One fairer view on Rocket Internet and its founders

My three readers in total have surely noticed that I do reflect on startups, tech behemoths and sometimes on copycats. I do this when I have time and this is one of these moments. But Richard Oakley just stole me this pleasure with his unbiased and in-depth view represented in an article talking about execution, scale and success. No I am not talking about Berkshire Hathaway or Google, I mean Rocket Internet. And the article is "A growing respect for the Samwer brothers".

Few points here:

• I love the fact that the article is based on facts and author's reflections thus leaving the emotional factor out of it. Because TechCrunch (sorry I do really read and like your articles) just cannot get rid of the feeling that you hate these guys in the guts, for the reader's sake let us look at your last 3 publications as of writing this post:
• Rocket Internet: Is There A Method To Its Madness Or Is It Just Bad For Innovation
• the re-iterration of the Bltzkrieg email In confidential email Samwer describes online furniture strategy as a 'Blitzkrieg' in every possible following article about RI including the last one Rocket Internet’s ‘Blitzkrieg’: JP Morgan Invests In Russian Fashion Site Lamoda; $40-80M Reported 
• I also appreciate the mentioning of the fact that businesses that are so easily cloned and surpassed in weeks can actually learn from RI and have lost focus.
• And last but not least important actually adding yet another player is beneficial for the consumer. And a business that does not have its customers in the middle does not seem sustainable in mid or any longer term.

I would love if someone agrees or disagrees with my view and hopefully not Richard's because he won't be available for comment.

Humble me appeared on Portuguese national TV

Good that our great performance in the last months was appreciated by that many people. The rumour spread around and we had a visit from RPT to check our emerging office. I think they were surprized by the size of the venture and amazing working atmosphere.

If you want to enjoy my few seconds of glory take a look at RPT's recording.

Where to meet new people AKA exercise some Social Skydiving?

After a long pause, I feel like I should drop a few lines. My current hobby is meeting new people and exploring Berlin as I was more weekends out of the city than I spent in it. So lets start with what I explored this weekend:

- Went to Bode museum at the one end of the Museum island. There was an exhibition of Byzantine art and Orthodox Christian relics as well as many Italian, French, German and Spanish pictures and sculptures. It was really gooood. But I was mostly impressed by the gorgeous building which takes your breath away from both the inside and outside. If it was not so big, I could imagine living in it. :) The purposedly built exhibition building connects the floors through an amazing staircase and possess a huge amount of spacious and diverse halls.

- Took out some new colleagues for a drink - 3 cocktails each kept me sleeping till late on the next day and that is the reason for this post as I am still in bed. This was also the reason for my research on the meetup options, so please read my last point below.

- Looking for places I must visit and people I want to meet - this included also finding ways how to make some new acquaintances in a city where I have fairly few friends. So using the "Let me Google that for you" approach resulted in finding this article. The main idea is that you should check out the people and events at sites such as http://www.couchsurfing.org, http://www.toytowngermany.com and http://www.meetup.com.

So hopefully I will meet you at one of these :)

Don't wear shorts at interviews - Part II

As I posted just a few days ago, my appearance in shorts has strongly contrasted with my classmates. Now I face even more popularity by becoming the face (just for a short time) of Cambridge Conversations run by Cambridge Judge Business School. For the sake of not losing these precious moments of myself getting exposure in the press (God knows when this will happen again, and surely won't be soon), I have attached them in this blog. As I assume this blog is mostly read by my classmates from Judge, I guess I will experience some funny remarks.

Don't wear shorts at interviews

Well, I did make it in the Cambridge MBA entrepreneurship showcase and I definitely left a mark. Enjoy the start of this video ...

For and against Internet copycats

You will probably agree that that the copycat business is huge and all around us. As an entrepreneur I had at least 3 occasions when my ideas were copied. And yes, it is a nasty feeling. You get angry, the other guys are worse than the devil, you spend hours looking at their product and criticizing how bad it is compared to yours. But with time and experience I have started to appreciate newcomers, because they improved my own product. Yes, indeed! I have put together an non-exhaustive list of what got better:

1. Copycats are the result of careful analysis of your product. They usually come in a better form and build on the existing business model.
2. It makes you rethink your product - why are other equally that successful as you, or better/faster growing. Somewhere on the way you ignored something - be it speed to market, culture, creativity, sufficient financing. You become more open to partnerships.
3. Copycats bring you out of your comfort zone, because they change the game. Now you have competition. You push yourself more, you want to persevere. And there is nothing better than that in order to improve your product and add more value to your customers. You start coming up again with ideas, look for new ways to grow.
4. It changes your attitude. Many companies become arrogant and ignorant with size. Although this does not apply to all I tend to call them incumbents. And my personal believe is that incumbents should be disrupted all the time. Only this way you make them rethink their recruitment, customer support, structures. 

I love the example with the hairdresser salon. If someone opens a hairdresser and few months later another guy opens a similar one few blocks away, is he a copycat? No, just another hairdresser salon. And the one offering a better service will serve customers in the long-term and the one with inferior service will either have to change or go out of business. This si the real world and there is nothing fairer than that!

Share your opinion and feel free to support or argue with me.

To live in Prenzlauer Berg or not to live in Prenzlauer Berg

Another blog post and of course a new story. And guess what - the story is about finding an apartment in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. There are a few well known facts about this "angesagt" district in Berlin:

1. Buildings are very nice
2. There are plenty of good dining locations
3. People look schick
4. Apartments are expensive and difficult to get

Well, now imagine you are newcomer in Berlin e.g. started work 2 weeks ago and one of the prerequisites is to show your last 3 monthly paychecks in order to be considered for renting an apartment. Besides this when you visit the place you usually discover that you are one of 20 candidates for it and have to wait on the staircase for your turn to glimpse at it. 

Question: Now what do you think are your chances to get a place like this?

Answer: Nil

Question: What you do then?

Answer: You look for a WG!!!

WG is an abbreviation for an apartment shared by few people. I thought it would be easier and cheaper to get in one of these. Berlin has plenty of places like that and they are gigantic. While I was visiting WGs I have seen 140-250 sq. m. places. These are usually old apartments with 3m decorated ceilings, few bathrooms and many rooms. Inhabitants usually share the living room and kitchen, and everyone has his own 20-45 sq.m room. 

So, I signed for www.wg-gesucht.de and www.immobilienscout24.de and started calling to all ads that were popping up. And they were popping up quite often - 3-4 per day. Then I started visiting these places. Here is what I found out:

1. These places were definitely not cheap - prices varied based on the quality of the room and the number of people living there, but in general you always end up with a price between 380-600 euro. Considering that Berlin is a lot cheaper than London or Paris, for this money you can basically rent an apartment 2-3x that size (25 sq.m) yourself. Definitely not in Prenzlauer Berg, but a few tram stations away. This leaves a somehow bitter taste even if you like your new "Mitbewohner" as it seems that you are paying a huge amount of the rent and costs of the other guy(s).
2. The selection process hugely reminded me of cat walk show. You are examined in greater detail and face some funny requirements and views. For example, a man would tell you that although he has a girlfriend, he prefers to live with a woman, which is one of the few things that I am not ready to comply with. 
3. You see a lot of different apartments, life styles and get to know the city.
4. You meet a lot of people and some of them are worth staying in contact with. Some of course not. But I definitely made friends. 

So, you probably wonder what happened? I waited long enough to find a nice apartment and grabbed it immediately. No WG, not for me, and probably not for the guys that want to have some privacy.

Feel free to share your experience in apartment hunting, be my guest.