Startup Founder: Daniel Gebler, Picnic
Startup Grind Amsterdam
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The Startup Founder series is about sharing the stories of founders in Amsterdam. It’s about the ups and downs, the beginnings, the milestones, the lessons learned and everything in between during the entrepreneurial journey.
Every month the Startup Grind Amsterdam community gathers for a networking event and invites an entrepreneur from the Amsterdam startup scene for a fireside chat. This month, Startup Grind Amsterdam hadthe pleasure of speaking to Daniel Gebler, CTO at Picnic on the 24th of April.
Interview with Daniel Gebler
Please, tell us a bit about yourself!
I grew up in Germany, fell in love with technology and got excited about its impact to business and society. After spending some time on the hardware side, etching wiring boards and assembling computers from scratch, I got enthused by the software and media side where I had a great time in the demo scene of the 90s.
Demo parties like Assembly, The Gathering, Mekka & Symposium, and the Party gave a clear signal that there is something fundamentally new in the making.
What is your academic background?
Following my passion, I did a PhD in Computer Science and an MBA. But more important than the academic credentials are the side hustles that actually form everybody’s character.
I took quite a few voluntary classes in math, logic, astronomy, and philosophy. Basically, I tried to stay broad and made a few deep-dives on topics that I liked most.
You were director of R&D at Fredhopper. What is the most valuable lesson you learned during your time there?
Get the team right. Startups are about people, people, people. While technology and market opportunity are the two other success factors, only the people behind your mission can make it happen.
Look for missionaries, not mercenaries. Every startup needs to pivot its product or technology at some point. And this will only be possible if you have the right team.
How do you think your experience at Fredhopper prepared you for your journey with Picnic?
I worked closely with leading E-commerce companies such as ASOS, Debenhams, HP, Otto.de, Toys’R Us, and Urban Outfitters. From those projects I gained quite some insights into all aspects of digital shelving which now forms the basis of our online store.
However, Picnic operates also the whole supply chain including a series of warehouses and hundreds of delivery vans. The integration of store and supply chain systems is a very exciting new dimension that opens up unprecedented potential to optimize in real-time merchandising, trading, and operations. We can unlock this potential in Picnic since we rethought the entire supply chain independently from the legacy of bricks-and-mortar stores.
PICNIC
Can you explain what Picnic is and how it works?
Picnic is a new online supermarket that delivers groceries for the lowest price to people’s homes, without delivery costs. Picnic is the most sustainable supermarket with 100% electrical delivery vans and no food waste.
Our customers benefit from a huge range of products at their fingertips, with lowest price guarantee and free next day delivery. Picnic saves you time and money, and removes the hassle of carrying your weekly goods home from the store.
Why do you think Picnic became the success it is today?
Clear vision, relentless focus and continuous progress. Living these principles day in, day out, allows you to learn exponentially faster. Combined with a strong team, it is only a matter of time until you find that hidden convexity.
What strategies have you used to target and win over your current customers?
For us, as a technology company, the product is king. After finding initial product-market fit, we focus now on unlocking new services to continue delighting our customers. Our main customer acquisition strategy is word of mouth. Together with relentless focus on product and service this leads to exceptional retention rates.
What has been the biggest failure you’ve experienced while building Picnic and what did it teach you?
One of the really interesting learnings we made is related to the different maturity requirements of consumer products vs. data analytics systems. While customers are happy to give feedback on an early version of your product, the analytics and reporting systems need to be flawless and robust from day one.
Initially, we aimed for building up the analytics in one go across all our products, services and systems. It quickly became clear that we needed to focus first on the mission-critical operational systems and later on the strategic and growth systems.
By now our engineering process ensures that at launch each product feature and operational change has analytics and performance measurements in place.
What has been the biggest success you’ve experienced while building Picnic and what did it teach you?
Success comes in many forms and shapes. One of the key learnings is that building a successful business requires both doing a few things really well but also avoiding to make major mistakes.
For us, operational challenges that require an ‘all hands on deck’ approach became an opportunity to build shared understanding across the entire organization and remind everybody about our core values. These cases are now becoming the epic stories that form our long-term identity.
What does the future of Picnic look like?
We already deliver in 43 cities in Netherlands and started recently international by opening our first cities in Germany.
The technology roadmap behind this business growth focuses around warehouse automation, scalable business operation and new services. For instance, we recently started a return logistics pilot with Wehkamp. This will provide operationally and technically exciting new opportunities.
STARTUP
How much should a startup take their customers’ feedback into account while building their company in the early days?
Customer feedback is the most essential feedback to achieve product-market fit. Even if you have just a small set of customers, take every single piece of feedback into account and understand why somebody gets excited or why he or she is not happy with your product.
Besides that, you should always blend this feedback with your own vision about how you wanna serve your customers in the long run.
What are your thoughts on work culture?
Startups are about people, people, people and culture is the glue kit that makes or breaks your venture. Think carefully about what type of culture you want to have, nurture the culture regularly and develop it further as your business evolves.
Look for missionaries, not for mercenaries. Entitlement mentality is slow poison for every startup.
How important are analytics for a startup?
Analytics provide the quantitative foundation to reason rationally and unambiguously about a business case. However, the difficult task is to fully understand precisely what analytics measures.
Every measurement is done conditionally and in some specific context. Descriptive and predictive analytics can be only effectively applied if these parameters are fully understood.
What would your advice be to entrepreneurs trying to make it?
Following the key dimensions market, product, and team I would give the following advice:
Play to win instead of play to not lose. Build a strong product and market vision, and take external advice with a grain of salt.
Build the right team, nurture it with a strong technology vision, and then get out of their way and let them build it.
Establish a champion mindset but stay humble and don’t fall into the trap of arrogance from early success. Last but not least, enjoy the journey and get comfortable with the unknown.
What do you think about the Amsterdam startup scene in its current state and where will it develop into in the next 10 years?
The Amsterdam startup scene made huge progress in the last years and became one of the major startup hubs in Europe.
Nevertheless, there are still important topics that need to be addressed in the coming years. Top priorities should be: Amsterdam needs to become more attractive for tech talent, potential entrepreneurs need to be encouraged to start earlier, and mentor networks need to be strengthened across all roles in the startup scene.
INSPIRATION
Do you have any habits or beliefs that have helped you significantly throughout the years to reach this level of success?
Let me keep it simple: Work hard, play hard. Embrace the future, but don’t forget your roots. And finally, reserve time for reading and thinking since these activities have the highest compounding impact on your future success.
What is your all-time favorite book which has given you useful insights about building a successful business?
Most modern business books mainly reflect on the common knowledge of the entrepreneurship and startup scene.
In my case, long-term impact came more from the books I read early on about explorers and adventurers like Rüdiger Nehberg that were able to explore untapped territory with minimalistic means. Very inspiring and a great guiding principle to build a business towards grand slam results.
Every month Startup Grind Amsterdam organizes an evening during which people gather to listen to an Amsterdam-based startup founder talk about his entrepreneurial journey and to network with one another.
