5 ms·

Rocket Internet: Waiting for lift-off

23 points by lleims 11y ago

Sealy 11y ago
Behind a paywall for me. Can someone post a TLDR or summary? Thanks!
- waliurjs 11y ago
  Rocket Internet in bad but making money.
degenerate 11y ago
nice paywall. https://www.google.com/search?q=Rocket+Internet%3A+Waiting+for+lift-off+(ft.com) https://www.google.com/search?q=Rocket+Internet%3A+Waiting+f...
karka91 11y ago
It would be great if HN had a rule against paywalled sites. Seems weird to have this on first page
- DanBC 11y ago
  I politely direct you to this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
viahartdotcom 11y ago
rocket is interesting. this article is not.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
andy_ppp 11y ago
I worked at Rocket Internet and the main problem they have is like any big company; a few very good people and a lot of useless people. Any proper startup worth their salt, competing with rocket directly, will absolutely slaughter them.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  Interesting. I just thought, that Rocket was in a business, that seldom any other startup is ... As much I know, Rocket is about starting new startups. I guess, there are not so many startups working in this particular business ...?
  - andy_ppp 11y ago
    Rocket Internet is renowned for being a Fast follower - they see an idea they like and build a copy of it; for example they started Wimdu which has had moderate success competing with AirBnB in some European countries. Obviously I'd probably bet AirBnB is bigger than Wimdu even in Germany. I really enjoyed working in Berlin for a few months though, it was excellent fun and I had an enormous apartment all to myself for about a third of the cost for the same thing in London.
- calpaterson 11y ago
  Given their specialisation in releasing in non-English markets, the question is not "can you beat them" but more like "can you beat them in India when they have a 6 month lead on your expansion?".
  - andy_ppp 11y ago
    Well I'd say you should operate in all markets as soon as possible. i18n isn't that hard and then it's about hiring the right people in each market. There's a business right there - doing the first part of expanding startups in Europe, India, Africa, China, etc. I'm sure you could scale it pretty well. I don't know what the costing/charging model would be. I suppose Y Combinator has access to some of these things already but not in the way programmers would think about it... * Translation that actually tries to transfer jokes/tone of a site and explains said translations in English. Maybe you could crowd source/do multiple translations.[1] * Tax Rules, Incorporation, Local Laws - as an API where possible. * People who could be good from local markets that could be useful. Hiring abroad must be very difficult. [1] http://gengo.com/ http://gengo.com/ looks like it does this bit I suppose, but I'd like to see more of a market and people being able to discuss pros and cons of each translation.
sagichmal 11y ago
> In Germany, Mr Samwer is a hero and a role model. Not at all -- entirely the opposite. Samwer is a high-pressure boss, well known for treating his reports and employees with belligerence and hostility. That attitude trickles down to the leaders he places in his shell companies. Rocket-family companies demand the long hours commensurate with typical SV startups, but pay developers below-market salaries, and provide negligible to no equity. They're notorious for shoveling a lot of core business work onto a huge, rotating cast of systemically-underpaid interns. I won't get started on the state of their (universal, mandatory) tech stack. It's actually an adage among devs in Berlin: to studiously avoid anything in the Rocket universe.
- andreasklinger 11y ago
  I feel like i need to make a comment just to re-emphasize how incorrect that statement by FT is.
- FlyingSnake 11y ago
  This guy speaks the truth. I chuckled at that line too. Rocket Internet is toxic and their culture is poisonous. They tend to copy the hilariously worst ideas from Silicon Valley and believe that only hustle and posing will lead you to success. People outside Germany should stop glamorizing them.
  - adventured 11y ago
    What are some examples of the worst ideas from Silicon Valley that they've copied?
    - FlyingSnake 11y ago
      From top of my head: * Noisy Open Offices. * The notion that real devs stay in office at least till 19:00 * Clueless technical staff. Hodgepodge of Scala, Java, Clojure, Groovy running on microservices/Docker/Hadoop/WhatsThatCurrentFad * Below market salaries. There was an uproar in Zalando open house that some Sr. Devs are paid less than Jr. Devs. * Interns as underpaid minions. One Rocket company even had the interns do the dirty dishes, clean kitchen and check on toilets.
rsp1984 11y ago
> With a €5bn market capitalisation, Rocket is Europe’s most valuable technology company. Seriously? I have no idea why they would say such a thing. I guess they have a rather odd definition of "technology company".
- sellingshoes 11y ago
  Interestingly, the article claims Rocket is Europe's most valuable tech company, and makes no mention of the most successful former Rocket company: Zalando, which has a market cap above €7bn and went public around the same time as Rocket. Stock of Zalando vs. Rocket: http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1445536800000&chddm=153871&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=FRA:RKET&cmptdms=0&q=FRA:ZAL&&fct=big&ei=Zd4oVszTBtCDsAHdpIrgCw http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&c...
- adventured 11y ago
  That is a very bogus claim. Even using a narrow definition of technology company, SAP has consistently been Europe's most valuable tech company. They're worth $91 billion, with $21b in sales and $4b in profit - they make Rocket Internet look like a piker. Even smaller companies like ARM are far beyond the size of Rocket. ARM is worth $22 billion, with $400m in profit.
abhi3 11y ago
This article will give you a good idea about how a typical rocket company operates http://www.livemint.com/Companies/rYKC6HjnShogjE62jO5lpK/The-trouble-with-Foodpanda.html http://www.livemint.com/Companies/rYKC6HjnShogjE62jO5lpK/The...
ThomPete 11y ago
Rocket does one thing extremely well and I believe it's fundamental to both their success and something other European startups should seriously consider getting better at. They localize their products and services extremely well, even outside of the EU[1]. This IMO is paramount to their success. With regards to them copying other companies. People need to understand just how hard it is to get a company up and running successfully in Europe. I find it ironic that for all the talk about how ideas are useless and only execution matters, people surely do seem to be very sensitive about them. Most Italian restaurants copy each other, do we complain about that? [1] http://tropicalconsiderations.com/2013/04/04/why-rocket-internet-is-good-for-emerging-markets/ http://tropicalconsiderations.com/2013/04/04/why-rocket-inte...

23 points by lleims 11y ago

Sealy 11y ago

Behind a paywall for me. Can someone post a TLDR or summary? Thanks!

waliurjs 11y ago
Rocket Internet in bad but making money.

degenerate 11y ago

nice paywall. https://www.google.com/search?q=Rocket+Internet%3A+Waiting+for+lift-off+(ft.com) https://www.google.com/search?q=Rocket+Internet%3A+Waiting+f...

karka91 11y ago

It would be great if HN had a rule against paywalled sites. Seems weird to have this on first page

DanBC 11y ago
I politely direct you to this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989

viahartdotcom 11y ago

rocket is interesting. this article is not.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

andy_ppp 11y ago

I worked at Rocket Internet and the main problem they have is like any big company; a few very good people and a lot of useless people. Any proper startup worth their salt, competing with rocket directly, will absolutely slaughter them.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
Interesting. I just thought, that Rocket was in a business, that seldom any other startup is ... As much I know, Rocket is about starting new startups. I guess, there are not so many startups working in this particular business ...?
- andy_ppp 11y ago
  Rocket Internet is renowned for being a Fast follower - they see an idea they like and build a copy of it; for example they started Wimdu which has had moderate success competing with AirBnB in some European countries. Obviously I'd probably bet AirBnB is bigger than Wimdu even in Germany. I really enjoyed working in Berlin for a few months though, it was excellent fun and I had an enormous apartment all to myself for about a third of the cost for the same thing in London.
calpaterson 11y ago
Given their specialisation in releasing in non-English markets, the question is not "can you beat them" but more like "can you beat them in India when they have a 6 month lead on your expansion?".
- andy_ppp 11y ago
  Well I'd say you should operate in all markets as soon as possible. i18n isn't that hard and then it's about hiring the right people in each market. There's a business right there - doing the first part of expanding startups in Europe, India, Africa, China, etc. I'm sure you could scale it pretty well. I don't know what the costing/charging model would be. I suppose Y Combinator has access to some of these things already but not in the way programmers would think about it... * Translation that actually tries to transfer jokes/tone of a site and explains said translations in English. Maybe you could crowd source/do multiple translations.[1] * Tax Rules, Incorporation, Local Laws - as an API where possible. * People who could be good from local markets that could be useful. Hiring abroad must be very difficult. [1] http://gengo.com/ http://gengo.com/ looks like it does this bit I suppose, but I'd like to see more of a market and people being able to discuss pros and cons of each translation.

sagichmal 11y ago

> In Germany, Mr Samwer is a hero and a role model. Not at all -- entirely the opposite. Samwer is a high-pressure boss, well known for treating his reports and employees with belligerence and hostility. That attitude trickles down to the leaders he places in his shell companies. Rocket-family companies demand the long hours commensurate with typical SV startups, but pay developers below-market salaries, and provide negligible to no equity. They're notorious for shoveling a lot of core business work onto a huge, rotating cast of systemically-underpaid interns. I won't get started on the state of their (universal, mandatory) tech stack. It's actually an adage among devs in Berlin: to studiously avoid anything in the Rocket universe.

andreasklinger 11y ago
I feel like i need to make a comment just to re-emphasize how incorrect that statement by FT is.
FlyingSnake 11y ago
This guy speaks the truth. I chuckled at that line too. Rocket Internet is toxic and their culture is poisonous. They tend to copy the hilariously worst ideas from Silicon Valley and believe that only hustle and posing will lead you to success. People outside Germany should stop glamorizing them.
- adventured 11y ago
  What are some examples of the worst ideas from Silicon Valley that they've copied?
  - FlyingSnake 11y ago
    From top of my head: * Noisy Open Offices. * The notion that real devs stay in office at least till 19:00 * Clueless technical staff. Hodgepodge of Scala, Java, Clojure, Groovy running on microservices/Docker/Hadoop/WhatsThatCurrentFad * Below market salaries. There was an uproar in Zalando open house that some Sr. Devs are paid less than Jr. Devs. * Interns as underpaid minions. One Rocket company even had the interns do the dirty dishes, clean kitchen and check on toilets.

rsp1984 11y ago

> With a €5bn market capitalisation, Rocket is Europe’s most valuable technology company. Seriously? I have no idea why they would say such a thing. I guess they have a rather odd definition of "technology company".

sellingshoes 11y ago
Interestingly, the article claims Rocket is Europe's most valuable tech company, and makes no mention of the most successful former Rocket company: Zalando, which has a market cap above €7bn and went public around the same time as Rocket. Stock of Zalando vs. Rocket: http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1445536800000&chddm=153871&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=FRA:RKET&cmptdms=0&q=FRA:ZAL&&fct=big&ei=Zd4oVszTBtCDsAHdpIrgCw http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&c...
adventured 11y ago
That is a very bogus claim. Even using a narrow definition of technology company, SAP has consistently been Europe's most valuable tech company. They're worth $91 billion, with $21b in sales and $4b in profit - they make Rocket Internet look like a piker. Even smaller companies like ARM are far beyond the size of Rocket. ARM is worth $22 billion, with $400m in profit.

abhi3 11y ago

This article will give you a good idea about how a typical rocket company operates http://www.livemint.com/Companies/rYKC6HjnShogjE62jO5lpK/The-trouble-with-Foodpanda.html http://www.livemint.com/Companies/rYKC6HjnShogjE62jO5lpK/The...

ThomPete 11y ago

Rocket does one thing extremely well and I believe it's fundamental to both their success and something other European startups should seriously consider getting better at. They localize their products and services extremely well, even outside of the EU[1]. This IMO is paramount to their success. With regards to them copying other companies. People need to understand just how hard it is to get a company up and running successfully in Europe. I find it ironic that for all the talk about how ideas are useless and only execution matters, people surely do seem to be very sensitive about them. Most Italian restaurants copy each other, do we complain about that? [1] http://tropicalconsiderations.com/2013/04/04/why-rocket-internet-is-good-for-emerging-markets/ http://tropicalconsiderations.com/2013/04/04/why-rocket-inte...