⌛️ how fast is your company?
Issue #94 (25 Mar) – 20+ jobs in marketing and comms; fresh raffles; Coffee with Tina; Da Jia Le & TikTok; how to onboard yourself and spot AI text; dirty little secrets of the industry?
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Programming note: We now have over 1000 responses for the Salary Trends Survey, but I was too optimistic about the expansion to Munich. To reiterate, you are ALSO more than welcome to participate if you work in sales, UX/UI, marketing, HR, legal, operations, or similar fields. It’s open for one more week, anonymous and takes less than 3 minutes to complete:
Also, save the date for a big summer party we’ll throw together with on Saturday, the 1st of June in Berlin ( 📅 link).
🌟 Handpicked Community
📨 Submit your input here. Inspiration for all the categories on the link.
🎪 Meet — tech & other events:
Game Theory Driven AI | Wed, 27.3 at 17.30 | Merantix Campus
French Tech Community Frühstück #17 | Thu, 28.3 at 10.30 | Le Wagon
Pictaday und Pictatalks | Thu, 18.4 at 09.00 | ECC Berlin
😎 Show — Cool stuff / Shoutouts / Projects & similar:
🚨 Discover handpicked, independently-run places to stay in Germany via Staycation Collection (membership site), which you won't find on Airbnb or Booking.com. Emily, the curator, is offering a 10% discount (HANDPICKED10) and five monthly memberships for free: enter the raffle here. Winners will be informed on Saturday. Good luck!
🎹 Living room concert: Gezellig Sessions #28 (Piano Day), this Saturday. 10 tickets with HANDPICKED20 for 20% off. 2x1 ticket for FREE. Enter the raffle here. Winners will be informed by Tuesday, 12:00.
Equity-free funding up to €105k per team and unique skill-based training for innovative, tech-based ventures building sustainable futures.
🔍 Ask — for a Service / Co-founder / Project help & similar:
we had no submissions; niemand hat sich gemeldet, schade because you would get so much attention.
Looking for the submission link or inspiration? It’s below the title ⤴️
👀 Handpicked jobs
📨 Submitted by HR or readers
5️⃣ from the rotation this week: Marketing & Comms
The remaining jobs (also outside rotation) are in the Handpicked online database.
📢 Shoutout for Jean, your new lawyer
Jean, an employment law lawyer, approached me on LinkedIn with a long intro message that I almost ignored. But I am happy I didn’t because we have already written two articles together (on side businesses and new employment contracts, both in the footer). I also recommended him to friends, and they all reported being really happy with his services. Bookmark him with the hope you’ll never need him. But if you do, “better call Jean,” as he says.
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
☕️ Coffee with Tina Searle
Tina is the second tour guide in Berlin featured here, and I can say she really opened up my perspective on street art in Berlin. I warmly recommend her, and I think we’ll do it together again soon. Here is what she has prepared for you:
The Digital Cosmonaut is my favourite blog about Berlin! This particular article is about the former State Council building of socialist East Germany, which I love to visit with guests.
Rosa Luxemburg is a key figure in Germany's social-democratic and communist history, but one who was deeply opposed to the use of violence and terror and restrictions of freedom. For her dedication to Marxism, she paid with her life. This BBC Podcast is a great starting point for anyone wanting to get to know this significant and, in my opinion, deeply loveable woman from Berlin's history.
Speaking of significant women in Berlin's history who are often forgotten, my next link is a video biography on Lisa Meitner. This genius scientist was overlooked for a Nobel Prize, despite being nominated FOURTY-EIGHT TIMES!!
🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff
🍽️ I reviewed Da Jia Le on Instagram, a northeastern Chinese restaurant in Schöneberg. I also started a TikTok account. Please follow me so it doesn’t look so silly with 1 follower, haha. 🙌🏻
🎉 Oranienstraße was named one of the world’s coolest streets by TimeOut. You also probably know by now that Berlin’s techno scene is now Unesco heritage. What a place to be! And the summer is still ahead of us…
😶 Manager Magazin reports that loss-making Getir wants to acquire loss-making Flink. I guess the rationale is to consolidate the market in the “winner takes it all” logic. Still, I am not sure if instant grocery delivery has sustainable unit economics in “expensive” economies. The new joint venture could also face an anti-trust probe.
✍🏼 Amazing, something got digitized! If the law passes, employment contracts will no longer need a so-called wet signature. According to estimates, this will save €1B annually.
strikes again with Where did it all go wrong after 2014 in Germany? “Germany’s elite bet on the rest of the world being as rational as them. But it wasn’t. And they expected German voters to be as rational as them. But they weren’t either.” I think we need to spin it: it’s been a long time since there have been so many great opportunities as there are now.
Career: Based on Stepstone’s cca. 920k salary data (🇩🇪), the median salary in Germany is 43,750€ (men: €45K, women: €40k). Berlin is #4 on the list of states and #6 on the list of cities. For comparison, in our July 2023 report, we had a median of 70k. A big bubble!
Career: Here is a thread with great advice on onboarding yourself to a new industry or a product in a new job. I like the approach of writing down lots of questions after talking to as many people as possible. After you write stuff down, it often answers itself. Magic!
Career: When judging the company, maybe this clock speed test would come handy? It’s basically a question of:
Timeless: Many (incl. Ethan Mollick) say it’s not possible, but here are great tips on how to spot AI-generated text. In a nutshell: no strong opinons, no quotes, lack of slang or informal language. This is especially true with lazy prompts.
Reddit choice of the week are dirty little secrets that you know only because you work in the industry? It made me stop using the kettle in a hotel room and worry about the expiration date on my medication.
💬 Briefly:
Bad news: Gravis is closing all 38 stores in Germany, 3 of them in Berlin.
Good news: According to Ifo-Institue, the mood in the German economy is brightening and is better than it was in mid-2023. But it’s still lower (🇩🇪) than immediately after the pandemic.
Deutsche Bahn made €2.4B loss with €45B revenue in 2023. (FAZ, 🇩🇪)
BioNTech, currently a one-trick vaccine pony, last year generated sales of €3.8B, a 78% decline. Net profit fell 10x to €930M from €9.43B. I didn’t research their pipeline.
Tenants in state-owned housing companies in Berlin can turn to ombudsman from this month onwards.
Signa bankruptcy means that all properties will be sold in the next few years. In Berlin, this includes KaDeWe and Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof buildings. (RBB)
Sennder (Berlin, logistics) wants to take over bankrupt competitor Instafreight. (Manager Magazin)
Enpal (Berlin, energy-saving tech) raised €1.1B in debt. Careers. But not all is rosy? (🇩🇪)
Douglas’ IPO didn’t pop at all (-11%) compared to Reddit’s (+48%).
⚽️ Another blow for Adidas: (National)Elf will wear Nike after 77 years of Adi Dassler.
Octopus Energy (UK, energy, active from Munich) wants to have 1M German customers by 2026. Careers. (Business Insider)
Solaris Bank wins after recent losses! They will take over ADAC’s portfolio of 1.3M credit cards. (HB) Related funding ⤵️
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
Solaris | Berlin | Banking-as-a-service platform | €96M Series F | Careers.
Daato | Berlin | ESG management platform for organizations | €5M Seed | Careers.
Fuchs & Eule | Berlin | Platform for real estate management | undisclosed Series A | Careers.
Novocarbo | Hamburg | Biochar production for atmospheric CO2 removal | €25M | Careers.
graswald.ai | Hannover | 3D content library for creating models from real-world objects | $3.3M | No careers.
NX Technologies / Bezahl.de | Cologne | Automotive payment management platform | $24M Series B | Careers.
Xaver | Cologne | AI-enabled life insurance and private pensions platform | €5M Pre-seed | Careers.
Enapi | Munich | Connectivity platform for EV charging | $2.7M Pre-seed | Careers.
Eisbach | Munich | Drugs targeting cancer cell vulnerabilities | $4.5M | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
for the ones learning German (via r/ich_iel)
✌️ Handpicked essentials and a treat:
- Signing a new employment contract in Germany? Read this before.
- Don’t make these mistakes with your side hustle!
- ❓Surprise treat for the curious
- 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?
- Story of Handpicked Berlin in a podcast
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
I really appreciate you reading this until the end. Would you like to like the post or leave a comment? I am happy to read them. ♡