Berlin's cool enough for your international consumer startup
Lovely morning in Berlin. Blue sky, sunshine. As I am doing some product requirement work and listening to what’s cool on Hypemachine I noticed that a classic tune from 2000 by local DJane hero Peaches is trending … I double-checked and it is also the current techno bestseller on Amazon right now .
Each day I keep running into examples how locally produced creative work influences global culture.
My co-founder Zoe Adamovicz recently argued with me that this is a new age where Berlin-based consumer startups like Soundcloud can build audiences which impact the world. It’s a notion from a tweet by Union Square’s Fred Wilson I believe (she reads his blog).
Last Friday I organised a drinks event for and had a longer conversation about this notion with Rob Coneybeer from Shasta (he’s known for his Gowalla investment - great guy, super curious, one of the few VCs in the Valley that get mobile). In our chat we agreed that despite the world being digitally connected there are only a few places in the world where you can build a global consumer startup from. Each day I see new evidence that Berlin has become one of these places. Each week I run into mid-20s kids from all over the world who glow because, as they say, their creative (and not angel/VC-funded) ideas get respect from their peers in this town. Respect they don’t get in other places, including Silicon Valley or New York. The town is cool enough in its raw way and its folks are enough connected to the world for its local trends to impact the world.
