Ef Berlin: The Hunger Games for entrepreneurs
This has been the first time I have had a chance to sit down and reflect on my first 2 weeks in Entrepreneur First’s first Berlin cohort. For those who aren’t acquainted with Ef — its a program that brings a mix of technical and non-technical co-founders together and gives them the tools, resources and time to build world changing companies. Friends back in the UK have been asking me ‘how it’s going’, ‘what’s it like?’ & ‘have you found your co-founder yet?’ All great questions, but hard to articulate an answer to those who haven’t experienced the unique madness of Ef.
So, I’ve turned to popular culture to give me a hand in explaining my first couple of weeks at Ef. It also helps explain the surreal nature of the program, especially for someone who has also taken the leap to join Berlin’s first cohort. If you don’t like tenuous media references, this post is littered with them, so would probably best to stop reading now.
The Jump
Like the D-list celebrities on Channel 4’s ‘The Jump’ It’s been a big leap of faith into the unknown. I’ve left a great job and amazing friends behind in London to build a company, using Ef as a vehicle to find the perfect co-founder and idea.
I decided to take a spot on the first Berlin cohort for a few reasons:
- It was the right time to try something new.
- I’ve always wanted to build a company that changes the game.
- Berlin is thriving with innovative companies who are pushing the boundaries — a city where no-one bats an eyelid at ‘vertical farms’, mobile only banks (N26 started in 2013, 2 years before any of the UK’s digital banks) & autonomous machines.
- Berlin has a knack for B2C company building — many to do with 🚀 internet — playing to my strengths as a Product Manager.
- I had nothing to lose.
However, regardless of rationalisation, nothing can prepare you for the feeling of trepidation you have when you move to another country to start a world-changing company. 2 weeks in I’ve settled and increasingly have my eye on the prize.
The Hunger Games
From Day 1 Ef encourages you to form a team as quickly as possible — no tribute can be without a pair by Friday of the first week. The task: to find a co-founder that shares the same values, has a complementary skillset and you could work with for an indefinite amount of time. Cue frantic networking, elevator pitches and ideation activities all fuelled by copious amounts of caffeine.
You learn very quickly who is a ‘Talker’ and who is a ‘Doer’, in other terms the business person and the technical person. As a self-identified ‘talker’, I was on the hunt for an ambitious technical person who was open to ideation and contrary business models. The co-founder pressure cooker is compounded by the formation of teams around you, and as imposter syndrome becomes all encompassing, you talk to as many people as possible to see if there is a fit.
I was lucky to secure my co-founder on the Thursday of Week 1. To this date we are ideating and conducting customer interviews on a range of problems we hope to fix in a variety of markets.
Friends
Ef celebrates break-ups.
Whilst they don’t encourage Ross and Rachel’s on-again-off again relationship, they do encourage all pairs to break-up and rejoin the pool of single co-founders when their team isn’t working.
This makes a lot of sense. Every second you are in an unproductive team without a clear edge, mission, or insight you are wasting your time when you could be building a company with someone else. As testament to this we all virtually cheer (on Slack) when a team breaks up 🎉. Getting used to this mentality is hard, even from a Product Management background where pivots are frequent.
Myself and my co-founder Juan understand that at any stage if we feel like the team is not working, we will break-up.
The Apprentice
The culture at Ef is like nothing else I have experienced mainly due to the people that are attracted to the social experiment (especially one in its German infancy).
Its safe to say I have learnt more in this environment from the pool of potential co-founders than from Ef directly — and its purposely designed this way. From learning about cutting edge microbiological advancements, the possibilities of CRISPR, new applications for Augmented Reality, the future of crypto currencies or advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. People here are at the top of their game.
In short, Ef brings ambitious people together. They don’t actively form teams. They let everyone self-organise. This creates a culture of collaboration and a supportive, yet highly critical, environment where contrary ideas are amplified. Unlike the contestants on The Apprentice, everyone at Ef wants you to win.
Ambition
The most important piece I’ve learnt is to be ambitious. Risk = reward, especially in the world of Venture Capital. If you want to build something non-contrary then Ef isn’t the place to be. If you want to do something that is going to change the way people think about the world then Ef is mecca.
Ef Form gives people the chance to explore, rapidly prototype & test bold ideas, however it’s very easy to come up with hundreds of non-contrary ideas only to find that there are many players in the game. It’s much harder to find ideas which will split opinion — and we’re still on the hunt for this. But we’re close.
So, here’s to more contrary business ideas. And maybe learning a little German? Now, where did I put those post-its?
