should you be friends with your team?
Issue #159 (28 Jul) – raffle for Pearl Summit; Coffee with Christoph; most promising startups in Germany; Bavaria beating Berlin; techno viking video turns 25.
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Programming note #159: This issue includes a small innovation: my face in a circle just before the footer, so that you know who is behind these words.
I am happy to announce my support for Pearl Summit because we need many, many more successful women. We have one golden ticket to raffle below.
Also, a big thanks to our sponsors! You can still get 6 months of Notion for free (for solopreneurs, freelancers and companies up to 100 employees). And if you are tired of dealing with landlords, check if it makes sense for you to buy something with Hypofriend.
The email subject answer for a manager is “probably no” with a great argumentation in the Snippet #9.
🌟 Handpicked community
Meet — 4 handpicked events:
Invest like a woman. Own the future. 350+ founders & investors. Bold ideas, real money talks. Courage & clarity across asset classes at PEARL Summit. 🎟️ Get your ticket | Sept 17–18 | Schankhalle Pfefferberg
💎 You can get access to one of the most exclusive rooms in Europe’s founder ecosystem. We’ve secured a golden ticket for one member of our community to join the movement. Participate here by tagging someone who should join you. The winner will be announced next week.
Thursday gathering #19 AI & cybersecurity | Thu, 31/07 17:00 | CIC Berlin
How to change careers with a Bildungsgutschein | Wed, 30/07 16:00 | CareerFoundry
Longevity in motion: daily habits for a fitter future | Thu, 14/08 17:30 | Flowstate Labs
Save the date: I will be speaking on Thursday, 7th at the Aspiring Founders meetup in CIC.
This could be your event! Advertise it.
Show cool stuff or Ask for something:
🚀 Invest like the 1%—without being one. NAO makes Private Equity accessible. Start with €1,000 to invest in pre-IPO companies. No bankers, no clubs. Download NAO now—use code PICK for a €50 bonus after your first €1k investment. Disclaimer: Target returns are not guaranteed. Capital is at risk.*
Queers Who Sweat is a Berlin-based IG page spotlighting queer-friendly sports & movement events. We focus on community, sweat, and softness, one weekly drop at a time. 🏳️🌈
You can apply to AI for Climate Action Accelerator by Impact Hub Berlin until 4th of August.
If you are doing something meaningful, apply for an ACX grant.
📨 Submit your input for the community here.
👀 Handpicked jobs
3️⃣ job highlights of the week
The remaining jobs are on the Handpicked job board. This week’s selection focus was HR & Recruitment.
You’re not inefficient. You’re scattered.
Freelancers, founders, and teams waste hours jumping between disconnected tools.
Notion replaces this tool sprawl with one unified workspace:
Document everything — centralise company knowledge, processes, and team hubs
Work in sync — align goals, track projects, run meetings, share updates
Plan and ship — build product roadmaps, track feedback, publish release notes
Engage customers — manage interviews, track support, collect testimonials
Run operations — manage investors, partners, vendors, and more
Less chaos and more clarity in one tool.
☕️ Coffee Talk with Christoph Sollich
Christoph aka Pitch Doctor, is a known face in the Berlin startup scene, also because of his famous Berlin pitch! Since that video, things have changed, and he promised he'll do a refreshed pitch soon. Here is what he prepared for you:
Uzbek Eats — I discovered this gem with my kids – none of us knew Uzbek cuisine, but everyone loved every single dish on the menu (and we ordered everything!). Small, focused menu where every dish is something special. They only have 3 seats, so you either wait or do a takeaway for a picnic.
The Backyard Adventurer — Beau Miles did extreme adventures (kayaking to Tasmania) but also redefined adventure through his "backyard adventures" concept. I love the idea, his book and his YouTube channel because he shows how extraordinary experiences don't require exotic locations. Your backyard is enough.
Teufelsberg — Your next backyard adventure could be Teufelsberg. I explored it as a kid hunting for bunkers, tunnels, and abandoned ski jumps. Now, 30 years later, I take my own children there. The radar station with its street art is worth the entrance fee, but the hill itself is free with amazing city views. Perfect for picnics, dates, or even eavesdropping on Olympia Stadium concerts. A beautiful place with fascinating history.
🗞 Snippets
Berlin & Germany, career & timeless
If you really want to integrate in Berlin, you should probably learn some of the “Berolinismen”. These are local names for certain streets, squares and buildings. For example, Retourkutsche for Quadriga at Brandenburger Tor. Or the East Side Gallery, which later became the official name.
Since Google released MV3 for their Chrome, ad blockers stopped working, which means that my computer could barely handle 10 open tabs from German media companies. I moved to Firefox (Brave is based on Chromium). If you’d like to do the same, read How to Firefox and about Web fingerprinting (unavoidable, the described solution doesn’t work).
School holidays have begun on Thursday, so expect the city to grow quieter. Kids will be free until Monday, September 8th.
If the Berlin Sommer somehow improves, you will be able to use two BVG summer buses (312 - Wannsee and 222 - Tegeler See) to reach both mentioned lakes. You can check the quality of the water here. And the quantity of rain with RegenRadar (Android).
💎 There is a place in Berlin where you can rent almost any costume: Theaterkunst.
Germany has 6 startups on the list of top 50 most promising startups in Europe who could become unicorns (€1B) in the next two years: Amboss, Camunda, Aleph Alpha, Cognigy and Black Forest Labs. (GP Bullhound) The report also shows that the funding market is stabilising and that growth megarounds are back…
Bavarian startups raised almost €2.1B (76 startups) in the first half of the year. That’s one Helsing round (€600M) more than Berlin (€1.5B with 132 startups). In total, Germany is at €4.6B (+34% YoY). The top 11 deals account for a bit more than 50% of the total volume. Only AMBOSS, Parloa and Solaris from the top 10 are from Berlin. (Whereas Solaris wasn’t exactly receiving growth funds.)
Career: I think we are reaching the AI-slop breaking point, and I totally agree that it’s rude to show AI output to people, especially at work. “For the longest time, writing was more expensive than reading. /…/ Now, AI has made text very, very, very cheap. Not only text, in fact. Code, images, video. All kinds of media. We can't rely on proof-of-thought anymore. Any text can be AI slop.”
Career: Are you a manager? Here is a great article about why your empathy with the team needs to be highly conditional.
Timeless: Some very bad advice by Morgan Housel. So many great ones:
- Assume that all your success is due to hard work and all your failure is due to bad luck.
- Only learn from your own experiences.
- Be transactional vs. relationship driven.
You’re probably not one of the lucky ones with a rental contract from 2007 for your 100 sqm apartment. So it might make sense to check if you should buy something in still one of the cheapest capitals in Europe. Check what makes sense in 3 minutes.
Briefly
Bad news: Paul’s Job (HRtech, Berlin) and Statice (privacy tech, Berlin) filed for insolvency. Oetker will discontinue its Oetker Digital unit, founded to promote digital projects. Bosch -1,100 by 2029 (Reutlingen plant).
Stats: On average, Berliners look for a parking spot 62 hours annually, just after Essen (64) and Frankfurt am Main (65).
If you haven’t done your taxes yet for 2024, it’d be good to submit them this week. The deadline is the end of July.
TikTok employees in Berlin were on strike because of the intended layoff of 150 employees from the Trust and Safety department. They plan to replace them with AI.
Aleph Alpha got a co-CEO, Reto Spörri, from one of the biggest investors, Schwarz Gruppe. Seems like they wanted more adults in the room?
SumUp postponed its IPO to 2026.
Thomas Kehl, a finfluencer and the founder of the platform Finanzfluss, is suing Meta because they failed to prevent and react to 186 fake impersonating profiles distributing shitty financial products in 2024.
Deutsche Bank Q2: net profit €1.49B. First half-year profit highest since 2007. Careers in Berlin.
VW H1: revenue €158B (-0.3%), operating profit €6.7B (-33%).
SAP Q2: 9% revenue growth (€9B), Non-IFRS gross profit of €6.64B (+10%).
Porsche Q2: revenue down 12.9% to €8.3B, operating profit down 91% to €154M.German neobrokers got a new competitor: Polish XTB.
Weekly social
Instagram: Pony or a mini horse playing keyboards.
Instagram: Labubu (me neither) store opened, and the line was ridiculous. Smartly timed for the start of summer vacation.
Related, some people are ready to wait for hours for a one-cent Döner. What a time to be alive.
💸 Funded in Berlin & Germany
Buena | Berlin | AI property management platform | $58M Series A | Careers.
Credibur | Berlin | Credit refinancing automation infrastructure | €1.85M | No careers.
SIDES | Berlin | Restaurant operations SaaS platform | €10M Series A | Careers.
Sdui | Koblenz | School communication platform | €95M | Careers.
Makersite | Stuttgart | AI product development platform | €60M Series B | Careers.
4screen | Munich | Mobility experience cloud platform | $21M | Careers.
Gixel | Karlsruhe | AR display technology | €5M Seed | No careers.
pyck | Schwäbisch Hall | Next-generation warehouse management system | €2.6M | Careers.
Droidrun | Osnabrück | AI mobile app control | €2.1M | No careers.
😅 Meanwhile
are you old enough to understand this?
Igor Ranc
Founder & Curator of Handpicked Berlin
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