you decide: home-office, hybrid or return-to-office?

Issue #121 (07 Oct) – growth & profit jobs; check IWB; top 50 German startups; BVG and BEW hiring; optimized holidays in 2025; Oktoberfest madness; renewables bubble poppin'?

Oct 07, 2024

Programming note: Some of you noticed that the “Coffee with” section is on a short break. That’s because I’m making a list of future guests. If you’d like me to host anyone, do let me know. Here are all the guests and their links to date.

This issue has a lot of ideas for those looking for a job; I also did another “special” job selection, this time focused on growth & profitability. Unfortunately, I cannot add all the links I would want without cutting the email off.

🌟 Handpicked community

is a place where we meet, share projects and ideas and look for help.

📨 Submit your input here.

🎪 Meet — tech & other events:

ampli'Find-from local groundbreakers to global shakers | Thu, 10/10 at 17.00 | CIC Berlin
Bias in Design - Design for Collective Spaces | Sat, 12/10 at 11.00 | Online
People and Culture Festival 2024 - The program is published | Thu, 17/10 at 10.00 | Colloseum*
When Music Matters: Political Engagement Since the Enlightenment | Tue, 15/10 at 19:00| Cafe at Bard College Berlin*
this could be your event - get it published for 50-200 clicks

😎 Show — Cool stuff / Shoutouts / Projects & similar:
(Inspiration: poetry slams, pop-ups, shoutouts for someone from the community who helped you, giveaways. Websites, apps, projects you've built. Tenders, project/ideas/startup funding sources.)

KfW Venture Capital Dashboard Q2 2024 (PDF)

🔍 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.)

A friend is looking for a reliable Energieberater. If you have an excellent recommendation, do let me know by emailing me. 🙏

Looking for the submission link? It’s below the title ⤴️ This section also gets featured weekly on LinkedIn.

*Sponsored

👀 Addition to jobs: Startup Insider's Top 50 Startups

Startup Insider is the leading data-driven platform connecting the startup ecosystem and its key players across the German-speaking world. With the most popular podcast on entrepreneurship and a must-read daily newsletter featuring *handpicked* news, Startup Insider keeps you informed and connected about the most relevant startups and investment developments. Subscribe here.

They also report on the 50 most popular startups on their platform. You can download it here.

Special selection his week: growth and profitability in Berlin

The remaining jobs are in the Handpicked online database.

How do you like this direction? More or less of the similar?
You can also submit a job.

📢 Check out International Women in Berlin

Run by Bruna and volunteers, IWB is an excellent resource that includes housing offers, tips on Berlin events, news and their own events. Also suitable for men! Check them out and subscribe ⤵️

🗞 Top inspiration snippets

🇩🇪 Berlin & other good stuff

is a selection of links focused on Berlin/Germany, career, timeless content and business.

Congrats, dear reader! If you live in this vibrant Berlin, we both live in the City of the Year by Food and Travel Awards. Well deserved; I really do love this place.
Can you please tell a friend about this newsletter? Or slap the link to it on your Slack/Telegram/Whatsapp channel? That’d be great, thanks!
Six from the list of best burger places according to the crowd on Reddit: Burgermeister, Burgeramt, Kumpel & Keule (Markthalle Neun), Shiso Burger, and Rebel Room; the sixth place goes to Martha’s, and I agree, it’s a solid burger.
Sifted published a report on the 50 fastest-growing startups in 2024 over the last three financial years. From 22 on the list in total, Berlin has five in top10: charles (digital marketing, 506.38%), Tourlane (travel, 447.72%), n8n (dev tools, 378.00%), Likeminded (mental health, 258.71%), and akirolabs (supply chain & logistics, 237.69%). Of 50, 8 are profitable, 20 prefer not to disclose, and 22 are making losses. In Berlin, the profitable ones are Yepoda (beauty), Enpal (solar energy), Hopkins (legaltech), Avomind (HR tech), ProNoblis (digital lending), and PAIR Finance (digital lending).
How about a safe job in utilities? Berlin's Fernwärme (district heating) system is now state-owned after separating from Vattenfall. According to Tagesspiegel (€, 🇩🇪), the new company, Berliner Energie und Wärme AG, is looking for 400 people in IT, finance, and HR. They’ll invest heavily (€3.3B) by 2030 towards climate-neutral upgrades. I assume you will need German, but check it yourself. (I only see 67 open jobs, but that’s why they need HR people?)
RBB has a very good report on the reasons why the Berlin bureaucracy is forcing international couples to marry in Denmark. The main problem is usually in birth certificates. (RBB, 🇩🇪)
The bus/U-Bahn didn’t come? It’s because public transport is in crisis; and not only here! Four of Germany's five largest cities (Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt) have reduced services due to staff shortages and high sick leave rates. Our situation is especially bad, with bus and train drivers' sick leave at 14.3% (on par with Tesla’s!) vs the 9.4% national average. Only 1/3 of BVG employees feel work processes are well-organized. (Tagesspiegel, 🇩🇪) If you feel like helping, they do need it! Another problem for BVG are old trains, but that’s a topic for some other time.
Career: RTO vs WFH battle rages on. After Amazon dropped the 5-day-in-office mandate, Google & Microsoft committed to a flexible mode, “unless the productivity slows”. At the same time, “79 per cent of U.S. corporate CEOs predicted that corporate roles that were performed in the office before the pandemic will be back in the office full time within the next three years.” (Inc.) Yikes! Or only wishful thinking?
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Career: I will post something similar again at the end of the year, but if you want to optimize your holiday planning for 2025, this post has you covered. (I didn’t verify if we actually have all the Feiertage here in Berlin/Brandenburg)
Timeless: If you struggle with procrastination, here is a helpful essay by Mark Manson to help you better understand it and find the way forward.
Timeless: When stressed, upset or triggered, try the anchoring heart technique, it works! You can speed up the video to 1.5x like all the tech bros do!
📱 Weekly Social.
1. Reddit: What’s a habit or attitude you’ve picked up since living in Berlin? Answer.
2. Twitter: Reserving a table at Oktoberfest madness. Overrated! Just before.
3. Instagram: The most viewed Reel ever was produced in Germany, and it involves a VW.
💬 Briefly.
1. 😔 Bad news: efnore (Berlin, customized point-of-sale systems) bankrupt; Enter (Berlin, energy consulting) -45 or 20% (via Business Insider), after Zolar potentially signalling additional cracks in the renewables industry in Germany?
  Good news?: Ride ~~Capital~~ (Berlin, fintech) is trying to save itself by a sale of its core business. (FinanceFWD); SellerX (Berlin, aggregator) reduced debt with a debt-to-equity swap, avoiding a sales auction. Blackrock is now running the show. (Yahoo)
2. Stats: Inflation in Berlin was 0.8% compared to September 2023. This is the lowest level since January 2021. (St.BB)
3. AMBOSS (Berlin, healthtech) acquired Novaheal, expanding into nursing education.
4. Camunda (Berlin, orchestration tool) reached the $100M ARR milestone. In 2022, they reported €55.3M in revenue with €10.4M loss. (Deutsche Startups)
5. Klarna doubled its valuation to $14.5B before the IPO, which is supposed to come in the next 12 months. Unsurprisingly, they push the AI narrative a lot.
6. Solaris (Berlin, fintech) reported a €178M loss in 2023. A major factor: €123M write-off in their UK business, Contis. They also announced job cuts (unknown number) and restructuring. (Handelsblatt)
7. DeepL opened an office in NYC, and Trade Republic expanded to Vienna. They were again in the media (€, 🇩🇪) because of bad customer service. Big ones struggle, too. BaFin fined Check24’s bank €1.25M for late anti-money laundering reports.
8. Bitkom's "Startup Report 2024" reveals insights into the German startup scene (n=172). Elon Musk tops the list of role models (20%), followed by Bill Gates (9%). OpenAI is considered the most successful startup (21%). 45% of founders report worsening conditions in the last two years, 61% need to raise in the coming two years. The average startup has 15 employees, and 81% plan to hire. 44% offer employee ownership, up from 38%. (Bitkom, 🇩🇪)
9. Apropo OpenAI. They just turned itself into the 2nd most valuable startup by raising $6.6B at a $157B valuation. Apple didn’t invest.
10. Tier is no more due to their merger with Dott in January. Rebranding of the e-scooters will begin this month.
11. Air taxi industry faces contrasts: US-based Joby Aviation just secured $500M for 2025 launch, while German firms struggle. Lilium posted €185.9M H1 2024 loss and warned of insolvency without €100M state guarantees. Volocopter also narrowly avoided bankruptcy. (Trending Topics, Lilium)

💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany

is a list of companies that received funding over €1M.

Atlas Metrics | Berlin | ESG compliance and sustainability platform | €12.2M Series A | Careers.
Briink | Berlin | AI platform for ESG reporting | €3.85M Seed | Careers.
bcause | Berlin | Fintech for accessible foundations | €4.2M Series A | Careers.
Mindpeak | Hamburg | AI solutions for pathology | $15.3M Series A | Careers.
SPiNE | Munich | Digital energy solutions platform | 7-figure funding | Careers.
Syte | Münster | AI real estate decarbonization platform | €5M Seed | Careers.
Foodforecast | Cologne | AI for food waste reduction | €3M | Careers.
Pluvion | Freiburg | AI software for water management | €1M Pre-seed | Careers.