Scaling a business in Berlin

One of Europe’s largest tech hubs, Berlin has grown significantly in the last five years. From a city of nascent startups, it is now home to a number of successful, scaled digital businesses. We gathered a group of these scale-up Founders and CEOs to discuss the challenges of scaling a business in the German capital.

One key theme of the discussion was the changing role of the CEO as the company grows from five, to fifty, to five hundred people. It is vital for founders to learn how to become managers, accept the need to let go of some control, and trust in their team.

This, however, is no mean feat, and requires an openness to constructive criticism, as well as for founders to engage in a greater degree of self-reflection. This is a hard thing to do when a business is in hypergrowth, and everything else in the business needs urgent and personal attention. Many attendees expressed a desire for more executive coaching and mentoring for both hard and soft skills to help with this.

The other key topic was talent. As a city, Berlin has a high-quality of life, and living is relatively cheap, which makes hiring at a junior level — especially due to the fact that obtaining a visa is relatively easy.

This is not the case, however, at the executive level; the low cost of living means that salaries often do not reach expectations — particularly when hiring US candidates. To recruit the necessary talent, CEOs must be flexible and open to only temporary moves, as well as willing to invest a personal touch to relocate strong candidates — including flying out to their home country to meet them. More junior candidates can also be a good source of executive talent — they are often young, hungry, and eager to step up.

We would like to thank all participants for attending. Berlin has been an incredible growth story over the last five years, and we are excited to see it continue its incredible journey.

Companies in attendance include: Affinitas, Babbel, BlackBill Internet, Carmudi, Helpling,Seerene, TechStyle.