4 ms·

Wow. Lot's of salty people in this thread. I mean, this is HN, so what do you expect, but damn. Seems to mostly be people not from Berlin/Germany complaining h

by fnands 1y ago

Wow. Lot's of salty people in this thread. I mean, this is HN, so what do you expect, but damn. Seems to mostly be people not from Berlin/Germany complaining how much the startup scene in Berlin sucks.

pchangr 1y ago
Having tried the whole startup thing in Berlin.. then comparing financing opportunities in say.. London… honestly I don’t think there’s much in favor of deep tech startups in Berlin other than .. a lot of universities being physically present in Berlin. The business mindset is just.. too narrow. The only path I could think of is a phd thesis turn company via private investment… and I fail to see how Berlin is different than say .. Freiburg on that regard. IMHO, what you get in Berlin is a lot of little copycats of successful American companies on the consumer level .. with recent graduates being paid poorly because that is what berlin allows.. low pay.. low tech.. low risk startups.. or just people attracted to the “cool” vibe of the city.. hardly an incentive for deep tech. To me, the perfect case study is Rocket Internet. There is no way any deep tech startup would come from there. To get a deep tech startup to work you need to pay good wages to highly specialized people working on a project for a few years and there’s nothing special about berlin to enable that… except a lot of universities. But then again.. you could do the same thing in any other German city and it wouldn’t be any different.
LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
EONs ago I've been to some start-up founding/marketing/schooling event in Berlin, and left early, having to suppress my urge to laugh out loud very hard. Another typical thing for that 'scene' comes to mind, wherein some dudes got a price for a thing shaped like a pyramid with maybe 35 to 45 cm side length, intended to work as a Home/Soho NAS, with very underpowered COTS innards, and shitty software/crappy UI, lacking general functionality. Intended sales price? 5000EUR! Yay! But painted very industrial looking orange. Phew! Hardcore! That may be over-generalized, there may be some hidden champions there, but they rarely make a public impression. Hm. Maybe AVM, considering their market share in the DACH area. I don't like them, but they are less trashy than most other stuff in that market segment, and mostly do work reliably. Just not in ways I'd have liked ;>

by fnands 1y ago

pchangr 1y ago

Having tried the whole startup thing in Berlin.. then comparing financing opportunities in say.. London… honestly I don’t think there’s much in favor of deep tech startups in Berlin other than .. a lot of universities being physically present in Berlin. The business mindset is just.. too narrow. The only path I could think of is a phd thesis turn company via private investment… and I fail to see how Berlin is different than say .. Freiburg on that regard. IMHO, what you get in Berlin is a lot of little copycats of successful American companies on the consumer level .. with recent graduates being paid poorly because that is what berlin allows.. low pay.. low tech.. low risk startups.. or just people attracted to the “cool” vibe of the city.. hardly an incentive for deep tech. To me, the perfect case study is Rocket Internet. There is no way any deep tech startup would come from there. To get a deep tech startup to work you need to pay good wages to highly specialized people working on a project for a few years and there’s nothing special about berlin to enable that… except a lot of universities. But then again.. you could do the same thing in any other German city and it wouldn’t be any different.

LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago

EONs ago I've been to some start-up founding/marketing/schooling event in Berlin, and left early, having to suppress my urge to laugh out loud very hard. Another typical thing for that 'scene' comes to mind, wherein some dudes got a price for a thing shaped like a pyramid with maybe 35 to 45 cm side length, intended to work as a Home/Soho NAS, with very underpowered COTS innards, and shitty software/crappy UI, lacking general functionality. Intended sales price? 5000EUR! Yay! But painted very industrial looking orange. Phew! Hardcore! That may be over-generalized, there may be some hidden champions there, but they rarely make a public impression. Hm. Maybe AVM, considering their market share in the DACH area. I don't like them, but they are less trashy than most other stuff in that market segment, and mostly do work reliably. Just not in ways I'd have liked ;>