are you spontaneous or prefer a plan?
Issue #89 (19 Feb) – Design & UX/UI jobs; Coffee with Jonny; things to check before you sing your contract; review of Filthy Pleasures BBQ; 36 boys gang; resources on managing people and Timeguessr.
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Programming note: I’ve built what looks like an amazing team of volunteers around the Salary trends survey, and we’re now looking for someone who could help with creating some graphics so that I don’t need to publish stuff like this:
Please approach me if you could help in any way. 🙏
🌟 Handpicked Kleinanzeigen & Tech Events
🎪 Events:
berlin product managers ━ #7: Inspiring Inclusion: Understanding our Users | Tue, 5.3 at 19.30 | Spiced Academy
FutureTalk: Generation Blockchain | Wed, 21.2 at 18.30 | BETTERTRUST Showroom
betabreakfast | Thu, 22.2 at 10.00 | betahaus
😎 Cool stuff:
YC’s latest Request for Startups so you know what to build. Surprise, it’s a lot of AI. Also space.
Shilpa: To live a fulfilled life, the most important skill you’ll need is self-awareness. Attend a hands-on workshop to learn how to know yourself better. You’ll come away with a self-awareness toolkit you can use and reuse throughout your life! Contact and website.
🎶 There are still some tickets left for the 26th living room concert this Saturday.
(doing a project? Built something to show? you can get featured here)
🔍 Searching for roles/freelance gig:
Diamond seeks a new setting in which to shine… Kirsteene is a sharp sparkler formed under pressure and able to easily cut through operational inefficiency. Operations, C Suite support, HR and People, Chief of Staff.
Kirsteene is alone, and that’s great for her, but why don’t you submit your search for the next week? ⤵️
🫣 Looking for a service/freelancer:
Philip: Looking for a freelance frontend developer who enjoys travel with experience taking a product from MVP to launch.
Need some for the Python script? A design? Something you always wanted but never found the time. SEO for your business? Whatever someone can solve for you fits here.
🫵🏻 You can get featured, too—submit on this link! It’s free for all categories.
👀 Handpicked twenty-something
📨 HR going the extra mile & readers submitted
🇩🇪 Ostrom - Social Media & Content Creator
🚨🚨 submit yours on the link; it’s free 🚨🚨
🧞♂️ On rotation this week: Design & UX/UI
More positions (also outside rotation) in Handpicked online database.
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🗞 Top inspiration snippets
☕️ Coffee with Jonny Whitlam
Jonny is a good friend and undoubtedly one of Berlin's most famous tour guides becasue of his massively successful Instagram channel. He was kind enough to explain video production to me, but as you can see, it didn’t stick. Here are his links for you:
Katja Hoyer’s Zeitgeist - Katja Hoyer, an accomplished historian and dual citizen of the UK and East Germany, offers insightful commentary on German politics and history in her blog. Her analysis of the current situation in German politics, I'm talking AfD, is really valuable.
Kreuzberged by Beata Gontarczyk-Krampe - Beata does deep dives into Berlin's lesser-known history. It's a great resource for exploring the hidden corners of Berlin, and it goes beyond just The Wall and WWII.
Lumix G9 II on Peta Pixel - As a photography enthusiast who carries gear all day on tours, I appreciate compact gear like the Micro 4/3 system. I'm super excited about the Lumix G9 II, which will be arriving and helping me create content super soon!
🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff
🚨 I’ve done another collaborative and timeless piece-of-law-explaining article with Jean, this time about things to check before you sign your new employment contract—another classic to bookmark. Enjoy!
🍖 I’ve also reviewed the Filthy Pleasures BBQ pop-up on my Instagram. If you are a meat eater, one of the musts in this city, for sho. The next one is in early March.
🚗 If you travel by car in Berlin, you lost 64h of your time in 2023, with an average travel time of 22 min for 10km. This placed Berlin at #2 in Germany (and #42 worldwide), just after Hamburg. More on TomTom Traffix Index 2023. The worst of 387 cities is London.
❸❻ RBB produced this cool documentary about a famous “36 Boys” gang from Kreuzberg. In German and for you to learn about Berlin. Tim Raue, a famous chef, was also a part of the gang.
🗺️ That’s a great animation of maps showing the West/East German divide. (Twitter) I found Religion, Olympic Medals and Tennis Courts interesting. Apropo tennis, why on earth can’t you just book and play in this country?
📅 Last week we found that “paid + flex-time” overtime is rare (21%). This week is about plans. People often complain about how nobody is spontaneous in Germany, hating the “yes, Thursday or Saturday in two weeks could work” approach…. but I recently realised that it’s one of those things everyone seems to hate but likes to do themselves. So:
👀 Last week, Open AI released Sora (YT), text-to-video model. And the whole tech world exploded in awe! It is something special. But my thesis is it will matter to people more and more that they know there is a real human behind that writing/acting/creation/product. Speaking of real-life applications, it looks like one of the victims of Large Language Models will be lawyers (paper, PDF), so it might make sense to start looking at Legal Tech companies or found one.
💚 You might want to check out Minesto and their tidal kite, a cool tech company to be on the edge of green energy (an article about getting energy from a tide). To work there, you’d need to relocate to Sweden.
👌 For the managers amongst you: a good thread from Hacker News on books and articles on managing people. I recommend Peopleware, a beautiful book.
💩 Very ordinary men is a gorgeously written review of Isaacson’s Elon Musk, biography. “Some books are so utterly bad that the case against them can be made based on almost any excerpt. Elon Musk is one of those books.” I liked Einstein, but after reading this review by Sam Kriss, I realised this is one of the books I don’t need to read.
📍 A cool game to try: Timeguessr. You pin the location but also need to guess the year of the photo. I played a round for a test and, unfortunately, didn’t write down the score. But it was a lot. 😅
r/berlin choices of the week is this discussion on an Instagram-first restaurant Coccodrillo. I haven’t been yet, but I guess I’ll skip? Maybe we should try some of the 1-dish-a-day places instead?
💬 Briefly:
😔 Bad news: Vice media is leaving Germany; Body Shop bankrupt with -350; Nyonic, Berlin-based AI-startup, fell apart, four co-founders left the team; Continental -7150; Finoa (crypto, Potsdam) was close to bankruptcy (financefwd).
Gloves are off! noyb chose to fight Schufa, accusing them of earning “millions through unlawful customer manipulation.”
Deutsche Bank ordered its managing directors to be in the office four days a week, a sing of things to come.
According to KfW, the VC business climate in Germany slipped again (to -27,4 in Q4 ‘23). In 2023, €7.2 billion was invested in German start-ups in 1,088 financing rounds. This is less than 2022 (€10.5 billion), but volume was still solid in a long-term comparison. (KfW, 🇩🇪)
Bolt, once worth $11B, is reportedly buying back shares at a $300M valuation, implying a steep loss for the investors. (the Information)
SAP founded an internal AI startup, “Project Jarvis”, to keep up with the hype.
If you are still looking for private liability insurance, here is a good review of several providers by Handelsblatt. (🇩🇪)
Siemens Energy (often featured here) will invest $150M in a new factory in North Carolina.
In January, one-third of DB long-distance passengers arrived at their destination over 15 min late. BVG is doing much better, but getting worse, 87,1% of trams and 98,4% of U-Bahns were on time in 2023 (Tagesspiegel, 🇩🇪).
Berlinale related: in 2023, cinemas in Berlin sold more than 8,2M tickets (+26,8% vs 2022). But this is still less than 2019 (-10,8%). (RBB, 🇩🇪)
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
Rasa | Berlin/Remote | AI-assistant development platform with low-code UI | $30M | Careers.
Pacifico Biolabs | Berlin | Fermentation-based meat and fish product alternatives | $3.3M pre-seed | No careers.
Simplyblock | Berlin | Cloud storage solutions with low latency | $2.75M | Careers.
Una Health | Berlin | Digital therapy for Type 2 diabetes | $2.5M | Careers.
Medea Biopharma | Ludwigshafen | Products for combating antibiotic resistance in veterinary medicine | €1.6M | No Careers.
Atmos | Rheinmünster | Reusable space capsules development and manufacturing | €1.3M | Careers.
Cirplus | Hamburg | Marketplace for plastic waste and recyclates | Seven-figure sum | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
you gotta admire evolution
This is a footer slice of ↖ fact for you: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight? I love the one pointing at the screen!
✌️ Handpicked essentials:
- Don’t make these mistakes with your side hustle!
- The best questions to ask at a job interview
- Write it down now! Or why you should journal at work?
- What do hiring managers look for in CVs?
- Feedback for Handpicked?
- Do you want to join the next event/meetup?
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
Made it this far? Smash that like button or leave a comment! Yesterday I watched Another End on Berlinale, and I really enjoyed it! Did you see anything so far as well? Tell us in the comments.