🚲 Exclusive bike tour and all the good stuff!
Issue #64 (14 Aug) – Marketing jobs; worst food in Berlin; Aeropress rocks; the 1% control 19%; WeWork dying?; avoiding phone screens will help your relationship and Net Promoter Score is b*llshit?
Programming note: This week I continued working on the website, changing colours, copy and making things more Berlin red. Red is a brave colour; everyone avoids it on their status reports and the management hates it. 😅 I also made mental progress (=convincing myself more) on doing videos after talking with Jonny. There is so much to do and so little time!
👀 Handpicked twenty-nine
📨 Readers submitted
submit yours on the link; it’s freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
🧞♂️ Marketing & Comms
… to ensure that the email does not get cut off, I only show the maximum possible amount of positions here—more positions (Marketing & Comms plus other categories) in Handpicked online database.
🌟 Handpicked Kleinanzeigen
Submit yours here or leave a comment. Please be fair to the readers and me.
😎 Cool stuff:
Josephine wants to help you find love outside dating apps with her Berlin Goes Dating project. Her concept is simple: dinner, drinks and non-cringe prompts. The first event is on September 7th—more info on Instagram.
🔍 Searching for roles:
Sophia is looking for a role as a software developer. She has 3+ years of experience. Her most robust language is Java—she also worked with microservices, CI/CD, JS UI frameworks and SQL databases.
Jadav (e-mail) is looking for a Visual Designer role. From product illustrations and visual design assets to micro animation, he has you covered—a resourceful quick learner.
Beatriz is a business engineering graduate seeking a junior project management or development role. She is passionate about innovation and growth and has experience in project management, online marketing, and e-commerce. She is ready to learn and make a meaningful impact.
Sanchana (e-mail) is looking for full-time opportunities in UX/UI/Product/Web Design roles—she is organised and committed and is dedicating a lot of time to improving her German.
🚲 🚲 Whitlam’s Berlin <> Handpicked Berlin 🚲 🚲
End of January, before he was 23k+ famous, I texted Jonny about a dedicated tour for Berliners. We had a call and discussed his video ideas and the potential collaboration. Fast forward half a year, and I am happy to present… (🥁🥁🥁)
a 6-hour unique Berlin and Potsdam Cold War and Nature Bike Tour.
🚨 Handpicked subscribers get 10€ OFF 🚨 with the code HandPicked10 (added at the check-out). Hurry up; it’s only 20 spaces. See you on Saturday, the 9th of September. We will be the first-ever guests on the tour.
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
🇩🇪 Berlin & Other good stuff
🤮 The worst food in Berlin? Risa appears often, closely followed by Que Pasa. I can add Vamos at Winterfeldtstraße (although the company was amazing ☺️).
⚡️ Two men jumped on the U-Bahn tracks to save a man last weekend. But, per BVG, you should not be doing it. (That’s because you could get electrocuted, and we don’t want that, do we?) Instead, pull one of the emergency red breaks—there are usually three at each stop.
☕️ Besides occasionally drinking the Slovenian version of Turkish coffee, I mostly made instant coffee in Germany. I know. I finally upgraded to Aeropress, and I am impressed by the product quality. By accident, I also found this thread about coffee. Summary: 1) wait 90min before having one; 2) no coffee ten hours before sleep; 3) take 48h off every week). Not sure about point 3.
🤑 The wealthiest 1% in Germany control 19% of the wealth. Compare to the US:
😔 Bad news: Contentflow (Berlin) is insolvent; Mädchenflohmarkt saved by MFG Commerce (connected to Momox); FinTech Friday Finance (formerly Airbank) is offline and reportedly selling itself — they submitted one of their positions to Handpicked in January 😶.
🍔 Delivery Hero, a former DAX company, reported their numbers. For the first time in history, they were profitable on adjusted EBITDA but still have negative free cash flow, which means they are burning cash (they still have €1.9B left). They plan to be EBITDA profitable this year. More at Welt. (🇩🇪)
😱 On the other hand, WeWork's survival is in question; once valued at $47B, it was only worth $470M after the meme-stock surge on Friday (down 95% over the past year). They say they are “going concern” and had -3% in memberships and 72% occupancy. I wonder how The Factory, The Office Group, Workaround, Regus, Charly and other competitors in Berlin are doing?
🇩🇪 🧑🏻💻 For the first time, over 1M people are employed in the IT sector in Germany, up 8% from last year. Growth since 2013: 60%. In 2022, 24k IT job vacancies were reported, a 27% increase from 2021. The high demand for experts continues. (dpa)
👮🏻♀️ Financial watchdog Bafin is investigating the digital currency & eyeballs scanning company Worldcoin (of Sam Altman, Open AI fame) for operating without a German license. Worldcoin offices were also raided recently in Kenia. I have previously published positions for their Berlin offices. Maybe some opportunities for compliance professionals? 😅
📉 In Q1 2023, Berlin saw 403 corporate insolvencies, up 15.8% from last year. Most affected sectors: "Trade; repair of vehicles" (76 cases) & construction (65 cases). Mitte recorded the highest number with 74 proceedings. (B St.)
♻️ If you have good ideas on the circular economy, you can participate in Circular City Challenge until 1.10.2023—applications are also possible in English.
r/berlin choice of the week is this thread of What are some of the good traits that you like/respect about Berliners? which is outside of the usual Berlin bashing on parts of the subreddit. I’ve said it before: I have not experienced rudeness here. For me, the “Schnauze” is more irony or sarcasm, which I sort of like… hold on. Am I the Schnauze? Because once in Stuttgart, my good friend explained, “Nooo, he did not mean it in a bad way; it was a joke… It’s Igor.” 🤭
📚 Looking for an English bookstore? Look no further; here is the crowd wisdom of Reddit at work again.
💔 Avoid phones/screens when with your loved ones: “Using a sample of 145 adults, James Roberts and Meredith David found that “phubbing” (prioritizing one’s phone over people) among romantic partners leads to greater relationship dissatisfaction.“
🫣 Here is a bizarre consequence of pollution cuts: UN's 2020 regulations cut ships' sulfur pollution by 80%, enhancing global air quality but also lessening the “cooling” effect of low-lying reflective clouds caused by these emissions.
💬 Briefly:
Disney Plus will, similar to Netflix, also tackle password sharing; the US price rises from $10.99 to $13.99.
Volkswagen Financial Services acquired the remaining shares of Berlin's used car platform, Heycar, from Mercedes Benz. Heycar withdrew from Spain, cut 120 jobs in Germany, and now focuses on the UK. More. (🇩🇪)
HelloFresh reported record figures: operating profit up 31.5% to €191.9M, 1% revenue growth to €1.92B. Active customers dropped by 8.7%. Forecast: 2-8% growth this year with €470-540M adjusted EBITDA.
US PE fund, KKR, acquired a stake in Bremen-based OHB, which plans to delist from the stock market for more agility. As SpaceX's top European client, OHB hopes to be able to take faster decisions. Careers.
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
Nextwind | Berlin | Aims to modernize old wind parks and boost green electricity. | $750M | No Careers?
Deepset | Berlin | Focuses on open-source software for Natural Language Processing. | $30M | Careers.
Kraftblock | Saarbrücken | Stores waste heat with high-temperature storage systems. | €20M | Careers.
Stabl | Munich | Enhances battery storage with innovative inverters. | €15M | Careers.
sewts | Munich | AI software for precise robotic material handling. | €7M | Careers.
NeoTaste | Osnabrück | App expansion with a reservation system and restaurant benefits. | €5.9M | Careers.
Sereact | Stuttgart | Automates pick-and-pack in warehouses with AI. | €5M | Careers.
🤓 Timeless and useful
Extremely well-explained challenges of commonly used Net Promoter Score (1-10 rating where 1-6 sucks). Useful for everyone working with KPIs, HR, marketing, UI/UX. Keep it in mind next time when you ask people about their opinion.
😅 Meanwhile
the thermometer did not really work
This is a footer slice of 🇮🇳 stats for you: % of the world’s population that live in each Indian state. WILD 😅
✌️ Handpicked essentials:
- Berlin Salary Trends Report 2023: How do you compare?
- The best questions to ask at a job interview
- Write it down now! Or why you should journal at work?
- Submit your job (it’s free)
- Why do people read handpicked?
Now push that like ♡ button or leave a comment! And book that bike tour before it’s too late. ☺️