For me, it has been another busy week at work in Berlin! I was doing a lot of the usual work that I’ve done in the previous weeks, as well as helping prepare for the company’s summer BBQ. This is an event where we host all the investors in the company’s fund, as well as founders from the startups in our portfolio, and even founders and investors from our network that aren’t directly connected to the company. For the BBQ, one of my main tasks was making a long playlist to run the whole duration – which involved curating appropriate songs that align with the mood of the event. I also managed the guest list in order to create custom nametag stickers for everyone in attendance. Both of these assignments were different from my standard work, but served as a fun change of pace that I enjoyed taking on. I was also the photographer of the event, which I found out only a day before! This was something I was nervous to do, but ended up being really fun and something cool to keep busy with, as the event was around 5 or 6 hours. It ended up being quite a long day, as I set up before the BBQ, and stayed after to pack up things and didn’t get home until close to midnight. But, it was a blast! Needless to say, the day after was a bit rough.
I have also been working on an interesting deal that has required me to do a lot of research and due diligence to understand the company. It’s perhaps the most complicated company structure I’ve come across, but has a really interesting business model. I can’t say too much about any of that though ;). The diligence process is ongoing into next week and will be an opportunity for me to write an investment memo and pitch to the investment team as a potential startup to add to our portfolio. This would be really cool, because it would be an investment process I’ve worked on that could potentially go through while I’m still working here this summer. That is typically rare as the process can take 2-3 months sometimes, and I am only here in Berlin working for just under 2 months total.
I haven’t noted any major communication differences in Germany, besides the fact that I’ve observed sarcasm is either less common, or less clear. I think it may be delivered differently, which doesn’t create any miscommunications, it just makes my jokes less funny because sometimes I need to overexplain them. I haven’t had any miscommunications at work, in fact I’ve noticed that my colleagues tend to communicate more clearly and in-depth than people I’ve worked with in the US. Expectations being quite clear at work here is something I appreciate a lot and find very helpful in terms of understanding my assignments and executing them properly.
Anyways, after a busy week of work, I managed to get up at 4:00 am and get myself to Alexanderplatz for a bus to Prague. I made it to Prague at around 10:30 am, and got a great breakfast. After that, I set off to explore the city and do some touristy sightseeing. This was really interesting to me, because it reminded me a lot of the city of Poznan, Poland, which I also traveled to on a weekend trip from Berlin. However, Prague is much bigger, and had a larger variety of restaurants to choose from, which was nice. I had a local ice-cream cone type dessert, which was quite good. I also had dinner at a really nice Italian restaurant that was shockingly cheap for the quality. I got ravioli with ricotta and spinach, served in a sage butter, and truffle fries with a really good aioli. I’m missing it already, and making myself hungry as I write this on the bus back from Prague. Oops! Prague also had some cool clubs and bars, and I was able to listen to live music last night with some of my friends that also travelled out there. Altogether, while I’m tired, I’m quite glad I made the effort to go out there. I’m about 2 hours out of Berlin, and going to get back, do my laundry to have work clothes for the week, and then hit the hay. Peace out, blog!