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How to work at a startup: 1. Finding a job : überlinüberlin

How to work at a startup: 1. Finding a job

by Guest Blogger

By Federico Prandi.

My mother used to put stuff in boxes. Professionally. She did it for 30 years at the same small-sized suburban Italian company and while the boxes were sent everywhere in the world, my mom and her career weren’t exactly going places.

My dad, the only male among four siblings, had to drop out of middle school to help his father in the fields. Like many of his peers, he learned to think of work as something that is closely related to suffering, sacrifice and blind obedience.

Whenever I tell my parents about company breakfasts, team building events and gamification, they share a very specific look that I’ve come to interpret as “Our son is lying to us. He doesn’t have a job in Berlin. He’s squatting an abandoned building and carries stolen drugs across countries in order to pay for his groceries.”

I get that look. I do. Growing up with a blue-collar mindset made me both conscious of my current luck and weirdly aware of the seemingly absurd sides of the startup life.

This series of posts is the natural consequence of that.

CHAPTER 1: FINDING A JOB

This is going to sound obvious, but in order to work at a startup – in Berlin or anywhere else – you need to either found one or be hired by one. I’m going to focus on the latter ’cause I’m a slacker and I’ve made it my life goal to achieve less and less every day.

If you’re smart you’ve probably created alerts that fire off an email every time a desirable position is available, either through Google Alerts or more specific job hunting platforms like Indeed.de or BerlinStartupJobs.com. What you might not know, though, is that when it comes to job titles startups can be as quirky as the side character of an indie TV series.

The chances that your alert will be triggered by the keyword “customer relationship manager” are thinner, for example, than the ones for the keyword “Customer Happiness Ninja”. Stop looking for “Sales Manager” and keep your eyes open for stuff like “Customer retention power ranger”, “Office management karate kid”, “Java Sorcerer” and any title that could have easily been invented by a Dungeon Master after his sixth pint of mead. ‘Cause nerdz.

Startups want their jobs to sound so cool that it’s impossible not to want them. I’m perfectly happy with my own job, but if I ever read an ad for a “fluffer of moral erections”, I’ll drop everything and go, even if it means I end up teaching old ladies how to dance salsa in a holiday resort a la Swayze in Dirty Dancing.

The exceptions to this rule are the internships. Companies don’t even try to make these “jobs” sound cool, given that the word “intern” is at times already an euphemism for “slave”.

Centuries ago, before the invention of coconut M&Ms or, like, minimum wage, I was doing an internship. Money was so tight that I felt compelled to rewrite the Wikipedia page for the term to reflect my true real feelings about the matter.

internship_wiki

Unfortunately a Wikipedia editor told me I wasn’t being – air quote – objective about the facts. Fine, Mr. Logic. Whatever.

Anyway, you need to really read those job postings and check off the required skills one by one, even if that’s boring. And when you’re doing so, try to be honest with yourself about your real capabilities. I once thought my brain had no boundaries, but then it turns out that things like the Norwegian language or “Ruby on Rails” (I still think that’s the name of a synthetic drug) cannot be learned overnight.

Bummer.

Once you’ve found a position that seems perfect for you, don’t just start shooting off applications like crazy. You need to pick the right startup before even letting them pick you. Of course you wanna be employed by a winner and there’s one basic criteria to discern whether an internet company is gonna take over the world. Mark my words: It’s all in the name.

Look around: the “General Motors” days are over. Don’t look for class, meaning or authority in a name. The startup world is now calling for “Goojdi”, “Faamp”, “Leerk” and “Huora” (which was gonna be the name of my own startup until someone told me it literally means “whore” in Finnish). In other words, you need to look for a name that sounds like something between the first words of a baby and what your cat may have written while walking on the keyboard.

The only acceptable alternative to this are Latin words. A lot of startup founders pick these, probably by listening to Harry Potter spells and noting down stuff that sounds nice. Sometimes it works, but other times your web agency ends up being called “ferocity” in Italian.

Roar.

In the next episode I’ll teach you how to actually apply for the startup job of your dreams.

Federico is an Italian in Berlin. He blogs, tweets, infiltrates the German language, and is currently employed at a cool internet company based in Berlin with a million open positions.

If you liked this, check out our observations on the Berlin startup scene, and get more practical advice about landing a startup job (with more GIFs!).

Win a pair of tickets to The Dillinger Escape Plan m/ – überlin

Win a pair of tickets to The Dillinger Escape Plan m/

by James Glazebrook

@benweinman on instagram

@benweinman on instagram

[EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

WTF. The Dillinger Escape Plan have to be the maddest band on the planet. Have a look at their craziest moments, and scroll down to find how to win 2 tickets to see them test Postbahnhof’s fire codes next Sunday, August 16th.

HOW TO WIN 2 X TICKETS FOR THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN AT POSTBAHNHOF ON 16TH AUGUST:

Want to headwalk your way to Postbahnof next Sunday? Just answer this question in the comments below:

What’s the craziest concert you’ve ever been to?

You have until 6pm on Friday 7th August. Good luck!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be at least 18 years old to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. We will keep a record of each comment in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner.
4. Remember to include your full (real) name and email address or we won’t be able to put you on the guestlist!
5. We will notify the winners via email.

7 Responses to “Win a pair of tickets to The Dillinger Escape Plan m/”

  1. Max Rogall says:

    JR Ewing, august 2006 @ Magnet Club Berlin
    Nothing to add.

  2. i have been to a few crazy concerts but the craziest one would be when Kyuss got back together in 2010 at Hellfest.

    i knew that Mondo Generator, Brant Bjork and John Garcia were playing in the same festival, in the same day and i remember talking to a few friends about how cool it would be if they got back together and played some tunes.

    so… every band plays their set without mentioning or playing anything from Kyuss. the last band to get onstage in John Garcia and he plays some Kyuss songs for a while until he decides to talk to the crowd and mentions Kyuss.

    He says that he saw Nick Olivieri and Brant Bjork playing before and that he would like to bring them onstage and play some Kyuss songs for the crowd. Before they got onstage, he mentions something like “… and Kyuss is back.” and they play Green Machine.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsD_AqABYIw

    this is the shitty video i did from that song.

  3. Sara Neidorf says:

    The craziest show I’ve ever been to was in a packed basement in the Beaumont Warehouse in West Philly with Stinking Lizaveta.

  4. Franziska says:

    The Swell Season @ Admiralspalast. Not a big fan of this kind of music … but the audience was the craziest I ever saw / heard. The sang every song perfectly. All choir parts and most difficult parts. The whole room was like a professional choir. Nobody could believe this … the band nor the audience. It was like a rush ????

  5. Eduardo Mattos says:

    It was christeene last sunday

  6. Bernd Bauer says:

    Dwarves in Berlin ’05 were utter insanity.

leave a comment

Win 2 x 2 tickets to Between the Buried and Me! – überlin

Win 2 x 2 tickets to Between the Buried and Me!

by James Glazebrook

Between the Buried and Me Coma Ecliptic

[EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

B-bands are smashing it in metal at the moment! We’ve just been raving about Bring Me The Horizon, but Between the Buried and Me may have pipped them for our album of the year so far. Like BMTH, BTBAM are pushing metalcore into new, exciting directions, albeit down the weirder progressive, concept-album path towards full-blown rock opera. Check out the video for “The Coma Machine” to find out what the frig that sounds like in 2015, and scroll down to win a pair of tickets to the band’s upcoming Berlin show!

HOW TO WIN 2 X TICKETS FOR THE BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME AT MUSIK & FRIEDEN ON 29TH SEPTEMBER:

Do you and a friend want to get your prog on at Musik & Frieden (formerly Magnet) next Tuesday? Just answer this question in the comments below:

What’s your pick for album of the year so far (in any genre)?

You have until 6pm on Friday 25th September. Good luck!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be at least 18 years old to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. We will keep a record of each comment in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner.
4. Remember to include your full (real) name and email address or we won’t be able to put you on the guestlist!
5. We will notify the winners via email.

7 Responses to “Win 2 x 2 tickets to Between the Buried and Me!”

  1. Sara Neidorf says:

    Pale Communion by Opeth

  2. Joao says:

    Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss

  3. Ana says:

    The Vaccines – English Graffiti

  4. Andy says:

    Mac Demarco – Another One

  5. Untitled by The Armed

  6. Wilson Fisk says:

    Stray from the Path – Subliminal Criminals

leave a comment

What I Know About Germans – The Book!überlin

What I Know About Germans – The Book!

by James Glazebrook

It’s finally here! We’re very proud and über-excited to announce that our first book, What I Know About Germans: 101 Observations, is out to buy today.

What I Know About Germans is based on our insanely popular blog post of the same name, which generated over 40,000 Facebook Likes, 600 blog comments, coverage by the likes of Bild and Financial Times Deutschland – and enough traffic to crash our servers on more than one occasion! A lovingly compiled collection of an Australian writer’s hilarious observations about her adopted beloved countrymen, What I Know About Germans has been brought to life as a beautiful book, available in both print and eBook versions.

Want to see what we’re so excited about? Take a peek inside…

What I Know About Germans: 101 Observations has been a year in the making, and is the result of a lot of hard work from a small but dedicated team. We’re indebted to author Liv Hambrett in particular for allowing us to publish her post in the first place, for writing new and improved observations for the book, and for being the unofficial WIKAG cheerleader while we pull it all together. I’d also like to thank Josh Bauman, whose awesome illustrations really bring Liv’s words to life, Eric for producing our impressive What I Know About Germans web page, Sharmaine, Evi and the epubli team for their help and support – and of course Zoë for beautifying everything with her boundless design talent! Group hug :D

Anyway, enough of my gabbing. To find out more about the book, and to pick up a copy, visit the What I Know About Germans: 101 Observations page now!

8 Responses to “What I Know About Germans – The Book!”

  1. […] for more. And in the meantime this has actually become a reality: The released their first book. What I know about Germans is a compilation of over 101 tongue-in-cheek observation about Germans and their quirky habits […]

  2. kelly ann says:

    jUST PURCHASED YOUR BOOK :) THINK YOU HAVE A NEW FAN .. BERLIN HERE I COME

  3. Job says:

    This will defenitely be on my christmas wishlist :)

  4. […] And the book came out. Look at it. It is bloody fantastic. […]

  5. Katie says:

    WTF you guys! This is amazing!! xxx

  6. Awesome job, all! Looking forward to buying myself a copy (or two..)!

  7. Federico says:

    Hahah The cover is amazing already!

leave a comment

Wedding: Workers, Foreigners and Beer : überlinüberlin

Wedding: Workers, Foreigners and Beer

by Guest Blogger

Photo by Linka A Odom

Photo by Linka A Odom

[EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

Letters from Berlin is a collection of 12 weekly essays, each focussed on a different district of the city. Bringing together photographers, filmmakers, writers, translators and theatre directors, Letters from Berlin (published by The Pigeonhole) reflects the many creative facets of this uncanny city, creating an album of vivid snapshots. 

Enjoy an excerpt from one of our favourite essays, Marcel Krüger’s walk through Wedding, and enter our competition to win a free subscription to the series.

Links, links, links, links,
Ein Lump wer kapituliert.
Links, links, links, link!
Der rote Wedding marschiert!

– Erich Weinert, 1929

Wedding was a raw expanse of towerblocks, tattoo pits, kebab shops. Nogoodniks in mauve-coloured tracksuits decorated every corner. We had a properly respectful air as we passed through. This was how Berlin was supposed to be. […] The rearsides of the towerblocks loomed either side of a dirt pathway itchy with catkins beneath our sandals, and the word ‘proletariat’ rolled its glamorous syllables over my tongue.

– Kevin Barry, from ‘Berlin Arkonaplatz – My Lesbian Summer’, 2012

…Sometimes I think that while Berlin is the ever-changing Moloch on the plains of Brandenburg and the wetlands of the Spree, its outgrowth Wedding has remained endearingly static over the last fifty years. Maybe it always had a certain roguishness that prevented beautification and change. Wedding is allegedly always up-and-coming. ‘Der Wedding kommt’, Wedding is coming, some of my friends used to say when I visited Berlin for the first time in 2001, staying near the fleshpots of then ungentrified Prenzlauer Berg. Some keep repeating it to this day. Der Wedding kommt.

It’s Sunday, by now after lunchtime and I’ve walked a bit: it’s definitely time for refreshments. I take a detour from Seestraße and step into a neighbourhood brewery, Vagabund Brauerei on Antwerpener Straße. Three American home brewers opened a small taproom here in 2013, and they serve their own craft brews together with classic German and Belgian beers.

Like many other working-class areas, Wedding has a long tradition of brewing, which is slowly being rejuvenated. On nearby Müllerstraße is Eschenbräu, one of Berlin’s first craft breweries, open since 2001, and also close by is the best small beer speciality store in Berlin, Hopfen & Malz. There’s also the VLB Berlin (Versuch- u. Lehranstalt für Brauerei in Berlin), which provides research, training, education and service for the brewing industry. Founded in 1883, it moved to its current location on Seestraße in 1898, and until 1981 it even operated the Hochschul Brauerei, or brewery university, where students could try brewing different types of beer, which were then sold to the public.

Vagabund Brewery has become a poster child for the local craft beer scene. It has been featured in articles in The New Yorker, Forbes travel, Der Spiegel and a plethora of German newspapers feting the craft-beer trend. One could easily say that Vagabund is a pub catering only to moustachioed expat drinkers and not to locals and is therefore a prime example of gentrification pushing out existing social structures, a topic hotly discussed in Berlin. As I enter the bright interior of the taproom, almost deserted so early on a Sunday afternoon, I’m glad to see both Matt Walthall and David Spengler, two of the three owners, manning the bar. We soon start chatting about beer and gentrification.

‘So often people ask us about this “trend” of locally brewed craft beer,’ Matt says. ‘David and I studied history, and that is part of what draws us to brewing: there’s so much history involved. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, every Berlin neighbourhood had its own brewery – so, for us, the whole appeal is not about being trendsetters. We clearly see ourselves as part of a tradition.

‘We didn’t plan to come to Wedding specifically. We looked all over Berlin for a year and a half, but we couldn’t find the right combination of brew room, taproom and a big enough basement. I was actually the one who was the most sceptical of Wedding – I thought of Bernauer Straße, Plattenbauten and so on. And then I moved here and now I’m the biggest promoter. Wedding still has a strong community feel to it, and there are no areas here where whole blocks have been bought by developers, like in Neukölln. And it’s one of the few places in Berlin where the classic population structures have not been pushed out – the majority of our neighbours have been here for twenty or thirty years.’

Indeed, the neighbouring commercial establishments are a strange mix of shisha bars, corner pubs with Sternenburger posters (‘Sterni’ is the cheap and mass-produced Berlin beer preferred by many inhabitants of Wedding) and bookmakers with bright neon signs reflecting off the street’s wet cobblestones. Three years ago, a man ran amok on the street here, armed with two knives and an axe, and was shot by the police. But in general nowadays, things are fairly quiet.

‘We love how laid back the street is,’ David chips in. ‘Sometimes when I’m in some of those “happening” districts down in the southeast of the city, I’m amazed because there’s just so many people. In our little promenade street, it’s much more laid-back and chill. I also like knowing the people from the neighbourhood and even having a drink with them sometimes. I think that might be harder to do somewhere else.’

‘In the beginning I was quite nervous about whether the neighbours would accept us,’ Matt admits. ‘There was this elderly woman walking past the shop every day when we were renovating, and she was always giving us this look, and I thought, “She probably hates us.” Then one day when I was outside cleaning the windows she came up to me and said, “Oh I’m so glad that you kids are here now!” Afterwards we learned that the previous tenants were Hell’s Angels.’

I ask David how he feels about gentrification, especially in Wedding.

‘I guess some people would consider us gentrifiers,’ he says, ‘but really, that word just plain sucks, along with its negative connotations. We didn’t take over the entire block with the intention of knocking down all the old buildings, building new high-rise apartment complexes and charging three times the rent. That, to me, is “gentrification”. We just built a small brewery and bar in a place that once sold heroin out the back door. If a small, independently owned coffee shop or bookstore or chess store opens up, is that also gentrification? Where is the line, the gentrifi-demarcation? I made that last word up, by the way.”

We both laugh, and I drain my glass. Time to walk more of Wedding. I finally hop on one of the trams and travel along Osloer Straße to the former border, clanking past the Currywurst booth on the corner of Prinzenallee, where sausages are served with the hottest sauces in Berlin; they have names like ‘Pain Is Good’, ‘Ground Zero’ and ‘Holy Shit’. We cross the Panke, the small, ancient river that runs all the way from Bernau in Brandenburg through Pankow and Wedding until it ends in the Berlin-Spandau shipping canal, another former border between East and West. I switch from tram to U-Bahn and emerge onto the corner of Brunnenstraße and Bernauer Straße soon after.

After the Second World War, Wedding became part of the French sector of Berlin. French troops occupied a large military complex near Tegel airport and erected a cultural centre complete with a 15-metre-high faux Eiffel Tower on Müllerstraße. They protected the Western Sector, but the development of prospering Wedding still lay in the hands of the West Berlin city council.

The buildings on the north side of Wedding’s Bernauer Straße and the street itself, including sidewalks, were in the Allied sector, while the buildings along the southern side were in Soviet territory. When the Berlin Wall was erected in August 1961, many of those who lived in these buildings frantically jumped from their windows before the buildings were evacuated and the windows bricked up. Wedding was also the western terminus of one of the first refugee tunnels dug underneath the Berlin Wall. The tunnel ran from the basement of an abandoned factory on Schönholzer Straße in the Soviet sector to another building in the West, passing underneath Bernauer Straße. Though well constructed and successfully kept a secret, the tunnel was plagued by water from leaking pipes and had to be shut down after only a few days of operation. Near the spot on Bernauer Straße where the tunnel ended, a section of the Wall has been reconstructed as one of the official memorials to the division of Germany.

 

A few weeks before my walk, I was talking to Sven Goldmann, a journalist for the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, who remembers growing up in Wedding during the Cold War: ‘My grandmother often reminded us how good we had it,’ he told me. ‘In the Thirties, Wedding had been a communist area and dangerous. People were shot here. Every third man was out of work and the women were sitting at home. Well, my grandmother was old. The younger generations had a better time: all the communists were living behind the Berlin wall, and there were no people out of work here. As kids we were happy: our parents worked at the Wittler bread factory in Maxstraße or at the Rotaprint printing press, and we played football on the many empty spaces among the buildings. Well, at least until the builders came and we had to find another pitch.’

As Annett Gröschner writes in City Spaces: Filling in Berlin’s Gaps (Readux, 2015; trans. Katy Derbyshire), when the Wall was built, the neighbourhood around Brunnenstraße ‘lent itself to urban planning experiments. For the reconstruction of Wedding, soon revealed as its eradication, a gigantic money-wasting machine was set in motion, private land was bought up by non-commercial housing associations, old houses demolished and new ones built that looked thin-skinned and made only for sleeping in.’ Today, this is known as Brunnenviertel, a striking conglomeration of 1970s concrete and plastic.

‘One day our teacher took us to one of the watchtowers for tourists, from where we could observe East Berlin,’ Sven Goldman said, ‘and she told us how lucky we were to have all the new buildings here while the people in the East had to live in the shabby old houses.’

After the Wall fell and capitalism had defeated communism, Wedding suffered. In a united Germany, Berlin companies no longer received state subventions, and many of the factories in Wedding closed as business was outsourced. In the last twenty-five years, unemployment in Wedding has been at a steady fifteen per cent, and even though there are initiatives by both state and city to tackle this, it seems many people here will remain without jobs for the foreseeable future. Petty crime is also widespread. Soldiner Straße near Gesundbrunnen, for example, had such a bad name that footballers at the 2006 World Cup described it as ‘Berlin’s Soweto’. Around the turn of the millennium, various groups were formed in an attempt to bring some positive energy to the area. The arts initiative Kolonie Wedding, founded in 2001, set up studios and galleries in what would be otherwise empty shop fronts and once a month hosts coordinated vernissage weekends with walking tours between the different venues.

 

I take the U-Bahn and re-emerge from its depths on Nauener Platz, where the owner of the local kebab shop calls me ‘neighbour’ every time I stop by, and where a punk with beer on his breath once helped me out with washing powder at the laundrette. I reach my little apartment building again, the grey, two-storeyed one, nestled between the five-storey Wilheminian buildings to its left and right. The sun is finally out and the drunkard/madman gone, and on the other side of the street Turkish teenagers sit on benches in the park tilting their sunglassed faces skywards. As I enter the building, I find a poster hung there by Berlin police, informing me that someone has broken into our building while I have been out.

 

This is Wedding: fifty-year-old corner pubs that once catered to off-shift workers and now serve those in need of a drink at ten in the morning; communists, resistance fighters and morphine addicts; a mini Eiffel Tower and young Americans reanimating the age-old brewing tradition of Prussian Berlin. It’s not a particularly nice place, but it is a prime example of the fascinating ruggedness often associated with Berlin that is fast disappearing from many other places throughout the city.

HOW TO WIN A FREE SUBSCRIPTION FOR LETTERS FROM BERLIN –

Just leave us a comment below. The first 10 comments get a free subscription!

You have until 6pm on Friday 24th July to enter. Good luck!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be 18 years or older to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. The first 10 comments win. Simple as.
4. If you win, we’ll let you know by email how to claim your prize.

10 Responses to “Wedding: Workers, Foreigners and Beer”

  1. Rose says:

    I definitely need to spend more time in Wedding, despite living right on the other side of Berlin!

  2. pszimokus says:

    This makes me want to go back to Berlin to explore the city further.

  3. laura lee says:

    I love wedding ,special people x

  4. Marie says:

    I’m so looking forward to moving to Berlin’s Soweto in just about half a month! (:

  5. Ruth Barber says:

    Superb. I will also write an essay for you if you are looking for contributions.

  6. Susanne says:

    love it! :)

  7. Jen says:

    If I (n)ever get married, I’ll do it in Wedding.

  8. Hannah Graves says:

    This is wonderfully written and actually makes me want to go to Wedding!!

  9. Carlos says:

    Hey! :) I would be happy to wind a free subscription!

  10. paghno says:

    Zurückbleiben bitte..

leave a comment

überlin Coworking – End of an Era – überlin

überlin Coworking – End of an Era

by James Glazebrook

We have some sad news – in about a month’s time, we are going close the doors on the überlin coworking space. Our landlord has decided to sell off the building, including the beautiful space that’s been our shared office, photo studio and workshop/party space for nearly two years. We’ve given a lot of thought to starting again in another space, but with demanding day jobs that we love, we know we can’t spare the time and attention another coworking business would need to thrive.

We’re super-grateful for everything we got out of this experience while it lasted. We’ve learned a lot, met a lot of great people, had some great times, and seen them produce a lot of great work. And we’ve benefitted from the help, skills and support of a lovely bunch of people, including family and friends, old and new. We’ve said specific thankyous before, and always missed out people, so let’s just say that you know who you are. If you were at all involved in helping to create the space, make it a success, or keeping us sane while we struggled with the extra work we’d given ourselves, then we will always be grateful. There’d be no überlin without ü! *sniff*

PS this means that Zoë is on the hunt for somewhere to shoot. If you have any leads on commercial spaces, or shared photo studios, drop her an email. Thanks!

So you want to work for a Berlin startup? – überlin

So you want to work for a Berlin startup?

by Guest Blogger

An insider’s view of the Berlin startup scene by Abby Carney, with some practical job-hunting tips – and GIFs curated by When You Live in Berlin.

I moved from Atlanta to Berlin last summer to intern with a particular startup. But after nearly a year of working and socializing in what quickly became the cramped quarters of the startup bubble, I have lost a bit of the bright eyed naivety that led me here.

I have nothing but good things to say about my former employers and the friends I’ve made through startups, but having led one version of the typical expat’s life within the tight tech scene of entrepreneurs and endless hack days (who knew so many things could be hacked?), I can honestly say that all that glitters isn’t gold. And if you feel like your job/life lacks risk and thrills, I’d advise against yearning for the exciting life of a startup employee, because it comes at a cost, and so much of the hype is just that – hype.

Prior to my move, I read article after article, dug up every TED talk, interview, and minutiae of information that would give me insight into the famed Berlin tech startup sector. After being in it, meeting people at different companies, and seeing things up close, I came to realize that startups (at least in Berlin) are often times rampant with sexism, unprofessionalism, and confused 20-something boys in high-level positions – afraid to ask for help when they need it, and reluctant to take counsel or constructive criticism. Peacocking for investors and venture capitalists is what they do best – because their livelihood ultimately depends on impressing these people – and watching this pan out is like watching women dolled up for beauty pageants, sucking in and strutting around in uncomfortable gowns and unnaturally high heels.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are good! Technology is vast and amazing, much like the universe itself. But I now see startups for what they are – new business ventures that are fully reliant on investors, and are not yet profitable. This is why people work themselves into the ground, rarely leaving the office save for meetups, parties, and networking events… It’s not Hollywood, as some would have you believe, and these CEOs aren’t necessarily any smarter or more on the ball than anyone else. A great many of them don’t have a clue what they’re doing, and their worst fear is that you’ll find them out.

It’s not all good, and it’s not all bad. Taking part in startup shenanigans and seeing it all up close and personal has given me a more balanced perspective. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz when Toto knocks down the screen, revealing the great and powerful Oz to be just a little old man with a control panel, the pageantry of startups in Berlin can be a bit of a sham and a lot of smoke and mirrors. It’s necessary to pull back the curtain to determine who really knows what they’re talking about. Much of the time, these small companies are successful not because they are run by smart, talented, hardworking folks, but because they are young, beautiful, well-spoken Soho House regulars. Not to say that the two camps can’t exist within the same business, but in my Berlin experience, I’ve found the occurrence to be rare.

Do your homework

So, if you’ve made it this far and despite the disclaimer, you still think Berlin startup life is for you, my advice to the potential budding startup employees out there is to perform a background check on the companies you consider working with. Doing your homework means being thorough – befriend the startup gossips and get the scoop on everyone in the village. Despite appearances, it’s a small town, and it’s good to know who you’re crawling into bed with.

It’s true of any business, corporate or fledgling, that who you work with and for is crucial to your success and happiness within the organization, but especially in startups. When work is typically done in close quarters, teams are small and the line between work and home becomes seriously blurred, it’s important to join a team of people you trust, admire, and respect. A lot. So if possible, find their former employees, people who have been laid off, or who have moved on, and quietly find out what you might be getting yourself into. Simply perusing their press page isn’t going to yield the sort of answers you’re looking for.

Seek diversity

Don’t be blinded by the free Club Mates and fancy espressos. Pay attention to who’s on the team. Age is just a number, but in some cases, it matters. A startup with the wisdom and leadership of someone (or a few someones) who’s been around the block a time or two is a huge asset, as there are no shortcuts to experience and maturity. They’re gained the old fashioned way – over time. A few tree rings means your startup of choice is run by insightful, intelligent folks who will likely value you and your skills. Be looking for female employees too, particularly in leadership roles. According to the research, teams with greater gender diversity generate more innovative thinking in problem solving.

Find a balance

Also, resist the urge to drink the Kool Aid. What I mean by this is simply to keep balance in your life. Actually have a life that exists outside the office. There’s something genuinely beautiful about the way many startup teams feel close to each other, like a family, and they spend most of their time together during their off hours as well. But the downside to this is that you will create a bubble for yourself, and sooner or later you’ll burn out. Find at least one hobby, group, or activity that you keep separate from work so that you don’t go crazy. And for heaven’s sake, try your best not to date your co-workers. Berlin is a big city, and there are plenty of fish in its murky sea. Better to throw a line in the Spree than in your own workplace.

That being said, enjoy your time working to create something you feel connected to. It will be perhaps some of the most arduous and soul-enhancing endeavor you’ve ever been a part of, working for a startup. If you’ve counted the costs and are in for the wild ride, why not give Berlin startup life a try?

35 Responses to “So you want to work for a Berlin startup?”

  1. […] read the newspapers, heard the critiques, and listened to the song, but do you still find yourself wondering, “Is everyone really moving […]

  2. […] a first hand account of what it’s like to work at a Berlin start-up, read Abby’s story. Or take a look at this graduate guide to Berlin’s start-up […]

  3. […] Abby Carney discusses the Berlin startup scene and what you might want to look for when choosing a place to work (So You Want to Work for a Berlin Startup?) […]

  4. I feel like shouting, SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT! Well put. Also you’re a great writer and if you’re ever looking for a job, holler.

    • Abby Carney says:

      Oh hey, Courtney! I haven’t checked back on the comments here in a few months, but thank you so much for your kind words! And coincidentally, I am very much looking for a job. We should chat.

  5. Amanda says:

    perfect. enought and well said. i wish i have read it one year ago, just as some preparation.

  6. […] culture and their city, you need to learn German. Most jobs outside of the ultra-competitive startup scene call for at least basic German skills, as do meetings at any government building and phone calls […]

  7. Patricia says:

    I agree with you berlin is a very nice place for working and living. If you look for it jobs you can check my site Marsjobs.net

  8. Ulf (ex-EasyBib) says:

    On the other hand, the Berlin startup scene can also be seen as a bit of a joke.

  9. Joc Cousteau says:

    Abby has enough guts to speak truthfully and enough wit to speak intelligently, cleverly. If its more women we need in the Berlin start-up seen, then this lady should be front in center.

  10. Avant-Hard says:

    Exactly my experience.

  11. Loll says:

    Nice one Abby! It’s nice to read a personal account of “the other side”. I feel maybe said bitterness felt in said Swiss Get Your Guide office has in fact little to do with you and your opinions per se.

  12. Luke says:

    Well said.

  13. It’s a brave and nuanced article. As a representative of a media outlet in the Berliner startup scene I will try to be more aware regarding these issues. Thank you.

  14. Johann says:

    “But I now see startups for what they are – new business ventures that are fully reliant on investors, and are not yet profitable. ”

    Unless they are bootstrapped, which requires earning some money on the side. But that’s not the kind of startups these guys you talk about here want to build (or, for the most part, are able to build in the first place), or that you hear about in the “tech media bubble”. Nobody knew Peritor before they were bought by Amazon, most people didn’t know about them long after – many still don’t know.

    Good article, could use some more concrete examples though! ????

    • v says:

      All examples are from Abby’s time at Gidsy. The bitterness can be felt all the way in Swiss GetYourGuide offices..

      The essence of what she’s saying is mostly true, I just find it sad that she couldn’t write it without all the petty digs at “a few someones”…

      wahhhhhuuuuhhhh wahhhuhhhhh

      • Natalie says:

        I am positive she is not talking about her old coworkers here. I know because I know her and I know them. It sounds like a broader view at startups in general and of course some people are not going to like the perspective she writes from because we often don’t hear the negatives of startup life.

        I don’t think she is being petty, I think she is being honest in her perspective and in the end it is her take on startups — not everyone has her experiencel.

        I don’t think it should be looked at that way at all.

        • v says:

          Like I said, I think she states the truth… In fact I don’t disagree with any of the main points.
          I just don’t agree that it’s a “broad view”.. this article is filled with insinuations from Abby’s ONE start-up experience, and if you don’t see that you’re letting your friendship cloud your judgement.

          I would’ve loved to read an article like this, but without the baggage AC brought to it.

          • Natalie says:

            I know she is a freelancer and has had more than one experience in the startup world. But, I know this is hard subject for many people and writing about it will of course make people upset. It might also make people think they are being singled out.

            I was just stating that I hope and don’t think she is calling anyone out in particular. And, yes we are friends so I am vouching for her because I know her.

          • Abby says:

            I think Natalie did a great job of explaining, but I thought I would add, V, that this is not a blog post directed at any particular person or company, but is a broad view of startups within the city, that broad view being mine, and we are all entitled to our own opinions, eh?

            I think it is interesting that you make such a generalization about my personal experiences without knowing me. If I had just one startup experience, I don’t believe I would write a general piece about Berlin startups. However, I am a freelancer and have worked and collaborated with several startups in the area. I do not dislike startups or feel any malice towards anyone in that world, and just after the opening line mentioned that I have nothing but good things to say about my former employers and friends here.

      • cea says:

        some people have no home training. who calls someone out and references where they worked. and did you write the article? you clearly didn’t. you don’t know her personal work history or experience.

      • Abby says:

        Hi V,

        Thanks for weighing in. I appreciate your insights, however I believe you’ve misread and misunderstood the piece. There is no bitterness or resentment, and if you read through to the end, you will understand that I am trying to give a balanced perspective based on my personal experiences working with startups in Berlin, Gidsy being only one of many I have worked for, collaborated, and/or socialized with. These are all personal opinions expressed here, which is why it’s a blog post, and not a journalistic article.

      • Mike V. says:

        Wow, anonymous poster. Your dedication to ad hominem attacks, unprofessional name dropping, and straight up rudeness sure does a lot to bolster the professionalism and responsible behavior of the Berlin startup scene.

        Not.

    • cea says:

      stop saying these guys..i’m so sick of reading that in the comments section on startup articles. there are plenty of hard working women that work in startups too.

      and aren’t you stating the obvious by saying no one wants to bootstrap. duh.

      • Johann says:

        Berlin has an extremely low percentage of female founders and the problems she wrote about were with “20-something boys in high-level positions”, so I don’t think there is a need to bring idiotic gendering into this, even if you read it literally. Also, I have neither worked for a startup with a female founder nor heard of similar problems at one of the few startups with female founders… which probably doesn’t say a whole lot, because there are just not that many around in Berlin. (I mean actual independent companies, not company builder creations)

        Plenty of people want to bootstrap and do in fact bootstrap, you misunderstood that. Just (apparently) not people with a certain background.

  15. v says:

    Someone call the waaahmbulance… sounds like Abbey needs to go back to the 9 to 5 world.

    • Dr Fun says:

      Can you read? She’s not complaining, she’s giving a realistic view of what Berlin startups are like. If she was bawwwing she wouldn’t have ended the article with telling the reader to give it a try.

  16. Frieda says:

    Nailed it! I agree with you 100%. Wish we had met ????

  17. Extra points for using the word “Peacocking”

  18. Adam says:

    Thanks for saying this! It needed to be said.

  19. Yes says:

    You nailed it, nothing to add really. It’s not all bad, it’s not all good. And it has always been that way, maybe before 2000 startups were often a bit less fashion bloggish. But essentially some experience does help. I am 34 now.

  20. Lucy says:

    This is great Abby slash I couldn’t agree more.

leave a comment

Pro tips: shop at IKEA like a BOSS! – überlin

Pro tips: shop at IKEA like a BOSS!

by Guest Blogger

By Danilo Sierra.

Going to IKEA is a pain in the butt, but it is a necessary evil, especially for any manager of an office or coworking space. If have a wallet as deep as the Mariana Trench, go ahead and get everything from somewhere fancy like Modulor or Minimum. And if you have endless amounts of time, get thee to the Trödel shops. However, the rest of us need to prepare for a quest.

Here are some tips on how to tackle your IKEA trip like a pro  <ahem, like James, Zoe and I!> and make the most of out of going there:

1. Be prepared.

Do your research. Make sure you are going to the IKEA closest to you. And measure the space you are buying for, because there is nothing worse than hoarding – especially IKEA furniture.

Use their shitty website and read the notes below each item, which describes its exact size. If you are some kind of retro oddball, use the paper catalogue. But go with a list already made!

Bonus points: add the article numbers (in this format xxx.xxx.xxx) to a printout of a mood board-style wishlist.

2. Measure up!

IKEA think they are helping by giving you those tiny pencils and paper tape measures, but they are complete shit compared to a proper aluminium or wood I’m-a-construction-worker-who-drinks-Sternis-at-9-am kind of meter. You know, the ones that cost two Euros in Bauhaus.

Using a proper meter will help you to measure accurately, check your angles, get a sense of the volume of your space, and save you tons of time.

Pro tip: bring a floor plan drawn to scale. Then you can be sure you’ve bought everything you need, and left space for important things like fire exits and humans.

3. Do it from behind <hehe>

You need to know exactly how much time you have, including the commute. If you have two or more hours, go ahead and run the maze like IKEA suggests/forces you to. But if you followed through on points 1 and 2, you should be able to cheat and start from the back.

Walk in through the out door and go directly to the warehouse. This is the best way to avoid the unnecessary showrooms, impulse-shopping, student-parent combos, new families (gross!) and their strollers. You are here in a professional capacity.

Pro tip: if you do find yourself in the maze, look up the short cuts (yes, they do have them).

4. Use self-checkout.

It is way faster!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. TREAT. YO. SELF.

Have meatballs for dinner. And if you’ve left yourself tons of time, have meatballs before you shop, and hot dogs after.

As well as these culinary delights, treat yourself to a taxi, Möbeltaxi or delivery service. IKEA do same-day delivery through another company, with the cost based on how much you bought. If you don’t mind waiting something stupid like three weeks, buy online and pay them to assemble the stuff for you. That way, there are fewer things for you to mess up, not least your back.

6. Stay loyal.

Consider signing up for a loyalty program, like IKEA Business or IKEA Family. You will get proper invoices, gift cards, and a not-that-bad user interface which you can use to track your business relationship with IKEA (and download the old invoices if you lose them). It works, bitches!

Try these tips and track how fast you go from UGH to NOM! Meatballs!

7 Responses to “Pro tips: shop at IKEA like a BOSS!”

  1. papaerk says:

    PS hotdogs and fries are lush X

  2. papaerk says:

    Brill article guys and inzuam is spot on with that advice!!!!

  3. Vanessa says:

    Amazing timing – we treated ourselves to meatballs first, then hotdogs and ice cream after. I LOVE IKEA! ????

  4. inzuam says:

    Another tip (if possible with your work-shedule): experience IKEA on a Tuesday morning. Empty floors, no lines at the cash registers, relaxed staff and everything what was sold out on a crazy weekend is already re-stocked

leave a comment

Portrait: Recyclemented – überlin

Portrait: Recyclemented

by Guest Blogger

jacquie and clement standing against rusty backdrop

by Emma Robertson

For Clement Jeannesson and Jacquie Kappl, furniture construction is a labour of love. Their design company, Recyclemented, is less than a year old; although in many ways it’s still a hobby, the pair is working tirelessly to build it up into a fully-fledged career, one palette at a time. Using found wood, discarded materials and (especially) old EuroPalettes, Clement and Jacquie are giving new life to Berlin’s forsaken and forgotten: the result is strikingly unique furniture, each with its own twist on the traditional.

Clement and Jacquie, originally from France and Germany respectively, started Recyclemented in Melbourne, Australia. “We moved to the Gold Coast and we were pretty poor at the time,” Jacquie explains. “We had an apartment but we had no furniture, so we started building stuff out of bits and pieces we found on the side of the road. At some point, we had like seven tables in our place!”

It’s become something of a Cinderella story since they relocated to Berlin at the beginning of this year; although Clement has a history in mechanics and steelwork, both are self-taught woodworkers, picking up the tricks of the trade through YouTube videos, online tutorials, and good old trial-and-error. We caught up with Clement and Jacquie at their studio in Lichtenberg to talk upcycling, working in Berlin, and how passion drives creativity.

recyclemented banner

What is more important as a designer, form or function?

Clement Jeannesson: Function, for sure! Function is better because if you make a chair that looks beautiful but you can’t sit on it, what’s the point?

Jacquie Kappl: He always lectures me on that one! (Laughs) I have all these ideas, “We have to do this! We can make it like that!” but then Clement comes in, “Nope. It’s not sehr gut.” (Laughs)

CJ: Well, it has to be useful! What are you going to do with it? We’re selling furniture first. It’s an art piece in the end — it’s beautiful, sure, but it’s furniture. It has to serve its purpose. It can be a nice table but it has to work.

JK: I have a lot of ideas. I’m the dreamer of the two of us. For Clement, it’s more about actually putting the ideas to paper.

working on different elements

Where do you come up with your best ideas?

CJ: For me it’s non-stop! Everywhere I go! It’s 24/7 for me. When I’m at work, I get ideas and I can just take them and run with it. I’m a bit obsessed with being creative, trying to come up with more ideas, more and more and more, and then — the best part — actually turning them into something.

JK: Clement is teaching me to come up with my ideas before I come to work, to bring them to the shop and then work on them here instead of wasting time sitting around thinking. It actually really is helpful because at the start, I wasn’t doing that. I’d just come in, sit here, turn around the wood, thinking, looking at everything…

CJ: We don’t have a lot of materials so that affects us creatively. We’re never going to do 12 of the same table, for example, because I’m never going to be able to find 12 of the same kind of wood! So, every time it’s a bit of a challenge because you have to make it work with what you’ve got. But the more we do it, the easier it gets. It’s never boring.

closeup of ruler

Do you ever get tired of that challenge, though?

JK: I don’t know. It’s extra challenging and at the same time, it isn’t. It appeals to a customer that wants something unique. But at the end of the day, there’s a style they’re asking for so you can’t always give them exactly that because you’re tied to the types of wood you find…

CJ: It’s also difficult because you don’t want to do something too unique every time.

It’s a fine balance, I guess. If people wanted cookie-cutter furniture, they’d go to IKEA.

JK: Exactly. Plus, in terms of what we’re doing, we don’t have a lot of competition at the moment. If there’s anyone else doing recycled material furniture with our same style, we haven’t heard of it.

Is it necessary to push boundaries like that when you’re working in a field that is so traditional?

CJ: I have to say, this job has been here forever! Before steel, before everything, woodworking was always here. So, yes, if you don’t do something a little bit different, you don’t exist.

JK: Especially in Berlin where there are so many artists, it’s not just doing something different, but doing something good. You have to be amazing. More than exceptional. People have to recognise you, you have to have a signature where people can see, Oh, this is Recyclemented. It’s good because it challenges us. We like a challenge. It’s on, IKEA!

stacked wood

Where do you find the wood you use? This part of Lichtenberg seems like it would be a good place to find discarded wood. Do you go on missions to find material?

CJ: Not really. It’s just become a natural part of our day-to-day life. If we see something, we stop and pick it up.

JK: We’ve got a big truck! (Laughs) We do buy some materials though, the products that give the finishing touches and hardware that will make the furniture last longer. We want to provide a high quality piece. The idea is to sell products that are quality — that’s really important.

CJ: Like you said, in this area near our studio space, there’s always a lot of scraps and pieces that would go to waste normally. There are a lot of businesses here, a lot of construction areas that produce a lot of waste.

Would your work have as much personality if you were using wood that was brand new?

JK: Well, it wouldn’t be the same fun, that’s for sure. It would definitely lose a lot of the personality if we bought the wood. It wouldn’t be Recyclemented.

CJ: We love this concept, using old to make new. Everything comes from everything, for us. It’s part of the adventure and an important part of the end product. We’ll name the piece after the street corner where we found the palette. (Laughs) You know exactly where it comes from that way. Better than going to IKEA and you have no idea where it comes from.

JK: This was a good initiative for us at the start because we didn’t have money to buy furniture. This was a great way for us to be able to have the things we need and create this new lifestyle for ourselves.

working together

Would you say that Berlin is the right city for this kind of design? Are people responsive to your style?

JK: This whole “upcycling” trend is going really well in Berlin, so yes, people are very responsive to what we make. People are becoming more and more conscious in a way, of living and of the environment. There’s definitely a market for it. You just need to find your spot there, and have a voice. That’s what we’re working on.

Was that eco-friendly nature of Recyclemented something that’s always been important to you?

JK: In the beginning, it was more important to me than to Clement. I’m the hippie in this relationship! (Laughs) But he’s the one who actually got into the knowledge behind it! Certain palettes for example, are treated with toxins. You know how eggs have a serial number to show which is free-range, which is factory farmed and stuff? It’s the same with palettes, they’re stamped in the same way for which ones are treated and which are not. We need to know this stuff because people put our furniture in their living spaces.

Wow, I didn’t know that.

JK: You have to be careful, and not everyone is. I don’t know if it’s a money issue here in Berlin that the eco-friendly thing hasn’t picked up as much, but in Australia, it’s huge already. I think it can only grow from here! We see more and more the effects of what’s happening if we don’t take care of the planet, you know? It sounds cheesy but we have to be behind that if we want to keep this planet together. Small things make a difference!

painting wood closeup

Do you worry that furniture from recycled material will go out of style?

JK: No. It’s still pretty new in Berlin, it’s only starting to become a big trend. I think we’re starting at the right moment. The downside is that because the palettes are becoming trendy… You’ve seen it in front of cafés, they make this simple bench out of bottle crates and a piece of wood, right? They call that recycled or upcycled furniture. And that makes it hard for us, because when people hear about our stuff, they have that pre-existing notion of it as this pile of junk on the sidewalk.

CJ: We do use the palette as the first material but, in the end, it doesn’t look like a palette! That’s the whole point!

closeup of clement

Even with your unique style, would you say there’s a lot of competition? I always see homeware and furniture out at the markets and stuff…

JK: It depends on what kind of markets you go to. There are the design markets, where the people are coming specifically to buy furniture and big pieces for the home… But then there’s Mauerpark where the tourists go, so they don’t buy furniture, obviously.

CJ: They just want to have a look and have a stroll on a Sunday, which is nice — we like to do that too. A lot of people at the markets want to go for a bargain, they want stuff really cheap because they can get it for those prices at Mauer. That’s not such a good location for us.

JK: Five euro for a handmade shelf? (Laughs) Get out!

CJ: They all want vintage! It’s big in Berlin, so everyone wants the vintage at flea markets like Mauerpark… We’re not fans of it at all! Sometimes it’s just old junk that’s labelled vintage, and because it’s so trendy, people really look for it at the flea markets. But at the design markets and some of the other pop-ups, people love to pass by our stall and look at the furniture, take photos and stuff.

soldering in workshop

I love going to the markets, but I never buy furniture there because I have no way of getting it home!

JK: Exactly, we get a lot of requests because of that. People who come by bike or on the Bahn, they have no way to transport a table back to their flat.

CJ: It’s been a good learning experience. The first markets we did, we brought all the big tables and the big shelves but eventually we started to build a few smaller pieces, accessories, and things like the triangle shelves that are easier to transport.

It seems like this has all been a good learning experience for you.

CJ: Of course. We start from scratch with the wood. No one has taught us these techniques, we learn everything from trying, from doing. There’s a lot of pieces and I’m getting prouder and prouder of what I’m doing. We can see ourselves improving, and that’s a good sign I think.

Follow Recyclemented on Facebook and Instagram, and check out their designs on their website.Use the offer code “Überlin” when you contact them to get 10% off! (offer good through to the end of 2015).

finished recyclemented piece of furniture

Portrait: Pauline Hoch, Our/Berlin – überlin

Portrait: Pauline Hoch, Our/Berlin

by Guest Blogger

20150916-zoenoble-7788-1

by Emma Robertson

“Is it too early to start drinking?” I ask upon arrival at the Our/Berlin vodka distillery in Treptow. Luckily, Pauline Hoch, one-half of Paul Sanders, the marketing agency at the helm of Our/Berlin, doesn’t think so. Laughing, she fixes me a drink: their new tea-infused vodka, a splash of tonic, ice and a tendril of orange peel. “We were on an inspirational weekend with the team at a house in the countryside when the homeowner suggested we infuse the vodka with tea,” Pauline explains, “It was genius. Then a local tea company called Paper & Tea got in touch with us unexpectedly, and we were able to collaborate. It was an effortless partnership.” Such seems to be the way with Our/Berlin vodka: they emphasise not only a sense of local camaraderie and community, but a simple, homegrown aesthetic that is the very essence of their brand.

Our/Vodka got its start in Stockholm in 2013 when a group working with Pernod Ricard came up with the idea for a global brand with local roots. After looking in the nightclub and gastronomy industry in Berlin, the team met with the Paul Sanders Agency (run by Pauline and her partner Jon Sanders). The first of many effortless partnerships, I guess. With Berlin as its flagship city, the brand has since taken on Detroit, Amsterdam, London, and Seattle as its adoptive homes. Here, the brand has evolved from more than just a simple vodka manufacturer: the team hosts infusion workshops, dinner parties, cooking classes, art exhibitions, and happy hours. After a quick tour of the distillery’s facilities, I sat down with Pauline to talk simplicity, science, space, and of course, vodka.

20150916-zoenoble-7594-2

With wine, there is a very distinct process for evaluating and tasting. Is there a proper way to drink vodka?

Of course the Russians would say you have to drink a lot. (Laughs) Especially when you eat! I think our cultural standards are a little different here in Germany. We try to tell our customers that they should try the vodka pure and at room temperature so they can really appreciate the quality. Of course, it’s also okay to just mix it with a soft drink, Mineralwasser, or tonic. You don’t have to be an experienced bartender to make a nice drink!

And how do you drink it?

In summer, I like a strawberry margarita with vodka. But in the winter, we collaborate with Berliner Winter to make a kind of hot vodka drink with apple cider. It’s similar to a grog, and very delicious. I also really like it after dinner as a digestif, kind of like a grappa… But like I said, drinking it pure is the best way to appreciate it.

The taste is very subtle, which I think is rare for vodka.

Exactly — it’s very mild. I think vodka has a bad reputation because people think of the taste in a certain way…. Our/Vodka is not overpowering, there’s no real “flavour,” so to speak. Some people say it’s a bit lavender-ish, some say there’s a hint of lemon, but there’s nothing that we add in. We use German-local ingredients and purified Berlin Leitungswasser, so the recipe is really as simple as the concept itself. It’s funny because I have a lot of girlfriends that aren’t into drinking vodka, but they drink this vodka because it’s so smooth.

20150916-zoenoble-7720-3

Can you explain the science behind the distilling process? What exactly happens behind closed doors here?

I’ll give you the simplified version: here in the factory, we distill the aromatic fraction that gives the flavour to Our/Vodka. This is then blended together with wheat-based ethanol, which we import from Münster, and purified Leitungswasser. When we were initially sourcing our ethanol, we found that the quality here in Berlin and Brandenburg was too poor, so we ended up importing from Münster, which is working very well for us.

But otherwise, the Our/Vodka aesthetic is very local.

Definitely. We love the sense of community here in Berlin, but we’re also expanding the “global” part of the brand as well. We were the testers, the guinea pigs, the trial. And now, they opened up Our/Detroit and Our/Seattle, and Our/Amsterdam will be opening in October. The global aspect is coming more and more together, which is super nice because we were always feeling a little alone over here — we were the first European city for Our/Vodka, so we’re very much looking forward to having our sibling opening up in Europe.

20150916-zoenoble-7754-4

Is there a strong connection between all of the headquarters, or do you operate exclusively?

We definitely have a strong exchange with the teams all over the world. We have an internal communication tool, we talk about everything, we swap ideas, we review new materials together… We’ve actually become close friends with the team in Detroit. We really got to know them well, we’ve spent holidays over there and they showed us around the city!

I love Detroit so much. There’s such a huge sense of community over there… It reminds me a lot of Berlin, actually.

I think so too! There’s a lot of common ground between Detroit and Berlin. The decision to open up there was a huge one. People were like, “What?! Why Detroit?!” It seemed crazy that we would set up there because the economy is so bad but it’s working out so well. If you are actually the one to start something and develop it, you inspire the community and you can create something amazing.

20150916-zoenoble-7670-5

Why do you think Berlin was chosen to be the flagship city for Our/Vodka?

Berlin was the perfect choice for the first city because it’s still so young. It’s vibrant. We also have such a big nightclub and bar scene here…. The city is so attractive for a lot of people! This is where trends are set! I think there’s a preconception that everything that comes out of Berlin is cool. (Laughs)

Our/Vodka has set up shop in Berlin, Detroit, Seattle, London, Amsterdam… What’s the common denominator in all these cities?

I’ve asked the same question! It’s most important that the city is young in terms of its established markets… For example, they didn’t want to go to Portland: they went to Seattle instead. That’s not so obvious a choice but we did that because in Portland, there’s already a strong local community with a local brewery and distillery. It’s easier to cultivate this sense of community when you start it from the ground up. People are very open to new products in these cities — it’s very inspiring.

And what made you decide to open the distillery here in Treptow?

It was admittedly very hard to find the right space. It’s especially hard within the confines of the city because there’s a lot of building code requirements… But we found this place and we love it. It’s still in the city but it’s kind of isolated as well. We have a very vibrant surrounding here, there’s Club der Visionäre and the Badeschiff and White Trash and Arena Club all just around the corner. We’re very lucky.

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You mentioned these building code requirements. What kind of restrictions are there?

Have you ever seen a distillery explode? (Laughs) It basically just leaves a big hole in the ground. If the distillery explodes here, the entire area would be wiped out. It would look like Mars. (Laughs) So, we have to be very careful. In New York, they were fighting so hard to get the proper permits, they wanted to open the distillery actually within Manhattan — which they succeeded at, by the way; Our/New York will be the first distillery in Manhattan since prohibition times! So, yes, we’re very happy here, and lucky to be here.

I read that you guys brought on an engineer to customise the space as well.

Exactly. And there were a lot of rules. Of course — we’re in Germany! As it was the first distillery for the Our/Vodka project, it has to be made very properly. The laws are very strict! (Laughs) We had to keep in mind that we needed an area to host events, but also a working office space, and a storage space for the dry goods that we use for packaging and bottling and labels and that kind of thing. The best part is this nice roll gate that you can pull up in the summertime, there’s a nice breeze and so much natural light.

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That’s so nice because, for me, space really affects my creativity.

Absolutely. When we have the doors wide open in the summer, there’s no boundary between customers, visitors, and us. It also helps creativity flow, helps us find new ideas… Because it’s so open, you can move around, you can go outside when you get sick of sitting in front of the computer… This area is so full of creative people, too. We spend almost more time chatting with our amazing neighbours than we do inside working! (Laughs)

It definitely doesn’t feel like your typical office here.

It was important for us to have a space where people and also our team feel comfortable. It’s a vodka distillery, but it shouldn’t have the feeling of an office. We want to be very open. We want a space where people feel they can just drop by and have a drink. We want people to be comfortable here. That’s what we’re trying to achieve. Just like we have the name on the bottle, we really want to make this Our Berlin.

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On Expat Entitlement – überlin

On Expat Entitlement

by James Glazebrook

smug face garage door

This was going to be a post about how shitty customer service is in Germany. We’ve all heard about, or experienced, things like: surly bar service, valuable deliveries that dropped off the grid without a trace, unanswered emails, ignored tweets, blah blah blah…

…it all started, as it so often does, with an undelivered package. The bourgeois tosspots that we are, we subscribe to a certain service that delivers recipes and their ingredients to your door – at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. This time, they promised to deliver during certain hours, and didn’t. When I emailed their support team, I was told that the delivery had been confirmed for a different time slot, and I should have been waiting for it. I asked them to check the confirmation message I’d originally forwarded them for proof to the contrary, and the email chain went dead.

I gave them a few days before following up via email. Where was my response? Where was my refund? And the answer to the other question I’d asked? Hearing nothing back, I took to Twitter. After a few unanswered tweets, I started to @-mention their UK and US teams (a move I learned from the indomitable @Fauxlie_). Sure enough, the Brits intervened, suggesting I call the German team. In no mood to ease the situation, I sent a shitty tweet asking why I shouldn’t expect to have my problem resolved via the email support channel they do in fact offer. (I’ve since apologised for that – they were just trying to help.)

And then, after a long, frustrated rant to Zoë, it occurred to me: all of my interactions with this company had been in English. Sure, I apologised at first for my crappy German (auf Deutsch) before asking that we switch to my native language. But I might have been even more annoyed if the response had come back in German. And, despite my natural aversion to actually speaking to people, the real thing stopping me picking up the phone was the knowledge that we’d quickly reach the limits of my second language, and I’d have to suck it up and ask, “können wir Englisch sprechen?

This is bonkers. If I was in England, and didn’t speak any English, there would be a 0.001% chance that someone would be willing or able to speak to me in my native language. Yet here, in the German capital, I get by perfectly well with not-that-great German skills. I’ve rented an apartment, registered as a resident, got a dog, started a blog and a business, paid my taxes, and yes, even had my groceries delivered – all by subjecting people to my crappy German, persuading or paying people to speak echtes Deutsch on my behalf, or just expecting everything to be done in English.

This shit doesn’t fly in other places, or in other languages. I work for a company whose customer happiness (oh yes) rating always tops 90%, and we support millions of people all over the world almost entirely in English. I should remember that for a German speaker to be writing or speaking in English, even with the help of Google Translate, they’re going the extra mile. I’m not meeting them halfway, not remotely. If my email or tweet is dropped, it’s probably not because the person the other end is terrible at their job, but because my query is automatically the trickiest one in their queue.  

But I don’t remember that. We don’t remember that. As visitors to this country, no matter how permanent – hell, as owners of businesses here – we get used to a certain amount of English fluency from everyone we interact with. A couple of years ago we published a guest post that I don’t fully agree with, in response to an Exberliner attack on Melbourne Canteen for having (at the time) menus in English only. While the original article was gratingly holier-than-thou, I find it hard to stand behind our writer’s argument that English is more useful to Germans than German is to English speakers. Presumably, that’s the same stance of another business outed recently as having no Deutsch menus, despite proclaiming themselves to be “100% Neukölln”. It seems that expats’ aversion to German is becoming institutionalised.

Yes, as Berlin becomes more and more international, with new arrivals sharing English more than any other language, it’s possible to envision a day when our common tongue is the city’s second semi-official language, as Spanish is in California. But for now, we’re in Germany and we should (try to) speak German. Anyone who is willing to switch to English with you should be treated like the angel they are – after all, they are part of the reason why your dumb ass is able to remain here.

Remember when you moved here, and you were amazed by how perfect everyone’s English is, and how readily they resort to using it? Hold onto that feeling, cherish it. And repeat after me: when someone is using their second language in a country where you should be speaking their mother tongue, they’re incapable of bad customer service. Just by communicating with you on your terms, they’ve already gone the extra mile.

On blogging: Why we turned off comments – überlin

On blogging: Why we turned off comments

by James Glazebrook

The more observant of you will have noticed that we’ve turned off comments here on überlin.

Maybe you found you couldn’t enter a competition, because I’d forgotten to turn comments back on in those rare cases where we still allow them. Perhaps you were particularly incensed by the latest thing this expat/hipster/douchebag/gentrifier/all-of-the-above had written. Or you might just have been wanting to tell us how much you love us, but couldn’t. Well, here’s why.

Firstly, and most obviously, internet comments are infamously terrible. Sure, most of our commenters have been very supportive and positive, but a minority have split hairs, gone on inexplicable tangents, ranted, singled us out to blame for the (inevitable) changes happening to Berlin, and one even told us in no uncertain terms: go home.

The main reason for this shittiness is that people aren’t accountable when they’re anonymous. If no one knows who you are, you can be as hateful, reactionary, incoherent and misinformed as you like.

Of course, we ask commenters to provide their names and email addresses, but we have no way of verifying this. Even if we used something like Facebook login to verify people’s identities, the Zuckerberg dodgers could use their invented FB names to shroud themselves in semi-secrecy. Besides, even if we could achieve total transparency and accountability with comments, we’re not sure that we should be insisting that people, especially Germans, share their personal data in this way.

So, given a choice between anonymous comments and no comments, we went with the latter.

Another reason for switching off comments is that we’re no longer focused on producing content that provokes comment. Depending on your perspective, we used to be great at/notorious for hilarious/reductive observations/stereotypes about Germans and Germany, and at times, we’ve been guilty of full-on trolling. These days, however, we’re more interested in showing off Zoë’s beautiful photos of places, people and their dogs, and getting to the heart of what inspires the creatives who call Berlin their home.

This is great content, and we think it’s very shareable, but it doesn’t require your input. If you like something, great – feel free to share it with others on Twitter, Facebook, email or whatever. If you don’t like it, that’s fine too – just look away.

And that brings us to the final reason we turned off comments. We received too many comments like “this comedy piece on going to a German supermarket doesn’t discuss the impact of LIDL’s pricing policies overseas”, which could all be translated as: “I’m annoyed that this article isn’t about something else that I’d rather be reading”. I found myself arguing with these people, then trashing their comments (as they were about an entirely different subject than the article, they weren’t relevant), and then deciding: we don’t need this.

As content producers, we accept the fact that we’re doing all this for free. We run überlin for love, not money, and the fact that our content is kostenlos allows it to reach far more people than it would have in the days before a free, open, democratic(ish) Internet. The problem with this is that people don’t always value what they get for free. And if it isn’t exactly what they wanted to see, they’ll be sure to tell you. I wonder if the editors from Lawnmower Monthly receive letters saying “Dear Sir/Madam, I bought your magazine and was disappointed to find absolutely no photos of monkeys riding motorcycles…”?

The point is: everyone absolutely has the right to their opinion. They just don’t have the right to make people listen to it. We spent five years building this site, filling it with content and growing its readership. If you don’t like something on the site, by all means tell the Twitter followers you earned through your own hard work – hell, tell us. But you don’t get to take the megaphone out of our hands and use it to broadcast your own opinions, while hiding behind the mask of anonymity.

Hence (with a few exceptions): no more comments here on überlin. In the month or so that we’ve been without comments, we haven’t missed them at all. We still get plenty of feedback via social media, and we’re always thankful for that. If you have any comments about this post, or anything else we’re doing, hit us up on Facebook  and Twitter. The (on-site) comments are dead; long live the (off-site) comments!

A note on the Berlin startup scene : überlinüberlin

A note on the Berlin startup scene

by James Glazebrook

If you have even a passing familiarity with the Berlin startup scene, you’ll have seen this blog post on The Guardian website, written by someone who recently returned to the UK after a brief immersion in the city’s tech “bubble”. Well, The Local asked for my reaction – as someone who has a lot of contact with expats in the startup world and part of the team about to open Berlin’s first tech campus – and I thought I’d share it here. Read their response “Ten points in defence of Berlin’s startup scene” here, and my comments below.

The Guardian article contains nothing we haven’t heard before. As one of Berlin’s biggest English language blogs, we attract a lot of questions and enquiries from the group to which the writer (who we know) belongs: young non-German speakers who are early in their careers, and attracted to the city’s competitive creative scene. Their observations are valid, but represent a very narrow experience of the Berlin tech ecosystem, one with fairly predictable outcomes.

If you land an internship at an English-speaking company, you are likely to remain in that bubble, speak (and hear) very little German – and you’re most at risk of losing your “job”. We know lots of people who have discovered that “the streets are not paved with gold”, and have had to move back home or onto somewhere where they can more easily lay the foundations for their career. But we also know plenty of people who’ve landed (very) real jobs at successful companies, who have stable work and are appropriately rewarded for their experience and qualifications.

We’re sick of the mainstream media cycle of hype and backlash when it comes to Berlin in general, and the startup scene in particular. No one in their right mind would believe that Berlin is the next Silicon Valley, or the only European startup hub that matters – but, equally, no one should dismiss it as just a hipster party town. We turn out innovative, productive businesses with global impact (SoundCloud, 6Wunderkinder, ResearchGate), and we’re only going to see more success like this. But we still have a long way to go…

To the Berlin startup community we say: ignore all of this. Keep your heads down and keep up the good work. To anyone thinking of moving to the city to follow their startup dreams, we say: don’t believe the hype! Follow the advice of this article and do your homework, find a company that you fit with and feel passionate about, and enter the Berlin startup scene with open eyes and realistic expectations. Good luck :)

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Illustration by Josh Bauman.

11 Responses to “A note on the Berlin startup scene”

  1. […] gilt nicht nur für Deutschland, aber: Jungejunge, was für ein Medienhype geht da […]

  2. cyphunk says:

    Author lists 3 examples of Berlin startups that make global impact. One of those, 6Wunderkinder, returns a 404 on the index page.

  3. Ed says:

    As someone who works in tech, but not a startup I look forward to the day where more people understand the distinction. And it’s possible to build a successful, independent and sustainable company in this field.

  4. avanthard says:

    Here is my article about the internships in Berlin:
    http://avanthard.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/all-the-truth-about-internships/

    My research shows that most of the startups are exploiting the young and talented, and I say “can’t pay, don’t hire! You’re not working for free, why should anyone?”. And everyone knows there are no instructors who’d teach you, you’re expected to work independently from the 1st day. The internships at startups unfortunately are NOT for the benefit of the intern, but vice versa and it’s against the law.
    Creative sector is full of sins too, Transmediale and Berlinale survive totally thanks to un(der)paid interns.

    Want to know the German law and your rights as an intern? Check this presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/JekaterinaPetrova/internship-culture-in-berlin-13nov

    Thanks,
    Katja

    • James Glazebrook says:

      Thanks for sharing. We agree that the intern culture is a rotten one, especially here in Berlin. As someone who works in marketing/communications/community management, I hate to see my work devalued by ads for interns to do the work of juniors in this field. The example of the cleaner earning 3 x that of the marketing intern speaks volumes – should companies be allowed to pay insulting wages for roles, just because there’s a queue of people waiting to fill them? Should they only pay decent wages for jobs that no one else wants to do? Thanks for taking it upon yourself to champion this worthwhile cause – good luck with it!

      • avanthard says:

        Thanks for the comment, James.

        It’s a dead circle here in Berlin; if they don’t sing the law about €8,50/h for all graduate-interns, young people (especially expats) will struggle just more and more.

        InternsGoPro, a European organisation, came up with the idea to publish quality listings of the companies who offer internships, anyone who’s done one, can fill out a short questionnaire and rate the company. This would help at least future interns. http://internsgopro.com/rate-your-internships/

        It is sad, absurd and totally wrong to be paid €300/m when you already have a BA or MA. You’ve invested money and time in your studies, while working part-time in a shop, and then you graduate and get paid 3 times less for all your hard work.
        This a broken economy.

  5. Danilo says:

    Amen, brother.

    I my experience of almost two years in the environment I would say that, when you arrive, you will notice two kinds of dimensions: the “let me tell you about my startup/idea(r)” one and the one in which there is people who started a company. You don’t want to fall in the first one.

    • James Glazebrook says:

      Thanks for the comment!

      Do you mean some people just talk while others do? Or are you talking about the difference between startups and actual companies?

    • James Glazebrook says:

      Oh, just seen your Facebook comment. You mean the latter.

      That is an important distinction – between startups searching for a business case, and successful companies who have found theirs. Berlin needs more of the latter, but that doesn’t discount the work of the pioneers!

leave a comment

Learn High-end Retouching with Pratik Naik at überlin! – überlin

Learn High-end Retouching with Pratik Naik at überlin!

by Zoë Noble

Pratik Naik High End Retouching Workshop

I’ve been a massive fan of Pratik Naik for years. One of the best high-end retouchers working today, he’s been instrumental in my development and an inspiration for the kind of sleek-yet-natural aesthetic I aspire to. That’s why we’re really excited to announce that Pratik will be leading a one-day retouching workshop in our überlin photo studio.

During this workshop, which will focus on high-end beauty and fashion retouching, Pratik will share his workflow, techniques and the basis for his aesthetic decisions. The event will develop across one intense day of work and will showcase Pratik’s tricks for optimising the use of Adobe Photoshop CS5 (or higher). If you can’t make it to the workshop, but you want to meet other retouchers and photographers, Pratik and I will be hosting a meetup on the following day (details TBC).

Click through for all the details about the Pratik Naik High End Retouching Workshop, hosted by überlin. As readers of ours, you get a super special deal – use the offer code uberlin2015 on checkout to get 15% off the regular ticket price.

Looking forward to meeting you, and learning some advanced retouching skills! (nerd alert)

Is Berlin over? : überlinüberlin

Is Berlin over?

by Guest Blogger

Media Spree, Berlin Friedrichshain

by Paola Moretti.

My father is one of those men who are terrible at choosing presents for women. I’m not sure whether his insistence on giving me perfume, dresses and cute necklaces is a hint that I should be a little more feminine, or if he simply has no clue about what I actually like. This year, he gave me a glittery nail polish which I liked only because I have a taste for tacky stuff. Two years ago, he bought me a style guide written by Angelika Taschen, The Berliner, where one can find such observations as, “ For the Berliner the quest for the perfect purse is more important than the quest for the right man. The metropolitan animal needs to bring its stuff always with it, so the bag needs to be a proper one.” Let’s just say that my father has a peculiar sense of humour as well.

When I read the book’s subtitle, “The guide to the alternative chic”, I thought: this is the end. If Berlin was about to become a Mecca for style, when just a while ago I could walk around completely unnoticed in neon-yellow leggings, matching rubber kitchen gloves and a bright blue dress, it meant that something was changing. Indeed, the running joke about Prenzlauer Berg’s Latte Macchiato mums was over. At that moment, the press focused on the hatred of tourists which, expressed through stickers and graffiti, telling them that they were no longer welcome. It had become a local pastime to pick on the new representatives of categories such as the “Club Mate generation”, “New York artist”, “South European student”, or anyone else suspected of feeding the ravenous beast of gentrification by paying above-average rents, occupying hitherto-neglected neighbourhoods, or opening upmarket bars.

Berlin became the place to be. Old-school Berliners were bewildered and, I must admit, I didn’t join in the raging aggressiveness towards every single change, I was a bit worried. The city, at least to me, had been a stargate to a utopian dimension. You could feel that history had had taken another course here. Its environment and inhabitants hadn’t been infected by the fever of globalisation and consumeristic craving. The German capital was a small loophole in the West’s capitalist system. Things I had only heard about from my older friends, such as underground movements – which in Italy were long-time dead, or had been absorbed by a fashion industry which repackaged them and tossed them to the masses – here were still thiriving in their original forms. Berlin was cool because “she” was the anti-cool. Then, she became glamorous and lost some of her charm. Gradually, she became less unique, less radical. She was slowly letting herself be undermined by imported trends, swayed by a progress which didn’t always mean improvement.

Just like when in junior high you fall in love with your desk mate: a bony girl with no breasts and protruding shoulder blades, but nice and sweet. Everybody laughs at you because you like her, but you don’t care. In high school, she becomes a hottie, a real heartbreaker who forgets what kindness means. And then you feel that mix of bitterness and pride: you’re proud because you foresaw her potential back when no one else could, but you feel sad because she is no longer who she used to be. She stops using her cousin’s hand-me-down sweaters, in which she looked like a potato sack, and starts wearing tight tops. She learned how to use tweezers on her eyebrows, and now she has highlights in her hair, the original copper-like colour of which was naturally beautiful.

So it is with Berlin: she is young, a 25 year-old girl who not so long ago was disfigured by a wall. She has just found herself sexy and wants to party, to take advantage of any situation. Thus, Kneipes close and cocktail bars open; currywurst booths disappear while burger joints pop up everywhere. Sandals with socks remain, but just because they seem to be fashionable now.

But it’s just when you get used to the tables full of Macbooks in cafes; when you are no longer surprised by salespeople not understanding German in your local vintage shop; when you basically take for granted the availability of various pieces of the world patch-worked together in one city; when you finally understand that you can find whatever you like, even those things which are not cool anymore and never again will be – well, then, the media announces: “Berlin is over”. In 2014, the Tagespiegel said that “Berlin isn’t the coolest city in the world anymore”, just after Rolling Stone called Berghain “a club full of tourists” . Each time I hear these utterances, I imagine Manzoni’s characters with their bells, ruefully wandering through the village picking up the dead bodies left by the plague. What I never understand is whether the pandemic is Berlin being cool or not cool anymore.

Many local newspapers greeted the news happily; club owners worried right away about their future incomes; some sighed with relief, others felt mocked: they had just found a WG! Most readers probably simply shrugged. I insist, like the devoted classmate who tenderly looks at the sharp bones coming out of his childhood love’s back, or like my father, who next year will give me a bracelet with pendants for my birthday, that I will keep looking for those things which make Berlin my city. Because love is resistance and the first love is never outmoded.

Originally published in Italian on Il Mitte

How to work at a startup: 3. Cover letter and social media – überlin

How to work at a startup: 3. Cover letter and social media

by Guest Blogger

By Federico Prandi.

Ever wondered why cover letters are called cover letters?

That’s because they’re a cover-up, a fraud, a final attempt to reinforce all the lies you’ve shamelessly written on your resume and spice them up with some hardcore lip service. A good cover letter is something you can’t have your wife and children read without them thinking you’re willing to trade your family for a part-time customer service job at an internet startup.

Now, in order to write a convincing cover letter you have to be able to write a regular one. I know that nobody writes proper letters anymore, but in our childhood we’ve all done it in (at least) two specific circumstances.

#1 Love Letters

I remember middle school as the place where my first literary attempts took place. All the guys were pouring their hormonal intensity into odes to girls who either wouldn’t let them touch their breasts or didn’t have breasts at all. One of my letters was so successful that a 12-year-old girl in my class pulled me aside and kissed me, making death poems suddenly look like a better idea.

#2 Letters to Santa

Growing up in a catholic family, I could either write my Christmas wishes to Santa or to baby Jesus. I always picked the former, assuming that the old man wouldn’t be up to date with my sins. In hindsight I feel like I was never really filled in on the magic of Christmas and as a result all my letters to Santa sounded like financial scam against a vulnerable senior, as if I had to convince him to spend all his pension on my presents. Also, I probably looked down on Jesus, thinking that a baby born in a shed wouldn’t be able to discern between the real Little Mermaid merchandise and those cheap rip-offs.

Anyway, the perfect cover letter takes something from both examples; it combines the pained longing of the teenage love letter and the manipulative hidden agenda of the Santa letter; it makes big promises but also claims big rewards; it tells a company that you’ll be their dream, you’ll be their wish, you’ll be their fantasy. You’ll be their hope, you’ll be their love, be everything that they need. You’ll love them more with every breath (truly, madly, deeply do), you will be strong, you will be faithful ’cause you’re counting on a new beginning, a reason for living, a deeper meaning, yeah.

Template

Dear NAME_OF_RECRUITER,

My name is Federico Prandi Barry LaVaughn [PRO TIP: use a name that oozes out awesomeness: fake IDs aren’t as expensive as you think!] and I’m applying for the position of Online Marketing Manager after applying to three others and being rejected finding the job posting on some random Reddit thread the company website.

I’ve spent the past year watching every season of Survivor on my couch traveling around the world, but now I need money feel like it’s time for a new professional challenge. I’ve been keeping an eye on NAME_OF_COMPANY for the past seven minutes, while simultaneously shopping on Amazon years and I was always impressed by your constant achievements in terms of growth and marketing efforts.

Before traveling, I worked for two months years at a marketing agency whose main focus are on-site and off-site SEO. When the company started offering a wider range of services, the fact that I have a Twitter account with more than 6 followers my holistic approach to online marketing came especially handy and I was given new responsibilities. My professional path gave me practical experience in stalking people online conducting detailed on-site audits, developing actionable inbound marketing strategies and researching keywords in a clever way. My team left the boat before it sank swayed between “very small” and a “one-man-show”, which made me cry in the shower at night called for crazy organizational skills, high versatility and alcoholism a talent for setting priorities.

In my private time I tend to read and write Harry Potter erotic fanfic in a lot of online places (forums, blogs, e-zines, online newspapers, social media…you name it!); this gave me a very sharp sensitivity when it comes to anything futile in life contemporary online trends and the language of the web.

Having read the profile you’re looking for, I am going to ignore all the requirements I don’t have and apply anyway think I might be a valuable asset to your team and at the same time have a chance to grow as a marketer.

I look forward to hearing back from you and dive deeper into the selection process.

Best,

Barry

Ta-da! You’re all set!

You have the perfect CV, the perfect cover letter and you’re now ready to pack everything together and send your application via email.

Bonus Track: Clean up your social media

via GIPHY

Actually.

There is one more little thing that needs to be done in order to make your application really really perfect.

Hire a private investigator (or me if I’m bored) and ask him to turn the internet upside down in search of some dirt about you. As much as you consider yourself an amazing human being, that time you made fun of coat-hanger abortions on Twitter may not be well perceived by everybody.

Delete the tweet and, since you’re at it, replace it with a photoshopped picture of you hugging a koala bear (which, in my opinion, is exactly what restored Luke Perry’s public image after 90210).

Bingo – you’re all set!

Federico is an Italian in Berlin. He blogs, tweets, infiltrates the German language, and is currently employed at a cool internet company based in Berlin with a million open positions.

If you liked this, read the rest of the series here. And check out our observations on the Berlin startup scene, and get more practical advice about landing a startup job (with more GIFs!).

How to work at a startup: 1. Finding a job – überlin

How to work at a startup: 1. Finding a job

by Guest Blogger

By Federico Prandi.

My mother used to put stuff in boxes. Professionally. She did it for 30 years at the same small-sized suburban Italian company and while the boxes were sent everywhere in the world, my mom and her career weren’t exactly going places.

My dad, the only male among four siblings, had to drop out of middle school to help his father in the fields. Like many of his peers, he learned to think of work as something that is closely related to suffering, sacrifice and blind obedience.

Whenever I tell my parents about company breakfasts, team building events and gamification, they share a very specific look that I’ve come to interpret as “Our son is lying to us. He doesn’t have a job in Berlin. He’s squatting an abandoned building and carries stolen drugs across countries in order to pay for his groceries.”

I get that look. I do. Growing up with a blue-collar mindset made me both conscious of my current luck and weirdly aware of the seemingly absurd sides of the startup life.

This series of posts is the natural consequence of that.

CHAPTER 1: FINDING A JOB

This is going to sound obvious, but in order to work at a startup – in Berlin or anywhere else – you need to either found one or be hired by one. I’m going to focus on the latter ’cause I’m a slacker and I’ve made it my life goal to achieve less and less every day.

If you’re smart you’ve probably created alerts that fire off an email every time a desirable position is available, either through Google Alerts or more specific job hunting platforms like Indeed.de or BerlinStartupJobs.com. What you might not know, though, is that when it comes to job titles startups can be as quirky as the side character of an indie TV series.

The chances that your alert will be triggered by the keyword “customer relationship manager” are thinner, for example, than the ones for the keyword “Customer Happiness Ninja”. Stop looking for “Sales Manager” and keep your eyes open for stuff like “Customer retention power ranger”, “Office management karate kid”, “Java Sorcerer” and any title that could have easily been invented by a Dungeon Master after his sixth pint of mead. ‘Cause nerdz.

Startups want their jobs to sound so cool that it’s impossible not to want them. I’m perfectly happy with my own job, but if I ever read an ad for a “fluffer of moral erections”, I’ll drop everything and go, even if it means I end up teaching old ladies how to dance salsa in a holiday resort a la Swayze in Dirty Dancing.

The exceptions to this rule are the internships. Companies don’t even try to make these “jobs” sound cool, given that the word “intern” is at times already an euphemism for “slave”.

Centuries ago, before the invention of coconut M&Ms or, like, minimum wage, I was doing an internship. Money was so tight that I felt compelled to rewrite the Wikipedia page for the term to reflect my true real feelings about the matter.

internship_wiki

Unfortunately a Wikipedia editor told me I wasn’t being – air quote – objective about the facts. Fine, Mr. Logic. Whatever.

Anyway, you need to really read those job postings and check off the required skills one by one, even if that’s boring. And when you’re doing so, try to be honest with yourself about your real capabilities. I once thought my brain had no boundaries, but then it turns out that things like the Norwegian language or “Ruby on Rails” (I still think that’s the name of a synthetic drug) cannot be learned overnight.

Bummer.

Once you’ve found a position that seems perfect for you, don’t just start shooting off applications like crazy. You need to pick the right startup before even letting them pick you. Of course you wanna be employed by a winner and there’s one basic criteria to discern whether an internet company is gonna take over the world. Mark my words: It’s all in the name.

Look around: the “General Motors” days are over. Don’t look for class, meaning or authority in a name. The startup world is now calling for “Goojdi”, “Faamp”, “Leerk” and “Huora” (which was gonna be the name of my own startup until someone told me it literally means “whore” in Finnish). In other words, you need to look for a name that sounds like something between the first words of a baby and what your cat may have written while walking on the keyboard.

The only acceptable alternative to this are Latin words. A lot of startup founders pick these, probably by listening to Harry Potter spells and noting down stuff that sounds nice. Sometimes it works, but other times your web agency ends up being called “ferocity” in Italian.

Roar.

In the next episode I’ll teach you how to actually apply for the startup job of your dreams.

Federico is an Italian in Berlin. He blogs, tweets, infiltrates the German language, and is currently employed at a cool internet company based in Berlin with a million open positions.

If you liked this, check out our observations on the Berlin startup scene, and get more practical advice about landing a startup job (with more GIFs!).

Let's make Comedy Café Berlin a reality!

Help make Berlin’s first alternative comedy stage a thing!

by James Glazebrook

Comedy Café Berlin - before

This is exciting! One of the brothers behind the hilarious piffle! podcast is currently turning this old Kneipe into Berlin’s first alternative comedy stage, the unimaginatively-titled Comedy Café Berlin (way to improv, guys). It’s going to be located in the heart of hipster central, on Neukölln’s Weserstraße, and will feature a café and bar alongside a theatre to showcase the stars of Berlin’s up-and-coming international comedy scene. As well as live standup, sketch and improv, this new institution for comedy will host workshops and courses for anyone who wants to polish up their funning skills.

With construction already under way, the team are raising money to pay for important stuff like soundproofing. To help secure the future of this promising project, check out the Comedy Café Berlin Kickstarter, where rewards include the chance to get your name on the Wall of Fame, one of the theatre’s 60 seats, a menu item, or even its toilets (“Name of Thrones”!). When you’re giggling it up in Berlin’s most awesome new nightspot, you can thank your past self for being so generous and, let’s face it, smart. DO IT.

Geeking Out On Analogue Photography

überlin Does Croatia: Geeking Out on Analogue Photography

by Zoë Noble

Croatian flag

Just picked up the prints from our summer holiday in Vis, an island a few hours from Split, Croatia. The reason it’s taken so long to get the photos is that I STUPIDLY left the film back in our apartment!? Yup, I’m a massive idiot. Thankfully my guardian angel/Airbnb host Ratko found the film and posted it to me – but it took two months to get here. I’d almost given up hope and then it arrived in the mail last week ????

Usually I’d take my digital camera while travelling and I’d have all the photos on my laptop, backed up after each day – this was my first holiday ONLY shooting analogue. Why? Because, for a change, I decided to leave the bulky cameras and multiple lenses and just travel really light. When I’m not working, I want to have a complete break from carrying heavy equipment, changing lenses, charging batteries and the post-hols photo editing.

The beauty of film cameras is that they simplify your decisions, leaving you to simply enjoy the moment of taking the photo. You really have to slow down when you shoot analogue, and you truly consider every photo. You remember that you have a limited number of shots and concentrate on really nailing that exposure. So many times I’ve composed an image with my analogue camera, only to decide it just wasn’t worth wasting a shot.

This way of thinking really helps photographers. Taking hundreds of photos with a digital camera may be easier, but it doesn’t help you understand what makes a good photo. Anyone can blast out 1,000 shots and get one killer image. You know you’re a great photographer when EVERY shot is a killer image.

Anyway, enough photo geekery… we had such an amazing time in Croatia and would recommend the island of Vis (thank you Ed and Sarah for the amazing tip!) and our beautiful villa in a heartbeat. We want to be there right now!

All photos shot with Olympus OM-2, 35mm lens and Kodak Portra 400 film.

Croatia sea

Church and blue sky of Croatia

Green seas

James looking out to the sea

Peeling paint

Pink flowers

Vis beach view

Port with fishing boats in Vis

Narrow buildings in Vis

Fishing boats

Sea view in Croatia

Walkway in Vis old town

Vis old town

Fresh fish in Vis

Sun setting in Vis

Free standup! Win a pair of tickets for Josie Long live – überlin

Free standup! Win a pair of tickets for Josie Long live

by James Glazebrook

Josie Long by Idil Sukan @ drawhq.com

Josie Long by Idil Sukan @ drawhq.com

[EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

Hands up who likes standup comedy? Right, everyone without their hand up can get the fuck out, because there’s nothing better than listening to a funny human’s stories and thoughts and jokes and that. And there are fewer funnier than Josie Long, who’s been smashing it on British telly, the Edinburgh Fringe and countless stages for years now. So if you still have your hands up, put one down and use it scroll down to the bit where we’re giving away two pairs of tickets to Josie’s Berlin show next week. I don’t know what you should do with that other hand – maybe make a fist or a peace sign or something.✌️

If you don’t know Josie, check out her awesome “Romance and Adventure” show below, or this appearance on one of our favourite podcasts, Scroobius Pip’s Distraction Pieces. You can get full details about the two Berlin shows over on Facebook, buy tickets to Friday’s performance via Live in Berlin, and win tickets for Thursday below. Enjoy!

HOW TO WIN 2 X TICKETS FOR JOSIE LONG AT GRIESSMUEHLE ON 8TH OCTOBER:

Do you and a friend want to get your giggle on next Thursday? Just answer this question in the comments below:

Who’s your favourite standup? Include a link to something we can laugh at!

You have until 6pm on Friday 2nd October. Good luck!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be at least 18 years old to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. We will keep a record of each comment in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner.
4. Remember to include your full (real) name and email address or we won’t be able to put you on the guestlist!
5. We will notify the winners via email.

6 Responses to “Free standup! Win a pair of tickets for Josie Long live”

  1. Sarah Brendela says:

    I try’d to Post it into the Comments in the FreeTicketsWinPage, BUT it was Not Working ???? so i Post it Here and will try it later again! —>

    <3 <3

    ???? https://volkerstruebing.wordpress.com/klos-und-spinne/ (y)

    Mit Besten Grüßen von—>

    !!! Sarah Brendela !!!

  2. Niamh Murphy says:

    Dara o briain for sure. toothologist haha
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uRqB5-egs1s

  3. Matt Hanley says:

    Vic & Bob (with Matt Lucas). To this day, I have absolutely no idea why this cracks me up. It makes absolutely no sense at all, but it probably my favourite comedy moment.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRN-5XQy3FU

  4. Garret O’Connell says:

    Best standup: David O’Doherty
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0332qnv

leave a comment

Free standup! Win a pair of tickets for Josie Long live – überlin

Free standup! Win a pair of tickets for Josie Long live

by James Glazebrook

Josie Long by Idil Sukan @ drawhq.com

Josie Long by Idil Sukan @ drawhq.com

[EDIT: this competition is now closed. Click here to see if we’re running any open competitions]

Hands up who likes standup comedy? Right, everyone without their hand up can get the fuck out, because there’s nothing better than listening to a funny human’s stories and thoughts and jokes and that. And there are fewer funnier than Josie Long, who’s been smashing it on British telly, the Edinburgh Fringe and countless stages for years now. So if you still have your hands up, put one down and use it scroll down to the bit where we’re giving away two pairs of tickets to Josie’s Berlin show next week. I don’t know what you should do with that other hand – maybe make a fist or a peace sign or something.✌️

If you don’t know Josie, check out her awesome “Romance and Adventure” show below, or this appearance on one of our favourite podcasts, Scroobius Pip’s Distraction Pieces. You can get full details about the two Berlin shows over on Facebook, buy tickets to Friday’s performance via Live in Berlin, and win tickets for Thursday below. Enjoy!

HOW TO WIN 2 X TICKETS FOR JOSIE LONG AT GRIESSMUEHLE ON 8TH OCTOBER:

Do you and a friend want to get your giggle on next Thursday? Just answer this question in the comments below:

Who’s your favourite standup? Include a link to something we can laugh at!

You have until 6pm on Friday 2nd October. Good luck!

The Boring Bit (yawn, RULES):

1. You must be at least 18 years old to enter.
2. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
3. We will keep a record of each comment in a database and then a random number generator picks the winner.
4. Remember to include your full (real) name and email address or we won’t be able to put you on the guestlist!
5. We will notify the winners via email.

6 Responses to “Free standup! Win a pair of tickets for Josie Long live”

  1. Sarah Brendela says:

    I try’d to Post it into the Comments in the FreeTicketsWinPage, BUT it was Not Working ???? so i Post it Here and will try it later again! —>

    <3 <3

    ???? https://volkerstruebing.wordpress.com/klos-und-spinne/ (y)

    Mit Besten Grüßen von—>

    !!! Sarah Brendela !!!

  2. Niamh Murphy says:

    Dara o briain for sure. toothologist haha
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uRqB5-egs1s

  3. Matt Hanley says:

    Vic & Bob (with Matt Lucas). To this day, I have absolutely no idea why this cracks me up. It makes absolutely no sense at all, but it probably my favourite comedy moment.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRN-5XQy3FU

  4. Garret O’Connell says:

    Best standup: David O’Doherty
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0332qnv

leave a comment

überlin's Epic list of podcast recommendations – überlin

überlin’s Epic list of podcast recommendations

by James Glazebrook

The eagle-eyed* among you may have noticed that we’re currently “in-between” podcasts.

*OK, “eagle-eared”. Actually, eagles’ hearing might suck. Which animals have good hearing? Bats, I guess. But “bat-eared” doesn’t sound right, does it? Anywaaaaay…

We don’t have access to a studio at the moment, so Radio überlin is on hiatus until we can find another space in which to record, or can build our own. If you can help with either of these options, feel free to get in touch!

But the real reason for this blog post is to share some of the podcasts that inspired us to try the audio medium in the first place. They’ve made us laugh, cry, cry laughing, think, re-think, question our whole outlook on life, and sometimes even our sanity. They’re presented mostly by comedians (who get paid to talk for a living, after all) and explore everything from science and spiritually to hilarious shit stories and beverages (and sometimes hot sauce).

Tasty! Get your headphones on…

Berlin

Berlin Belly*NEW ENTRY!!!* Burp – the Berlin Belly podcast
A fascinating foodie podcast featuring interviews with the people behind projects like the Kombucha Berlin Society and Kreuzberg’s no-packaging grocery store Original Unverpackt.

Bits of Berlin
Tam from the Mädels with a Microphone podcast (listed below) puts on her geek glasses and peeks into the matrix of Berlin’s tech community.

Hipster and Hack
The guys from startup blog Silicon Allee take an irreverent look at tech news stories from Berlin and beyond.

La La La Boom
As descriptions go, we can’t top this: “A podcast of uncommon refinement and distinction. Recorded in a secret floating fortress in Berlin by two gentlemen of leisure.”

Mädels with a Microphone
On indefinite hiatus but worth catching up on, the Mädels dive into quirky and personal stories about Berlin and its inhabitants.

piffle!
Recording live at Wedding’s Vagabund Brauerei, American-ish brothers Josh and Noah improvise sketch comedy, music and other nonsense with their guests.

Radio Spätkauf
Our favourite destination for English-language Berlin news, opinion and chat. Professionally produced, but charmingly personal.

This Week in Germany
Germany-wide news, presented in a magazine format, every week in English. Always informative.

Walrus & the Bear

Walrus & the Bear
The wonderful Wouter, a tour guide and art historian, takes on “the intricate and wildly fascinating city that is Berlin”, starting with the Olympic Stadium.

Convos

By The Way
The ever delightful Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm) shoots the shit with guests like Larry David, Lena Dunham and Amy Poehler.

*NEW ENTRY!!!* The Champs
The blackest white people, Chapelle’s Show co-creator Neal Brennan and stand-up Moshe Kasher, speak to actual black people from Chris Rock to Questlove.

Distraction Pieces
The most thoughtful man in hip hop Scroobius Pip gets deep with guests from fellow erudite Essexman Russell Brand and comics warlock Alan Moore to Wes Borland and Simon Pegg.

Girl on Guy
Aisha Tyler (famous for being Lana in Archer and generally entrepreneurially awesome) chats to her (mostly) guy friends and gets them to share their self-inflicted wounds.

Ronna & Beverly
Everyone’s favourite fake fifty-something Jewish mothers embarrass their guests with intrusive questions.

WTF
Mark Maron speaks frankly with entertainers such as Todd Glass, who came out on the podcast, and Robin Williams, who talked openly and honestly about his struggles with depression.

UntitledYou Made It Weird
Pete Holmes gets deep with guests like Henry Rollins and TJ Miller, about love, sex, spirituality and life in general.

Life, relationships, science and stuff

Don’t Ever Change
Funny people reflect on their formative years – their usually-hilarious, sometimes tragic, time at high school.

Here We Are Curious comedian Shane Mauss learns from scientists and other experts about evolutionary psychology, the science of laughter, the secret life of pronouns and other fascinating subjects.

OMFG
Thirtysomethings learn about things like “fleek” and weird Twitter from “the kids”.

 

Professor Blastoff
Tig Notaro and friends ramble a lot and play silly improv games in this show which is ostensibly about science.

Question of the Day*NEW ENTRY!!!* Question of the Day
Entrepreneur James Altucher and Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner answer random questions for listeners who are “short on time and long on curiosity”.

Sawbones
A marital tour of misguided medicine, exploring everything from the weird history of poison ivy to the past popularity of enemas and cleanses.

This Feels Terrible
Comedians talking about their relationship history with Erin McGathy, who even recorded her marriage to Community creator Dan Harmon for the show.

Totally Married
Elizabeth Laime and her husband “psychic Andy” dole out advice about marriage and relationships.

Movies

Comedy Film Nerds
Worth listening to, if only for their Fury Road spoiler episode, the best analysis of the best blockbuster in recent years. Oh, and all their other great eps!

Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time. Period.
An A-Z rundown of the man’s movies, rating the “Denzelishness” of each, and creating a bunch of memes along the way. *single Glory tear*

Doug Loves Movies
The superhigh Doug Benson plays the Leonard Maltin game, Last Man Stanton and other movie trivia games before a live crowd.

James Bonding
Trust us, you don’t need to be a James Bond fan to enjoy Matts Mira and Gourley nerding out over their favourite film franchise. (to the 007 theme) MattandmattMattandmattMATTANDMATT!

How Did This Get Made?
Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas of The League/assorted hilariousness review bad and bonkers movies. And Devil’s Advocate.

I Was There Too
Interviews with minor players in major film scenes, like the bus passengers from Speed and the mother from the train station shootout in The Untouchables.

Maltin on Movies
Leonard Maltin. On movies. With co-host Baron Vaughn providing a gleeful counterpoint to our Leonard’s thoughtful musings.

UntitledWe Hate Movies
Entertainingly terrible (but not terribly entertaining) movies torn apart by a bunch of nerds.

 

Music

Analyze Phish
The late great Harris Wittels (Parks and Recreation, #humblebrag) tries to convert Comedy Bang Bang chief Scott Aukerman into a fan of 90s jam band Phish.

Get Up On This Matthew Robinson and Jensen Karp AKA MC Hot Karl let you know what music (and other entertainment) you should be up on, and the stuff you should be getting off of. Got it?

Song Exploder
Short and sweet interviews with musicians and producers who break down the creative process behind bangers like Converge’s “Dark Horse”, The Postal Services “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” and the Bob’s Burgers’ theme tune.

Sound Opinions
Awesome music ‘cast from WBEZ Chicago. News, interviews and explorations of themes like jazz, 80s new wave and This is Spinal Tap!

U Talkin’ U2 To Me?
Scott Aukerman talks nonsense and occasionally U2 with Parks & Rec‘s Adam Scott. So meta they even recorded an episode that was a commentary track for their previous episodes.

Who Charted?
The cream of the LA comedy scene run down the latest in music and movies.

Rando

The Attitude Era podcast
A celebration of the nadir of WWF wrestling, from the late 90s to early 00s, one pay-per-view at a time.

Call Chelsea Peretti
CP’s PC! That’s an abbrev(iation) that might only make sense to fans of this call-in show, in which Chel toys with her fans and runs amok on her ever-expanding soundboard. *jackpot noise*

The Distance
Basecamp (full disclosure: I work for them) take to podcasting, with their audio version of their magazine focused on quirky, independently-owned businesses.

Doodie Calls with Doug Mand
The poopcast in which people share their equal parts mortifying and hilarious stories of shitting themselves.

The Indoor Kids
Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjiani talks video games and other nerdy shit with his wife, Meltdown Comedy booker Emily Gordon.

Nerd Poker
Listen in as Brian Posehn and friends play Dungeons & Dragons.

 

xplainRachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men
Because it’s about time someone did. An exhaustive, endlessly enthusiastic chronicle of the ins, outs and retcons of everyone’s favourite superhero soap opera.

Serial
The podcast equivalent of Miley Cyrus twerking – the moment the medium hit the mainstream. Proof that investigative journalism might have a future in audio.

The Smartest Man in the World
Greg Proops holds forth about sports, politics, music, drugs… any subject you can think of, this smart-arse has something to say about it!

Totally Beverages
Devoted to discussions about and taste tests of beverages (and sometimes hot sauce).

 

Yo Is This Racist?
Tumblog spin-off with mini-episodes dedicated to answering listener’s questions about whether things are racist. Spoiler: they almost always are.

 

Don't Stay True: The Betrayal of Bring Me The Horizon – überlin

Don’t Stay True: The Betrayal of Bring Me The Horizon

by James Glazebrook

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you
Cause I’ll forget but I’ll never forgive you
Don’t you know, don’t you know?
True friends stab you in the front

Listeners to Bring Me the Horizon’s controversial new album That’s The Spirit could be forgiven for empathising with the emotions expressed by “True Friends”. Knowingly or otherwise, these lyrics – intended by singer Oli Sykes as a typically hardcore response to fake friends’ betrayals – actually anticipated the reaction of many fans, and many more former fans, to the album’s stadium-friendly sound.

It’s funny how things work out
Such a bitter irony
Like a kick right to the teeth
It fell apart right from the start
But I couldn’t even see the forest for the trees
(I’m afraid you asked for this)

The irony is that Bring Me the Horizon were always headed in this direction. With That’s The Spirit, the band have made the large last leap towards becoming the post-metalcore Linkin Park, but they’ve been on this path for a long time.

Right from the start, they were rejected by the metal establishment as being too pretty and well put-together to be anything more than scene posers. Sykes, also the founder of alt brand Drop Dead Clothing, became the poster child for a kind of hardcore that Topshop designers could lift from. But BMTH proved they had substance as well as style, with a brutal deathcore sound and live shows that converted bottle throwers into lifelong fans.

Now those same fans are declaring the death of the Bring Me the Horizon they grew to love. The melody, the hooks, the EDM production, the glimpses of genuine optimism are, for many, too much to bear. And for a scene that rejects “selling out” absolutely, the commercial success that will no doubt follow is perceived as the ultimate betrayal.

You got a lot of nerve but not a lot of spine
You made your bed when you worried about mine
This ends now

Somehow, no one saw this coming. But less short-sighted fans shouldn’t be too shocked, as That’s The Spirit only marks the latest end point of the band’s evolution. Their breakthrough album, 2008’s Suicide Season, saw them polishing their sound, embracing a more accessible metalcore aesthetic, and augmenting it with electronic flourishes. The re-released Cut Up edition even included a disc of remixes from producers like Toxic Avenger, Utah Saints and a then-unknown Skrillex.

For 2013’s Sempiternal, Bring Me the Horizon replaced their rhythm guitarist with a keyboardist, and pushed the electronics front and centre. From opener “Can You Feel My Heart” through to the haunting “Deathbeds”, performed for growing crowds at venues like Wembley Stadium, it’s hard not to hear That’s The Spirit coming. If this ends now, it started a long time ago.

It’s kind of sad cause what we had
Well it could have been something
I guess it wasn’t meant to be
So how dare you try and steal my flame
Just cause yours faded
Well hate is gasoline
A fire fuelling all my dreams
(I’m afraid you asked for this)

The originators of metal were no purists; they used whatever instruments were at hand to create their unholy sound. Listen to Hawkwind, likely responsible for the very name of “heavy metal”, and you’ll hear Lemmy’s growl and distorted guitars swimming in a cosmic bath of trippy analogue electronics.

But then disco came, and the rockers’ reaction to it, which pushed everyone into one of two camps, forcing them into a digital zero-one either-or choice between guitars and drum machines. Even fans of freaks like Faith No More, art punks with a gay keyboard player somehow mistaken for a metal band, kicked back when the group’s experiments reached full fruition. That’s why fans of The Real Thing hated Angel Dust; and that’s why people who tolerated Sempiternal can’t forgive That’s the Spirit.

The good news for those people is that Sempiternal still exists; for the die-hards, Count Your Blessings is still available to listen to. As for the new album, a band making what can be seen as a wrong turn can’t be blamed for daring to find out what was waiting down that fork in the road.

Bring Me the Horizon barely listen to metal any more, and they’ve admitted to respecting bands like Linkin Park, who fill stadiums with big, bold, and sometimes heavy, sounds. True artists make the art they want to see or hear, and brave bands will risk existing fans over the chance to realise their vision, and present it to people who truly appreciate it.

Oli Sykes has come out of struggles like a Ketamine addiction with an appreciation of life in all its shades of grey, all its complicated beauty and bitter irony. And he wants to make music that reflects that. He’s not even 30 and he’s through fucking about. He hasn’t said as much, but you can sense that he’s not going to lose any sleep over so-called fans who are willing to walk away over the expansion of his ambition. For a band that always wanted to be more than metalcore, that’s the real betrayal.

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you
You broke my heart and there’s nothing you can do
And now you know, now you know
True friends stab you in the front

Bring Me The Horizon Drowned video shoot

Bring Me The Horizon play Huxleys Neue Welt on 10th November 2015 (tickets).

Don't Stay True: The Betrayal of Bring Me The Horizon – überlin

Don’t Stay True: The Betrayal of Bring Me The Horizon

by James Glazebrook

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you
Cause I’ll forget but I’ll never forgive you
Don’t you know, don’t you know?
True friends stab you in the front

Listeners to Bring Me the Horizon’s controversial new album That’s The Spirit could be forgiven for empathising with the emotions expressed by “True Friends”. Knowingly or otherwise, these lyrics – intended by singer Oli Sykes as a typically hardcore response to fake friends’ betrayals – actually anticipated the reaction of many fans, and many more former fans, to the album’s stadium-friendly sound.

It’s funny how things work out
Such a bitter irony
Like a kick right to the teeth
It fell apart right from the start
But I couldn’t even see the forest for the trees
(I’m afraid you asked for this)

The irony is that Bring Me the Horizon were always headed in this direction. With That’s The Spirit, the band have made the large last leap towards becoming the post-metalcore Linkin Park, but they’ve been on this path for a long time.

Right from the start, they were rejected by the metal establishment as being too pretty and well put-together to be anything more than scene posers. Sykes, also the founder of alt brand Drop Dead Clothing, became the poster child for a kind of hardcore that Topshop designers could lift from. But BMTH proved they had substance as well as style, with a brutal deathcore sound and live shows that converted bottle throwers into lifelong fans.

Now those same fans are declaring the death of the Bring Me the Horizon they grew to love. The melody, the hooks, the EDM production, the glimpses of genuine optimism are, for many, too much to bear. And for a scene that rejects “selling out” absolutely, the commercial success that will no doubt follow is perceived as the ultimate betrayal.

You got a lot of nerve but not a lot of spine
You made your bed when you worried about mine
This ends now

Somehow, no one saw this coming. But less short-sighted fans shouldn’t be too shocked, as That’s The Spirit only marks the latest end point of the band’s evolution. Their breakthrough album, 2008’s Suicide Season, saw them polishing their sound, embracing a more accessible metalcore aesthetic, and augmenting it with electronic flourishes. The re-released Cut Up edition even included a disc of remixes from producers like Toxic Avenger, Utah Saints and a then-unknown Skrillex.

For 2013’s Sempiternal, Bring Me the Horizon replaced their rhythm guitarist with a keyboardist, and pushed the electronics front and centre. From opener “Can You Feel My Heart” through to the haunting “Deathbeds”, performed for growing crowds at venues like Wembley Stadium, it’s hard not to hear That’s The Spirit coming. If this ends now, it started a long time ago.

It’s kind of sad cause what we had
Well it could have been something
I guess it wasn’t meant to be
So how dare you try and steal my flame
Just cause yours faded
Well hate is gasoline
A fire fuelling all my dreams
(I’m afraid you asked for this)

The originators of metal were no purists; they used whatever instruments were at hand to create their unholy sound. Listen to Hawkwind, likely responsible for the very name of “heavy metal”, and you’ll hear Lemmy’s growl and distorted guitars swimming in a cosmic bath of trippy analogue electronics.

But then disco came, and the rockers’ reaction to it, which pushed everyone into one of two camps, forcing them into a digital zero-one either-or choice between guitars and drum machines. Even fans of freaks like Faith No More, art punks with a gay keyboard player somehow mistaken for a metal band, kicked back when the group’s experiments reached full fruition. That’s why fans of The Real Thing hated Angel Dust; and that’s why people who tolerated Sempiternal can’t forgive That’s the Spirit.

The good news for those people is that Sempiternal still exists; for the die-hards, Count Your Blessings is still available to listen to. As for the new album, a band making what can be seen as a wrong turn can’t be blamed for daring to find out what was waiting down that fork in the road.

Bring Me the Horizon barely listen to metal any more, and they’ve admitted to respecting bands like Linkin Park, who fill stadiums with big, bold, and sometimes heavy, sounds. True artists make the art they want to see or hear, and brave bands will risk existing fans over the chance to realise their vision, and present it to people who truly appreciate it.

Oli Sykes has come out of struggles like a Ketamine addiction with an appreciation of life in all its shades of grey, all its complicated beauty and bitter irony. And he wants to make music that reflects that. He’s not even 30 and he’s through fucking about. He hasn’t said as much, but you can sense that he’s not going to lose any sleep over so-called fans who are willing to walk away over the expansion of his ambition. For a band that always wanted to be more than metalcore, that’s the real betrayal.

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you
You broke my heart and there’s nothing you can do
And now you know, now you know
True friends stab you in the front

Bring Me The Horizon Drowned video shoot

Bring Me The Horizon play Huxleys Neue Welt on 10th November 2015 (tickets).