🎉 Two years of Handpicked!
Issue #100 (06 May) – 20+ jobs, Tech focus; tickets for Summer Party; fastest-growing startups in Berlin; what to do in May?; toxicity check of your potential employer; Getir out, Volocopter too?
The longest programming note yet: This is the weekly newsletter's 100th “classical” issue. I am extremely grateful for you reading this! When sending the first issue to 21 subscribers, I had absolutely no idea what would happen. Somehow, I kept going, showing up almost every Monday at 8:30 AM, and here we are.
To celebrate two years, you can join us at the party on the 1st of June (tickets below).
In two years, I sent 129 emails and invested 1600+ hours in everything around this newsletter. I’ve also published 2400+ jobs from 900+ companies, tracked 800+ funded startups and wrote 1200+ snippets. This effort grew the whole Handpicked ecosystem to well over 10.000 subscribers & followers.
Because of Handpicked, I made great friends, met many gorgeous people, and also feel so much closer to this great city! ❤️
Since issue #39, I have been offering “a supporter” tier. I decided to drop the supporter term and do more for paid subscribers. So, as a paid subscriber, you’ll get:
full access to all the paywalled posts (at least one paywalled post monthly);
instant and searchable access to the entire archives;
monthly best-of-snippets collection with a list of all published funded startups in Berlin and Germany;
early access to Handpicked Events via paid subscriber-only Threads and WhatsApp group;
immediate access to the WhatsApp group “🍿Handpicked Hangout,” where I post time-sensitive links and where you can interact with other paid subscribers
Thank you for supporting my work by becoming a paid subscriber.
🙏 Finally, thank you for being on this journey with me. There’s so much more to come! You can:
or:
🌟 Handpicked Community
📨 Submit your input here. Inspiration for all the categories on the link.
🎪 Meet — tech & other events:
Usability Testessen | Thu, 16.5 at 19.00 | Adesso
Hardtech Innovation Demo Day: Climate Tech's Rising Stars | Fri, 31.5 at 18.30 | MotionLab.Berlin - 🚨 Use “Handpicked25" for 25% off your ticket price.
berlin product managers ━ #10: Wolt's Secret Sauce: From Kitchen to Cart | Wed, 22.5 at 18.30 | Wolt - 🚨 FIRST COME FIRST SERVE, limited HP ticket cohort
😎 Show — Cool stuff / Shoutouts / Projects & similar:
ArtistsOnWheels - Bike Concerts / Tegeler Stadtheide at (Tegel Airport) on several Sundays in the coming months. (h/t Veronica!)
🎶 30th concert in a living room, Gezellig Sessions / HANDPICKED for 10% off
🔍 Ask — for a Service / Co-founder / Project help & similar:
(Inspiration: looking for co-founders, project partners or freelancers; search for tech & non-tech related service. Support for your hobby projects, ideas, and groups.)
we had no submissions; niemand hat sich gemeldet, schade
Looking for the submission link? It’s below the title ⤴️
👀 Handpicked jobs
📨 Submitted by HR or readers
5️⃣ from the rotation this week: Tech & Dev
The remaining jobs (also outside rotation) are in the Handpicked online database.
🎉🎶💃🏼 Summer Kickoff! 🕺🏻🍾🔥
To celebrate 2nd anniversary and an app release from the sister publication
, we are throwing a party. We’d love to see you join us!
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff
🎉 Party party party... come join us! 1st of June at 18:00.
👀 The best of April 2024 for paid subscribers.
🤔 I’ve discussed the uselessness of Google Reviews several times. Guess what? Some people are spamming five-star reviews, as shown by this Instagram post from Tupac in Kreuzberg. This is another proof that the reviews are useless yet soooo important for businesses. Goodhart’s law holds: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. In other words, ratings were destroyed by the spammers and template lawyers.
🚀 Miriam did an overview for Sifted about the 10 fastest-growing companies in Germany regarding headcount over the last 12 months. Berlin features Parloa (+105% to 223) and KoRo (+100% to 467).
💃🏼 What to do in May according to The Berliner and Tip Berlin (🇩🇪). I am looking forward to the Festival der Kulturen. Meanwhile, the exhibition celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Caspar David Friedrich in Alte Nationalgalerie is a big hit, selling over 75k tickets since opening on the 19th of April. Sadly, it does not feature the Wanderer above the Sea of Fog:
💰 Germany's coalition parties agreed to extend the rent control law until 2029. According to Berliner Mietverein (🇩🇪), the rents increased by 21% last year. They demand penalties against the violations and stricter rules due to numerous loopholes that ease the bypassing of rent caps.
Career: State of gaming industry 18 months apart: in fall 2022, 3 applications, 14 days. In spring 2024, 112 applications, 87 days. (Reddit post, I assume OP is from the US)
Career: I liked this article from
about how to find former employees of a company and ask them about the potential toxicity of a workplace. Worth a save.Timeless: I own a couple of mechanical watches, a marvel of human ingenuity. This is a fantastic explanation of how they work with great interactive animations.
Reddit choice of the week is the East Berlin: 1959 vs Today video by u/Tram-fan with the amazing old-school American narration and soundtrack.
💬 Briefly:
😔 Bad news: Tesla is still not finished with layoffs (the supercharger team is gone), and commentators aren’t particularly bullish.
Thermondo, a Berlin-based heat pump provider, acquired Febesol from BaWü, expanding into the photovoltaic market. Careers.
Stats: Berlin inflation: April up 1.4% YoY, 0.3% since March. Energy costs are down 7.1%. Core inflation at 2.5%. (St.BB)
Two fintechs in/also in Berlin, Pleo (careers) and Sum Up (careers), got debt financing recently (€40M and €1.5B, respectively).
N26, also a fintech in Berlin, needs a new supervisory board in preparation for an IPO. Their works council believes they should get more seats than foreseen. Dispute will be settled in court. (FFWD, 🇩🇪)
Springer Nature (Heidelberg & Berlin), publisher of Nature and Scientific American, is eyeing an IPO at a valuation of up to €9B this year. (RT)
We’ve been dragging the rumour for some weeks, but now it’s official
that the instant grocery delivery business can’t be profitableGetir is leaving Germany.I’ve also been dragging news about Volocopter (air taxis) in this section. They were pushing heavily for state subsidies, and now it seems they could even go bankrupt. (Manager Magazin) Another struggling air taxi company is Lilium from Munich, which is now a penny stock.
Marques Brownlee reviewed Rabbit R1, and it’s “barely reviewable”. I liked his comment that companies started to deliver barely finished products just to win a “race”.
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
Ovom | Berlin | AI-powered fertility care for IVF market | €4.8M | Careers.
Vinlivt | Munich | Digital platform for customer management and distribution for finance and insurance brokers | €1M Pre-Seed | Careers.
Vivalyx | Aachen | Organ preservation solutions | €5M+ Seed | No careers.
Imero | Halle (Saalle) | Digital labels | €2M | No careers.
😅 Meanwhile
they got in touch
✌️ Handpicked essentials and a treat:
- Don’t make these mistakes with your side hustle!
- Berlin Salary Trends Reports: How do you compare?
- ❓Surprise treat for the curious
- The best questions to ask at a job interview
- What do hiring managers look for in CVs?
- Story of Handpicked Berlin in a podcast
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
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Congratulations Igor on the 100th edition!
Oh my God! Heartiest congratulations Igor for 2 years of Handpicked. You are an inspiration, my friend 👏👏