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43 posts tagged berlin
TOA Berlin: Meetup 3 at EyeEm
On Wednesday we had our third TOA Berlin meetup. This time EyeEm was so kind to host us. Just hours before a new release of the neat photo discovery and sharing app, Founders Florian Meissner and Ramzi Rizk took the time to join the session and EyeEm is now committed to supporting the organization of the event. Thanks for that guys!
We decided to have weekly meetups with changing locations, ideally within the holy walls of a startup that wants to actively support the festival organization. So if any startup wants to host the meetup next week, please reach out to us via Twitter or Facebook.
The Outcome
Meetup 3turned out to be yet another creative brainstorming session and even though there were no final results, it did reveal which components of the festival people can easily agree on and which components are still up for discussion and yet to be determined.
Points that by now everybody agrees on
- We want to organize an atypical event that celebrates the passion for technology and innovation.
- This one goes out to the romantic hearts: Every summer has these 2-3 days, where the world seems to stand still and life is nothing else but wonderful. TOA berlin shall be a platform for such “summer moments”!
- TOA Berlin is not about Berlin, but the world with a first year focus on Europe.
- The event should be Berlin style: Bold, Edgy, Artsy, Guerrilla and on a Shoestring.
- The event should be created by the community for the community.
- The music, art and film scenes should also take part in it.
- “Organizations” (Startups, galleries, bars/clubs, bands, etc.) are encouraged to organize their own events at the time of TOA Berlin with one event calendar bringing it all together.
- Many organizations will opt to do cool parties. This is great, but we hope that there will also be events that bring people together to work and learn from each other (i.e. workshops, hackathons).
- This should be a summer event, so Open Air should play a big role.
- There needs to be a core organization team with ideally a minimum of one person who will spend the next months holding the strings together full-time.
Points that are still open to discussion and to be determined
- Will TOA Berlin have a central location (i.e. Mauerpark) or just be the platform for peripheral events organized by individual organizations (Startups, Galleries, Bars, etc.)?
- If we opt for a central location, what will it look like? The original idea was to have a fair style space where any organization can present itself creatively how ever they want (booths, food stalls, stages, burning man style camps, etc.). The question in the last meet-up arose whether one should rather provide one format under which organizations can present themselves instead (i.e. Gallery style). We also discussed whether any organization should be given the chance to “exhibit” itself or whether it should be a curated approach. The latter could of course also be one of the peripheral events.
- Will visitors pay for tickets and what will be the price?
- If there will be visitor tickets: How will the ticketing work? Will we opt for the original twist idea where everyone is encouraged to sell tickets/invite people to the event? (i.e. Someone who sells more than 25 tickets can rent a booth at the fair. Someone who sells more than 50 tickets can host an official partner-event of the conference. Someone who sells more than 100 tickets can become an official sponsor of TOA Berlin.)
- Will we use Kickstarter to sell the tickets and acquire sponsorhip?
What we are still looking for
- “Organizations” that want to host our next meet-ups and help with the organization of the event.
- People who want to help with the organization of the event. We will publish a list of positions that need to be filled in the next days. Most urgently we are looking for a video editor and a programmer who could help with our unfinished website.
- Sponsors (Great “early bird” sponsorship opportunities)
Next meeting
The goal of the next meeting is to decide the core essence and components of the festival on which to execute on. We will let you know the time and place asap in our Facebook Group as well as our Twitter and Facebook pages.
Interview with Rails Girls Organizer Henrietta Kekäläinen
In case you have not heard yet, the Rails Girls are in town. TechBerlin spoke to organizer Henrietta Kekäläinen (Official Holder of the World Championship Title in “Most difficult last Name”) back in March already. Unfortunately the video went MIA in the vastness of the TechBerlin archive (do not ever buy a 128GB flash drive, it forces you to save data all over the place), but resurfaced just-in-time!
The programming workshop for women will take place over the next two days and even though it is “fully booked”, there will be an afterparty at Flamingo open to everyone.
According to Henriette, a staggering 180 “girls” applied in Berlin, with 75attendees accepted. And the workshop is spreading around the world like bushfire: “Next week Rails Girls will be in Krakow and we have Stockholm, Buenos Aires, Dublin, Vienna, Hamburg and Paris in the pipeline. And yes, we will obviously be back in Berlin, too” says Henriette.
Watch the video to find out more about this wicked initiative and have a look at their inspiring blog to stay in the loop!
The TechBerlin City Guide
Every now and then i get an email with people asking me about Berlin tips. So i thought it would be a good idea to curate the best restaurants, cafés, bars, clubs, shopping and ToDos and make them accessible via Google Docs.
You can find a preliminary version of that list here or simply click on the link in the left column under “Pages”. A spreadsheet is hopefully not the final answer here and if you can recommend an app that is more visual and social while matching the simplicity of Google Docs, i am more than happy to host the list there. Some people have recommended doing a Foursquare list, but Foursquare is just not so widely used in Germany and does not allow for great flexibility when it comes to curating and filtering.
Since i live in Mitte and work in Charlottenburg, I do not get to check out other parts of town such as Kreuzberg or Neukölln as often as I’d like. Thats why i would like to invite you all to send me your recommendations per mail or Twitter (Contact details on the left). Once i have tested your tips (looking forward to discover many new places), i will add them to the list and mention your twitter handle right next to it. There is also a current Facebook poll on the best lunch place in Berlin and i will add the top results to the TechBerlin City Guide!
So come on, don’t keep your favorite spots to yourself. Sharing is Caring! :-)
Paging Mister Mayor
Berlin startups have recently started discussing the need to have an open exchange with Berlin government officials. High on a wish list that is still being formulated by various startup representatives are periodic roundtable discussions with representatives of both the startup and government worlds as well as faster Visa approval for non EU-residents.
When Christian Reber (Founder and CEO of 6Wunderkinder) wrote an email to the Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit, he received a brief letter of refusal stating that “the busy schedule of the Mayor would not allow a meeting.”
Although the decline may be due to the lack of government protocol on behalf of Reber (no formal addressing, call for a “near-term meeting” and generally short mail with little explanation of the context), it does not speak for the Mayor’s office to not engage in further communication, but rather send a final refusal instead.
Now the Mayor’s office is facing a social media backlash as Reber decided to make all email communication public (1. Email by Reber, 1. Response by Mayor’s Office). As expected people are retweeting the Mayor’s email rebuff and blogs are picking up the story. Let’s see whether this will end up hitting classical print media, too.
Reber has since written an open response to the Mayors office (2. Email by Reber), arguing that the fact that startups have created more than 10.000 jobs in Berlin and received millions of investment, should well justify a meeting between government officials and the startup community. Now that i could generally not agree more with!
Interview with Photo Hack Day Berlin Organizer Florian Meissner (Co-Founder of EyeEm)
Hackathons are becoming increasingly popular in Berlin. This weekend alone, there will be two great events for developers to collaborate and create new products in hours.
At the Photo Hack Day Berlin the most innovative developers and designers come together in an old swimming pool to hack the future of photography. Prices include a trip to London to show off your hack at an international agency. TechBerlin is happy to be a media partner and cover the event.
Check out the short interview with organizer Florian Meissner (also Co-Founder of photo discovery app EyeEm) above to find out more. EyeEm has just released its API so your possibilities are unbound. To register, enter your details here: http://photohackdayberlin.eventbrite.com/
TWIST Berlin: The Complete Recap
(Note: You can find the complete video recording of the TWiST Berlin show below)
What an awesome TWIST Berlin show at Ahoy! Berlin on Friday! It had all the right ingredients to become a Berlin classic! Interesting pitches by passionate entrepreneurs? Check! An audience that supported the Berlin startups like a force? Check! A rant by Jason Calacanis against the Samwer brothers and German copy cats that will become legendary? Check!
The TWiST hosts Jason Calacanis and Tyler Crowley were more than impressed with the quality of the Berlin startup scene and it is fair to say that Berlin really kicked ass that night!
What went on in a nutshell
TWIST Berlin was the Berlin edition of the famous US live web show “This Week in Startups”, where hosts Jason and Tyler discuss the world of startups. During the show there was a live video stream to the US from the Ahoy! cinema and loft space with a selection of Berlin startups pitching Jason and Tyler across the Atlantic and receiving brutally honest feedback in real time.
The Pitch Clinic
On Thursday night the pitch clinic took place at the cinema of Ahoy! Berlin, a new co-working and event space in Charlottenburg. The cinema was originally built in 1911 and is one of the oldest in Germany. The startups were given the chance to train their 1-minute pitches with a show biz coach as well as VC Christian Thaler Wolski from Wellington Partners and Paula Marttila, a Seedcamp mentor in London.
The Pre-Selection
A total of 19 startups had signed up to pitch Jason and Tyler live on the TWIST show. However, since the 1-hour show format only fits 5 startup pitches, there had to be a pre-selection on Friday night, just hours before the actual TWIST show.
The cinema was completely packed and with every entrepreneur giving their passionate product pitch the atmosphere heated up. For those who could not fit into the cinema anymore (it only takes 120 people), a livestream was shown at the Ahoy! loft upstairs. Both locations combined, a total of more than 200 people showed up, enjoying free beer and pizza alongside the pitch event. Unfortunately the audio transmission between the cinema and loft had some problems, but it was fun to communicate visually between the two locations with people giving their best at sign language. One guy even bluffed a striptease!
The jury, comprised of entrepreneur Henrik Berggren (Readmill), VC Paul Jozefak (Liquid Labs) and blogger Marguerite Imbert (Venture Village) had a tough job choosing the best 5 startup pitches, since the quality was just so damn good overall. Reflecting on the pitches Henrik Berggren later said: “It’s amazing how diverse and creative the Berlin startup scene is, copycats is definitely a thing of the past. The fact that my favorite pitch was a Windows app says a whole lot.” VC Paul Jozefak got a similar impression, stating that he ”.. was positively surprised by the number of innovative ideas, i.e. hardly any copycats” and that “pitches were also well prepared!”
The TWIST Show itself
At 10pm CET, the actual live TWIST show was broadcasted. The five finalists of the pre-selection all boasted compelling products:
- MeineSpielzeugKiste.de - A subscription based model that sends out monthly boxes with educational toys for your children. Great for cash rich, time poor parents. If you just want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
- KeyRocket - A software that lets you effortlessly learn new shortcuts for your computer. By improving productivity of workers (i.e. Excel!), companies may be very price insensitive here. If you want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
- Fashioni.sm - A location based discovery app for fashion products, think Foodspotting for fashion! The local off-line search market that this app taps into is huge and still unsolved. If you just want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
- SquadMail - Allows you to share email folders directly from your mailbox with groups and teams across other mail providers. Neat feature that also increases productivity. If you just want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
- Cinovu - A stylish platform for independent films. Users pay per minute, which leverages curiosity and allows users to test out different genres. If you just want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
The live show started at the Ahoy! cinema, but as the Wifi got worse moved up to the Ahoy! loft. The atmosphere was truly electrifying, with startup founders giving enthusiastic pitches full of passion. When the show host Jason Calacanis criticized some aspects of Cinovu, founder Shermin Voshmgir fought back and won the hearts and minds not only of the audience at Ahoy!, but also of the host himself in the US: “I love the fire in Berlin… this is a fiery group. They are going to get their point across!”
The Rant against the Samwer Brothers
After acknowledging the innovative new startup spirit in Berlin Jason started a rant against the Samwer Brothers and how they had ruined the image of the German startup landscape. He said that Germany was getting a “bad name” because of the Samwer brothers whom he referred to as “lying and cheating … photocopying thieves”.
The audience loudly cheered in consent! It seemed that finally someone with broad international reach called out what many Berliners think.
What became clear though is that Calacanis’s remarks about German copying referred to the past. At TWiST Berlin he got to see the present and he should better fasten his seatbelt for the innovative future of the Berlin startup scene!
The TWiST Berlin Winners
Because of the great quality of pitches and products, the two hosts of TWiST ended up having real problems determining a winner and opted for a tie between KeyRocket and MeineSpielzeugKiste instead! However, all 5 startups ended up winning tickets to the coveted Launch Conference that Jason organizes in San Francisco in March. To conclude with the words of Christoph Räthke, who ran the Founder Institute in Berlin and has lots of experience evaluating pitches:”I can’t remember when I heard so many solid pitches the last time!”
The Video recording of the TWiST Berlin Show
Be sure to have a look at the full video of this wicked TWiST episode! If the video does not open in the Browser, then just click on this link: http://youtu.be/ibLRmy-oA6o
The After-Party
After the show was over at around 11:30pm, our legendary Ahoy! Berlin “resident DJ” :-) Daddy Hemingway took to the turntables and span his great tunes. For those of you who do not know Daddy yet: He is the most legendary musician and DJ you are likely to ever meet! He was a roadie for Coltrane, sat on a panel with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, won a Grammy and received a thank you note from Bill Clinton! Nuff said?
So we ended up doing what had to be done and partied the night away with the last guests leaving Ahoy! at 6am!
Thanks to Radek and Lutz for bringing this event to Berlin. It was an honor to be involved!
Meet Christoph Räthke, Organizer of “Battle of the Startup Bands”
He is the “gute Seele” (“good soul”) of the Berlin startup ecosystem. A man who has “been there and done that.” A startup warrior who seems to have seen it all! Christoph likes to refer to the time before the bubble burst in 2001 as “before the war”. Who knows, maybe that was not even the first tech bubble he experienced :-).
A passionate musician, Christoph came up with the idea of a startup band contest, called Battle of the Startup Bands. The best thing about it: You do not have to be a musician, everybody can take part! Who better to tell you about it all than Mista Organizor himself. Action!
Interview with TWIST Berlin organizer Radek Rybicki
Radek’s story on how he ended up as CTO at a chemical company with a fascinating product outside Berlin is intriguing and we will have a more detailed interview about that soon. In this short interview Radek talks briefly about his background and how he managed to get TWIST to do a show in Berlin, which Radek organizes together with Lutz Villalba. TWIST, the popular startup show hosted by Jason Calacanis and Tyler Crowley, is actually part of the reason why Radek left the corporate world and became an entrepreneur. Awesome stuff!
BTW: MORE TICKETS TO THE SHOW WERE RELEASED TODAY. THEY ARE SELLING OUT VERY FAST, SO GET YOUR TICKET NOW: http://twistberlin.eventbrite.com/
Skype a Founder #11: Marcel Duee, Tweek
Ok, this one is very dear to TechBerlin’s heart since Tweek and TechBerlin started out at around the same time! In fact, this is already the second interview I did with Tweek co-founder Marcel. The first one was actually the very first interview i ever did for TechBerlin!
Why did our ways cross so early? At the time I was working as Venture Partner at Catagonia Capital and the Tweek team, introduced by biz savvy Holger G. Weiss, was pitching us. Catagonia ended up investing in Tweek with the investment being announced in December of last year!
Today Tweek is crushingIT and likely to become the next big hit in Berlin. And rightly so! Not only are its founders uber-sympathetic and willing to help out wherever they can. They are also great professionals (ex Nokia) who created a kick ass beta product! And yes, they know how to throw parties, too!
So what the hell is Tweek?
Ever felt that the over supply of online video content (i.e. on portals such as Youtube, Netflix or Apple TV) is rather overwhelming and makes it difficult to discover videos that you love? Tweek may come to your rescue! The super slick iPad app allows you to discover video content via your social graph a.k.a your friends and interests! It is beautifully designed and features a neat user experience.
Watch the video to hear about the forthcoming disruption in TV and find out more about Tweek and how it seeks to differentiate itself in this highly competitive market.
Beta Access: Tweek is still in closed beta, but gave TechBerlin 10 access codes. Sign up on the Tweek website and then send an email to info(at)techberlin.com with the subject line “Tweek Beta”. The first 10 people to do so will get beta access.
Twitter Developer Teatime Berlin
Twitter, the communication juggernaut that is said to hit 500M accounts by February took to the streets of Berlin last week for its first Developer Teatime event in Germany. The turnout was great with more than 200 developers, entrepreneurs and product managers attending the event at Mobile Suite in Prenzlauer Berg.
Twitter was impressed with the developer community in Berlin! In fact, a Twitter representative told me that they were surprised when they saw that the attendee list reached the limit of 300 attendees faster in Berlin than at the Developer Teatime events in in London or New York! There you go, Berlin proved once more why international media may be right to hype it so much! Ok, in order to not lack sportmanship: Seoul filled up even faster than Berlin!
Meet Team Twitter
Present at the event was a Twitter A-Team consisting of Ryan Sarver (Head of Platform), Jason Costa (Developer Relations Manager), Katie Jacobs Stanton (Head of International Strategy), Thomas Arend (International Product Management and with a Twitter handle many Berlin DJs would die for), Arne Roomann Kurrik (Developer Advocate) and German Twitter newbie Isa Sonnenfeld.
The presentations
First Director of Platform Ryan Sarver took to the stage, giving a “state of the union” presentation, in which he talked about the growth of the Twitter ecosytem and the opportunities it offers for developers. According to Sarver more than half a billion US Dollars of venture capital went into Twitter ecosystem companies during a period of just six months last year.
He specifically highlighted the opportunities that lie in the field of curation for developers. The importance of curation for Twitter became imminent when the company acquired Canadian startup Summify just this month. Summify allows users to enjoy a summarized version of all their social media streams.
Another example of a successful startup that builds on top of the Twitter API Sarver mentioned was “Twitter ecosystem poster child” Socialflow, a startup that shows brands how to use Twitter most effectively.
The biggest news however, came when Sarver confirmed that Twitter will be opening an office in Germany. And you can guess once where that shall be! :-)
- The Twitter ecosystemhas more than 750.000 developers
- There are a total of 15 Billion API requests per day
- There are more than 1.1M registered applications
Then things got more technical with Developer Advocate Arne Roomann Kurrik giving a deep dive technical workshop on the Twitter API, including the Search API, Rest API and Streaming APIs. Before i make a fool out of myself trying to summarize the technical characteristics of each, I better link to his presentation slides.
After the technical part, which Travis J. Todd of BuddyBeers who live tweeted for Silicon Allee described as “DevPorn”, two Berlin startups (Soundcloud and Readmill) showed the audience how they incorportate Twitter into their products. Readmill founder Henrik Berggren shared a stat that went down well at this event: “34% of Readmill users sign up to Readmill via Twitter, which is more than sign up via Facebook.”
The event closed with a long Q&A session and enough time to grab some beers and mingle. (Thanks to Early Bird Venture Capital for sponsoring the drinks!)
The Twitterati that were present
Sighted at the event were among others: Ingo Hinterding (CPO of Crowdpark), Gunnar Berning (CEO of Twago), Klaus Hartl (CTO of Tweek.tv), Ramzi Rizk (CTO of EyeEm), Zoe Adamovicz (Founder of Xyologic), Stefan Hoth (Organizer of Hack and Tell), Rowan Barnett (Head of Social at Bild.de) and Maike Haselmann (Social Media Editor at Spiegel Online). A special mention goes out to the Skylin.es team that came all the way from Amsterdam just for the event, taking the train back home right afterwards.
A selection of Tweets from the event (#teatimeBLN)
I GUESS THE EVENT JUST LEFT ONE QUESTION OPEN:
Many thanks to the whole Twitter team for coming to Berlin and sharing their insights as well as Ciaran O’leary of Early Bird Venture Capital and Frank Spitzfaden of Mobile Suite who helped with the organization of the event.
Twitter is Coming to Town
The Berlin startup scene is hot at the moment or as Soundcloud Founder Eric Wahlforss said it best: “Berlin has gone totally Bananas, there is so much going on!”
That shouldn’t be big news to anyone anymore, after countless international media reports have proclaimed the city’s growing ecosystem to becoming Europe’s Silicon Valley.
But it is not just media and investors that show increased interest in our awesome startup community. International tech companies are following suit!
TechBerlin is excited to announce that Twitter will be hosting its first developer event in Germany on January 26th, from 6-9pm at Mobile Suite in Prenzlauer Berg. Together with Ciarán O’ Leary of Early Bird Capital VC, TechBerlin is supporting the event.
You can find the official Twitter blog post with a link to the sign-up page here:
https://dev.twitter.com/blog/developer-teatime-berlin
Please register if you want to attend! Looking forward to seeing you there.
TechBerlin Top 5
Today we introduce a new format to TechBerlin. From now on we will post a Top 5 list every Thursday. Some will be curated like the ones we start out with today. Others will be polls like the one we did last week. If you have recommendations or want to research something specific for you such as (Which Berlin startups employ the most people?) just send us an email at info(at)techberlin.com.
Since this is the first Top 5 post, we present you 3 TechBerlin Top 5’s this week:
Top 5 Berlin based Startup Founders according to # of Twitter Followers
1. Alexander Ljung, Soundcloud (6,228 followers)
2. Anthony Barba, Pistachio (5,892 followers)
3. Peter Bihr, Third Wave (3,435 followers)
4. Edial Dekker, Gidsy (2,713 followers)
5. Felix Petersen, Amen (2,142 followers)
Top 5 Berlin based Startup Founders according to # of times listed on Twitter
1. Alexander Ljung, Soundcloud (395 times listed)
2. Matthäus Krzykowski, Xyologic (207 times listed)
3. Peter Bihr, Third Wave (198 times listed)
4. Edial Dekker, Gidsy (165 times listed)
5. Flo Meissner, EyeEm (86 times listed)
Top 5 Berlin based Internet Companies according to # of Facebook Fans
1. Soundcloud (376.254 fans)
2. Wooga (161.182 fans)
3. Zalando (94.972 fans)
4. Groupon (84.806 fans)
5. Tape.tv (76.657 fans)
Note: We hope that we have researched well and those lists are final. Please let us know if we did miss somebody.
The 10 “Hottest Startups” in Berlin right now
Last week Thursday we made a poll on Facebook, looking for the hottest startup in town. The poll to date received almost 4.000 votes!
Here the result:
1. Smeet (658 votes)
2. 6Wunderkinder (326 votes)
3. Twago (281 votes)
4. Soundcloud (270 votes)
5. Ezeep (169 votes)
6. Tape.TV (138 votes)
7. Wooga (120 votes)
8. ResearchGate (120 votes)
9. Gidsy (109 votes)
10. Orderbird (94 votes)
Almost 100 companies were added to the poll, which gives a nice overview of the startup scene in Berlin. You can find all startups and votes here. Some of the companies i had actually never heard of before.
Since many companies asked their followers on Facebook and Twitter to vote for them it should be noted that the more established, bigger companies had an advantage over the early stage companies. So “hottest” may actually translate into “most community outreach” or “most social media savvy” here. We will therefore make another poll soon, where only companies younger than 6 months (from date of launch) are asked to participate. This way we shall find the hottest early stage company!
Update: Twago passed Soundcloud in the amount of votes just minutes after this post was published and the list was therefore updated. Since Facebook does not allow the poll to be closed without deleting it, the poll may change over time. We will therefore check the list every couple of weeks and write an update if the ranking changes considerably (i.e. new players entering the Top 10 list, etc.).
What is Berlin’s hottest Startup?
A lot of people from other parts of Germany and abroad have asked me about Berlin’s hottest startup. Since it is the perception within the whole community that ultimately counts, I pass that question on.
You can vote and find out what the community perceives as the hottest startup here. You can make multiple votes, so next to voting for your own startup you can show which other startups have your love.
“MADE IN BERLIN” BADGE CONTEST
More and more Berlin startups design “Made in Berlin” badges for their websites and thus publicly showing their love for this great city (examples below).
ABOUT TIME TO MAKE A CONTEST FOR THE BEST DESIGNED BADGE
The Goal
The goal is to show off the city’s design skills and have the community vote for their favorite badge.
It is not that we want to find the one-badge-for-all-solution that all startups should be using in the future. We do however ask all entrants to make their badge publicly available to everyone so that those startups who do not want to create their own badge can adapt someone else’s.
Here some recent examples (We are looking forward to your design!)
