Building Mindset: A Story of Innovation, Talent, and Relationships

Every company has a founding story, but at Mindset, ours is built around something deeper—an obsession with innovation, a commitment to people, and a relentless focus on relationships. Today, we’re known for our ability to deliver cutting-edge SAP solutions and attract top talent, but the journey that got us here was anything but typical.

A Passion for Design and a Path Less Traveled

Let me take you back to the early 2000s. I had just graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Computer Science and Human-Centered Design. My dream was to head to Silicon Valleyand design software that people would love—beautiful, intuitive, world-changing. But timing is everything, and the dot-com bubble had just burst. My path to Silicon Valley? Gone.

So, I did what many of us do when plans change: I pivoted. I joined a Big 5 consulting firm. The work wasn’t glamorous, but it gave me something invaluable—access to brilliant people, big clients, and the kind of training you can only get in the deep end of enterprise software. That’s where I discovered SAP. At first glance, SAP wasn’t what I expected—complex, with T-codes that felt like they belonged in another century. But here’s the thing: SAP runs the world’s biggest companies, and behind that clunky interface was a platform with massive potential.

That was my lightbulb moment. I thought, What if you could take this powerful platform and apply the principles of design—make it more usable, beautiful, and exciting? That’s where Mindset was born—at the intersection of SAP’s power and the need to reimagine how people interact with enterprise software.

The Power of Innovation Meets the Need for Talent

Fast forward a few years, and I found myself working with Target, who posed a simple but exciting challenge: “Can you merge the best of retail technology with SAP?” The answer, of course, was yes. We built research team, exploring areas like Portals, Mobility, and big data analytics. We turned that research into projects, and those projects went live.And that’s when I realized something important—if we were going to keep pushing these boundaries, I needed help. Not just any help, but the best people in the industry. I was lucky to have a great network from my consulting days, but it was time to scale.

That’s when I made a decision that shaped the DNA of Mindset: we weren’t just going to recruit talent, we were going to build relationships.

Why Relationships Matter More Than Resumes

Our very first full-time hire at Mindset wasn’t a consultant—it was a recruiter. Actually, it was my sister-in-law, Peggy. She was smart, hardworking, and knew how to execute. We didn’t post jobs online and wait for resumes to come in. We hit the pavement. I made it my mission to meet as many SAP professionals in the Twin Cities in Minnesota as possible. I estimated there were around 2,000-3,000 SAP people in the area. Over the next few years, I met over 1,000 consultants in person—breakfasts, lunches, dinners, happy hours. Every day, I sat down with someone new.

Here’s what I learned: resumes are not nearly enough. People can fake interviews. But when you meet someone face-to-face and hear their story, and then combine that with the network of relationships, you can understand their aptitude and effectiveness—the two things that matter most in this industry. Aptitude is the ability to learn quickly, and effectiveness is the ability to deliver. And those aren’t things you find on a resume.

That’s why relationships are so crucial. Through this process, we not only built a network of talent, but we also got to know every major project in town, every pain point, every innovation happening in SAP. This knowledge became part of our DNA and still is today.

The Core Belief: A Small Team of Experts Beats a Big Team of Mediocrity

One thing that stands out to me in IT consulting is this: a small group of highly effective people can carry the success of an entire project. It’s always tempting to go big—hire lots of people, throw resources at a problem. But at Mindset, we take a different approach. We believe in smaller, expert teams that can “crush it” rather than large teams that just get by.

That’s why our network recruiting approach focuses not just on finding people with the right skills but on discovering people who have aptitude, effectiveness, and the ability to adapt. We value people who don’t just fit into a box but can see around corners, spot trends before they happen, and take ownership of their work.

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Looking Ahead: The AI Revolution

As we look to the future, AI is the next big wave. It’s going to change everything—from the way we approach recruiting to how we deliver consulting services. We’re already using AI at Mindset to make our processes smarter and our projects more efficient, but just like with SAP, it’s the people behind the technology that will make all the difference.

Mindset was built on the belief that relationships and talent drive innovation. We’re going to keep building on that foundation as we grow, adapt, and lead the way into the future of AI and SAP.

If you’re passionate about building innovative solutions, or you’re looking to join a team that values relationships over resumes, reach out. We’d love to meet you—maybe over breakfast or lunch.