adds the technical layer. Ideally something already in motion where the technical gap is visible.