I firmly believe that Berlin will become a great place, not for the people who are born

here, but for the people who come here; the people who make a choice to come. -
Director of Education at GTEC, Christoph Rthke

GTEC Director of Education Christoph Rthke presented Silicon Allee with thought provoking
insights pertaining to Berlins Startup Scene. From managing two companies to entrepreneurial
advice, Christoph details his goals for renovating the German economy and society through
education.

What is the elevator pitch for your company?

I have two companies, actually. One is Germanys only independent, privately owned startup
accelerator called the Startup Academy. I founded it in 2012 and it has been running at the
Bootstrap Startup itself. Startup Academy is working with early stage ideas that are promising to
other companies. We have been doing this for quite some time now and we have seen quite a
few very good successes proving to the world that it can also work without corporate funding.

Thats one company. The other is GTEC, German Tech Entrepreneurship Center. This is where
we are currently at. GTEC is going to take it to a whole other level. We are building the one and
only campus for the revitalization of the German industry and arguably even society because we
are bringing old academia, big corporations, and founders from all over Europe together in one
singular campus to profit and build in the new digital Europe together.

In what year was Startup Academy and GTEC founded?

GTEC was founded officially on the first of July in 2016. Unofficially, we already started hosting
events and meetups at the beginning of 2015. I founded Startup Academy in 2012.

Who are the founders?

With Startup Academy, I am the co-founder and owner of the company.

With GTEC, we have a circle of founding partners; six founding partners in total. One of them is
ESCP - Germanys leading business school and MBA school. The other five are Henkel and
Innogy, two huge German corporates, one law firm, Noerr, and two entrepreneurship foundation
Sigmund Kiener Stiftung Foundation and Globumbus. All together they have established a
campus like you would establish a university and they are providing us with two-year grants to
keep this campus running. Just in November another industry department has joined us on
more or less the same deal and they also enjoy investments from Frankfurt. So, arguably, all of
these entities are the co-founders of GTEC to an extent. They all came together and showed
their assets. They had an interests in the plans and the startups involved; in doing so, they
could jointly get into the digitization process.

Tell us a bit about your competition and why are better.

On the surface, all other accelerators are competition. If you look closely, thats not the case for
us. Like with any other regular startup, every accelerator in Germany has a very unique
approach. Some are on the payroll of a corporate entity and have the corporate interests in
mind all while having their specific angle and specific niche. Others may come from a university;
they only work with student entrepreneurs very early on. So, if you look really close, there are
very few accelerators that aim at the intended target group with our similar ideas. So, maybe
Vest Tech Ventures, who are also neighbors here in this facility, could be called competition. It
doesnt happen often or even not all maybe that you really fight over the same team because
theres enough supply.

When it comes to GTEC, some people think that organizations, like the Factory, are
competition, but thats also not really the case because we have a very educational approach.
We do a lot of free education which also includes free events and meetups for everyone to join.
We are not at all about renting out space which is the main purpose of all the co-working spaces
in Berlin which also includes the Factory. We have a very educational mission. This approach
puts us more in competition with universities, but universities are, as you know, on a totally
different business model and are also much slower. They dont have that sort of involvement of
real entrepreneurs and real business.

What advice would you have for an entrepreneur just starting out in Berlin?

Join or go out and meet like minded people as quickly as you can. The like minded people are
useful when it comes to the social aspects, but you should also make an effort to meet
knowledgeable people and experts as soon as you can and expose what you want to do to
professional feedback as early as you can. Way too many are working in a founders fear. They
are working on something that might work or might not work and they are presenting only a little
here and presenting a bit there, but they are shying away from the proper proof of concept
which is talking to someone who actually has commercial interests and a lot of experience. They
miss out on talking with people who have a real interest in working with the product or idea.
These people are necessary since they will honestly tell you if what you are doing does not or
will not work. And for that purpose, I am running for one and a half years a bi weekly workshop
called G-Force where everyone is invited at any stage of their idea, preferably at the very early
stage, to just present what they are interested in and what they have created. They can present
what their thoughts are to the public in this meetup and get very direct, very precise, very hands
on feedback from me; this can be me just simply telling them what they should do next. Very
often this process is good immediately. But, thats the thing: if you are new in town, you should
face people and talk to people whose feedback might exactly be that. You should do this
immediately because you are wasting your time and your effort instead of only staying in the
happy-go-lucky circle where its mainly about social aspects and coffee.

What one group/individual/project has been the most influential to you during your time
as an entrepreneur in Berlin?
Several. One example of an inspirational person is someone like Gero Decker who created
Signavio, which in my opinion is the next software Unicorn coming out of Germany. I met him
years before through his profile in Silicon Valley form both an entrepreneurial side and a content
side.This is the case that showed it all. In Berlin, theres companies that have been successful
that have nothing to do with e-commerce that are still 100% founder driven and the founders are
not BHU graduates.Theyre software developers coming out of smaller institutes. They are
fundamental, useful, and close to the industry clues. They are here and theres more of them
than ever makes the press. The press mostly talks about the big investment companies and a
lot of money keeps flushing around in their domain and that means that lots of media attention
keeps being focused on them. But, next to that, theres plenty of companies that are building
very real stuff that has hundreds of thousands of clients, those that make real serious money,
and that is carried out by real great entrepreneurs that are world class.

There is also one guy who is still very prominent that is inspiration. When I first got my team in
1999/2000, there was already someone out there. He was the first guy ever in Germany to
become a billionaire in the internet field; the first guy ever who showed the world, or the
German-speaking world, that it was possible to use the internet to become as crazy rich as was
only previously thought possible in the engineering and car making industry. His name is
Stephan Schambach. Stephan Schambach, in the day, founded InterShop and that was the first
huge e-commerce software company coming out of Germany. It was actually also one of the
first coming out in the world. The thing is, he was seen as a shy nerd from Eastern Germany.
And back in the day, everybody talked about him and said, Wow, I mean, if he can make it... -
He was the total idol and ideal that we all took home to our parents saying, look at this guy! Its
possible.

There are crazy big opportunities out there. He returned to Berlin after building another billion
dollar company in America. He returned to Berlin in 2010 and hes bringing all the investor
contacts from America and also from this practice of trading billion dollar companies. Hes
bringing that from America back to Germany where he originally started.

What is your favorite spot in the neighborhood?

I have to say that the one place that I really go to frequently is St. Oberholz which is a cafe on
Rosenthaler Strae near Rosenthaler Platz. I use that as my office from time to time or at times
where I was more doing consulting work. I was out of a fixed office in 2000 for example and that
was often the place where I would meet business partners and even clients. Now, if I have
meetings early in the morning, lets say 8 or 9 in the morning, instead of already going to the
office at this time, Id rather meet them at St. Oberholz because everybody knows where it is
and it is so conveniently located. I am also friends with the gentleman who runs the place so
that definitely stands out, but there are other places that play roles in other fields like, if you ask
me about my favorite restaurant and locations, then my answer would be different.

Garnisonsfriedhof on Linienstrae is an example of one of my favorite locations. Its a pretty

good spot and its a pretty good hidden secret. It is the former cemetery of the Prussian city
garrison from the 18th and 19th century which is now a little park right on Linienstrae that
nobody seems to know about despite it being in the heart of the town. The reason for it is
probably because its entirely closed in by a red brick wall. Most people just hurry past and
hardly ever enter. Its a somewhat morbid space because, even if it is being used as a park,
theres still plenty of old tombstones around. Now its convenient to be used as an inner-city
sports ground especially for runners. Theres a circular path mostly compiled of a condensed
dirt track thats really comfortable to run on because its not as firm and solid as asphalt or
concrete. One round is 250 meters so arguably it takes quite a few rounds to complete five
kilometers, but its in the heart of town under the trees and its always very quiet and peaceful.

Has Berlins informal nature and unique history urban fabric, city divide, demographic,
etc. been a positive aspect of your time in the city?

Absolutely. I think that anyone who has information to look for a future - that goes beyond
wearing suits - has to come to Berlin. Anyone whos happily wearing suits and feels good in a
classical hierarchy and working with well-known brands following the path of their fathers and
forefathers - for them theres plenty of opportunity in places like Dsseldorf or Mnchen or
Hamburg, but anyone who does not want that, theres no other place to go in Germany and
maybe even in Europe. Berlin is the one gathering place for people who hates suits.

Where do you see Berlin in 5 years from now? 10 years?

Berlin will be more or less like today only bigger, better, and also wealthier. It will remain as
international. We are already very international and thats only going to increase. I firmly believe
that Berlin will become a great place, not for the people who are born here, but for the people
who come here; the people who make a choice to come. The people wanting to continue their
life here. Those are the ones that make a difference. Together with them we have been seeing
in the past two, three years already that theres more money arriving from both venture capital
forces and above all from all the parties in the German economy that are now selling out to
digitize and are starting to spend the money that previously was used for internal organizations.
Now theyre spending that on setting up more efficient structures while also helping them adapt
to the digital age. And theres no other place that is so well suited to achieve that than Berlin.
So, not only is the intake of international people who are looking for a future beyond, there is
money and opportunities which are going to be here in a much increased rate.

Finally, Coffee, Tea, or Club Mate?

Coffee and Club Mate. I also like tea. Like most people, I hated Club Mate when I first saw it. It
took me years to understand that it was actually called Club Mate (mat), not Club Mate (met).
I had always believed that it was an English product coming from some club. But once I got that
into my head, I found out that when it is well chilled its actually quite pleasant. I havent yet
progressed to the point where I take it in with Vodka, but I think thats probably safer, but from
what Ive heard the kids of today prefer it that way.