Starting a Company in Berlin

Transcript

Manuel:
[0:09] Seedlang is the company that our guest in today's episode has founded. I always struggle with this verb, 'to found' something, because it's also the past tense of, 'to find'.

Jeremy:
[0:23] Yeah. Yeah.

Manuel:
[0:24] You are the founder of an amazing language learning app called Seedlang, and you are the user. One of the many users.

Jae:
[0:27] And I am the learner. That amazing language.

Jeremy:
[0:30] Thank you. Thank you.

Manuel:
[0:32] And you graciously agreed to talk to us, not just about the app, but about founding a company in Berlin. Welcome, Jeremy, to the show. This has been the most official guest intro I've done so far.

Jeremy:
[0:41] Yes. Thank you. Wow. It sounded very professional. Thank you.

Manuel:
[0:48] Thank you. Tell us a little about yourself. We should just claim first that we're also friends, and that our companies closely cooperate and work on different projects together.
But tell us about yourself. You, Jeremy. The person.

Jeremy:
[1:04] Okay, where do I start? You know, it goes back quite a ways. Like how?

Manuel:
[1:09] Let's start with when did you leave home, and where was home?

Jeremy:
[1:15] Okay. When did I leave? Originally or ...

Manuel:
[1:17] Like, when did you come to Germany?

Jeremy:
[1:20] Okay, so I came to Germany in 2014. Basically, I was living in Brooklyn beforehand, working at a makerspace, a well-known makerspace in Brooklyn called 3rd Ward. And the founder of that company mismanaged the funds, and the company went kind of catastrophically bankrupt. And so I say catastrophically, because companies can go bankrupt and you can do it in a controlled way. You can, you know, kind of inform your staff. You can inform your customers. You can give people their money back when they've, you know, deposited thousands of dollars for classes and so forth. But he didn't actually have a good handle on the finances. And yeah, we went bankrupt. There was, like, some scandal around it, about his mismanagement, and it was in all the blogs in New York at the time. And I had been searching for jobs. And so I went and got like a job I was very happy with. By the way, I was CTO of this company, this makerspace ... and so a chief technical officer.

Jae:
[2:24] ... And CTO means ...

Manuel:
[2:27] And not to interrupt, but now, I do want to know how you ended up in that role. Like what was your background that brought you into this role?

Jeremy:
[2:34] Okay. Yeah, that's okay. So going back to, you know, at the beginning was ... I studied computer science. When I left college, I started a fantasy football company. And so I did that for four years and then sold that for a modest amount. But I was lucky from that point to be able to take a break from technology, and played poker for a living for four years from that point, you know?

Manuel:
[3:02] Your CV is a [inaudible]

Jae:
[3:03] I mean.

Jeremy:
[3:05] Yeah, yeah, it's all over the place. So from poker, I kind of had this feeling that I wanted to do something more meaningful. You know, if you play poker for a living for a few years, you get the feeling that your job is to take other people's money. And so that's fun for a little small period when you're like: Wait, I can actually do this? Like I'm good enough to to succeed at this?

[3:28] But then eventually you feel like, but what am I contributing to the world? Like, how is this a good thing for for me, for my soul, or for society?

[3:39] So, yeah, I ended up in New York and sort of bought into the whole startup ethos about, you know, changing the world and so forth. And this is 2010, and it was kind of in the beginning, I think, of when the startup ... yeah, this mindset had sort of started to come together. And so I wanted to start a business and I didn't know what it would be. I just knew I wanted to make a difference. And so I kind of poked around for a few years in New York and did freelance work and yeah, I didn't find anything really that grabbed me. And then, yeah, I found a job at this place, 3rd Ward, and I had taken some classes there. So I mean, to give some background and what Third Ward was, it was a makerspace that taught all different creative pursuits in one building. So you could do woodworking, metalworking, fashion design, sculpture, robotics, computer science, all within one location. And people, you know, they ... it was well known for having this very creative community of, like, cross collaboration across different mediums. And when I went there, it just spoke to me so, so much, like, as even a student, and as somebody that experienced what it's like to be there ...

[5:04] ... and I found out they were looking for a web designer. And I had an interview with the CEO and the COO at the time, and they told me, sort of, the reality of how things worked behind the scenes. And I told them in the interview that this sounds like a disaster. Like, how do you guys keep this thing going? Like, you're running this business with a bunch of interns who have no experience in education. There's no processes under the hood. There's no even centralized database of classes. They were running from like a spreadsheet, and then having interns update a Squarespace website to keep the website up to date. But it wasn't a central database, and I was just like: That's not a way that you run a school in 2014, you know? So I just told them, you know, this is a disaster, but I think I can help you guys fix it. And but the thing I sort of required out of the interview was that I'm not a web designer, I'm your CTO. You know, because if I come in, I need, sort of, the authority to help you to change the company, change the culture, change the staff, you know. And so I convinced the ...

Manuel:
[6:21] That is a ballsy move, but it is a great lesson for anyone to, like ... yeah, that's a big Know Your Worth.

Jae:
[6:22] That is. Yes. Know Your Worth.

Jeremy:
[6:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also know when you see something that just looks wrong. Like, why would you keep that in? Like, if I'm going to come into your organization, as soon as I get there, I'm going to be very vocal. So why not start being vocal immediately? Because if we agree on what's wrong, then we can align and make it better. And so I was lucky. I mean, they told me after the fact that everybody else they had interviewed had been just, like, so excited to be there and, like, telling them how amazing the company was. And I was the only one that was, like, you know: This is wrong. Like, yeah, they knew it.

Manuel:
[7:01] Mhm. And they knew it probably. It's not like they didn't know what the issues were. Right. Okay. So but then you didn't save the company, it ...

Jeremy:
[7:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they knew it. No, it went under. Well, that was a difficult position to be in, because even once I got there, I saw that the founder was sort of absent from a lot of the financial goings on. And I ... yeah, there were just things happening, like classes were starting where the materials were not there. So like. somebody would come to a painting class and there would be no paints, there'd be no canvas, there'd be ... And so, like, it was a little bit disastrous. And we were running deficits with different suppliers and juggling the finances. And yeah, so I was in the position of needing to tell the staff, like, how dire things were, but ... while also trying to move things forward, you know. So it was a difficult position to be in. I saw that the company would go under about two months before it did, and I met with the CEO and the COO and I told them, "We need to basically have a controlled shutdown of the company, because if we don't do it in a controlled way, all of our reputations will be ruined, actually." And so the CEO's response was, "What are you talking about? We're fighting to save this thing, man. We can do it."

Jae:
[8:22] Everything's fine.

Jeremy:
[8:27] Yeah, everything's ... And I was like, "Yeah, I don't think so. I think we're past that point." Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it borders on delusion, you know? It it is a ... yeah, a unique characteristic of our culture. So ...

Jae:
[8:29] The American optimism.Yeah, I know.

Manuel:
[8:40] So that company went under. Your reputation ... ?

Jeremy:
[8:43] It was damaged. So, I mean, I would put it this way. I had a job that I was very excited to get and I was hired. I was going to start on a Monday, and on Saturday they emailed me and said, "Hey, man, we're really sorry, but we did some more investigation into the whole thing with 3rd Ward," and like, "We really do believe, you know, your side of the story, but it's such a risk for us that we just don't want to take the risk, and we're not going to be able to hire you."

Manuel:
[9:08] Interesting.

Jeremy:
[9:09] And so I went from that, to taking another job that I really didn't want, and then saying: Actually, you know what? I don't want to work at a company that I'm not happy to be at. And so I'm going to essentially downscale my life and head off to Berlin and ...

Manuel:
[9:27] And how did Berlin come into the picture? Like, downscaling your life, doing your own thing, that I get after these experiences. But where did Berlin come from?

Jae:
[9:36] Yeah. Out of all the cities you could have chosen. Yeah.

Jeremy:
[9:39] Yeah, well, the thing I'd heard from people in Brooklyn was: Berlin is the only city that is as cool as Brooklyn, but cheap.

Jae:
[9:48] That's a good description.

Jeremy:
[9:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was like, Wait, it's cheap?And it's as cool as Brooklyn? Like, what else do I want? You know?

Jae:
[9:54] And you're also coming from a Brooklyn - probably - salary and living standards. So you're, like, making money fly here? Really?

Jeremy:
[9:58] Yeah. Yeah, in a way. I mean, it ... it got a little tight at the end, though, I have to say, you know, like. But, yeah, I mean, there is a big difference. Like, my first job in Berlin, I made less than half of what I made in New York. Like almost a third of what I made in New York. So it's a big difference. But it's much cheaper to live here. It's ... like the rent was also a third of the rent in New York.

Jae:
[10:20] It's a big difference. Yeah. That's true. What year was this?

Jeremy:
[10:28] This is 2014. Yeah. So it was still cheap here.

Manuel:
[10:31] So you made the decision. Walk us through the logistics, because how do you even get a visa here? Do you just come on a tourist visa and say: Hey, I want to start a company here?

Jeremy:
[10:44] Yeah, well, the company came later, because I didn't even have the idea for the company in the beginning. So I arrive and I get a freelancer ... No, I'm sorry. I arrive and I'm under a tourist visa. The only lasts for three months. And I kind of procrastinated going and taking care of getting the freelancer visa. And I remember I was at a party with a bunch of Americans like two weeks before my visa was going to run out, and I just casually said something like, you know, "Yeah, I haven't really dealt with it yet, but I'm just going to go to the ... Ausländerbehörde like, you know, next week in the morning I'll take care of it.

Manuel:
[11:17] ... Ausländerbehörde.

Jeremy:
[11:23] And they're like, "What?" Like ... "Like, do you think that's possible?" Yeah.

Manuel:
[11:24] "What? What are you talking about? You did not get the appointment, like seven months ago?"

Jeremy:
[11:30] Yeah. "You haven't even done really the research of what you need, all the paperwork and everything?" And so I was like: Oh, okay, well, this is my first time out of the US. Why don't I go travel a bit and come back later, you know - and see if I do want to come back later? Because basically I was exploring this whole digital nomad lifestyle, and everybody is talking about Chiang Mai as kind of the the place for digital nomads. And so I just thought: Okay, I'll spend a couple of months, like in Asia, and travel around a bit. And then if I want to come back, I'll come back. And so that's what happened. I left Berlin.

Manuel:
[12:07] Come back ... you did want.

Jeremy:
[12:10] I eventually found myself wanting to come back. I mean, I found that the culture in Thailand didn't resonate with me. And I also found somehow I didn't like being somewhere where I was always kind of a mark, you know? I mean, you can they can see you from across the street that you're not you're not local, and you get approached constantly. And I just never felt completely comfortable there. But I was only there for a month. And then I was in Nepal for two months, and that's where I came up with the idea for Seedlang. Essentially it was in Nepal, at the point when I decided to come back to Germany.

Manuel:
[12:44] I love that we're in the point of the story that I've never heard. So you were in Nepal when the idea of Seedlang occurred to you.

Jeremy:
[12:49] Yeah. Yeah.

Manuel:
[12:53] Which it's very I mean, maybe before you tell the story, give us a brief description for those listeners that don't know what Seedlang is. Because it is ... or in the beginning it was just an app to learn German specifically.

Jae:
[12:53] What were you doing?

Manuel:
[13:07] So how did this occur to you in Nepal?

Jeremy:
[13:10] Okay, So. Well, basically, what I was looking for when I ... because I knew I was interested in making a language learning app because the other ones that I had tried, which at the time, kind of Duolingo and Memrise, were the two that resonated with me to some extent, but that I never ... like it never translated into me feeling comfortable speaking German. And so I was always looking for some sort of kernel of insight as to how you could improve your spoken German. And I found a audio course from a guy called Michelle Thomas.

Manuel:
[13:45] Yeah, we talked about him. I used to be a huge fan of his courses. I still am. Michelle Thomas, he has this whole ... well, he doesn't live anymore, but he was very famous for his courses that he did in person with, like, celebrities. But then he also made these audio courses. And the whole philosophy is that, as the student, there's like no responsibility, there's no homework, there's nothing to write down, you're not reviewing grammar or anything. All you're doing is listening and following along. And whenever he asks a question, you need to answer it out loud. You need to hit pause and answer the question, and he will teach you the language bit by bit, and without using all of the official terms for the different cases and the different times, and stuff like that. And instead he's like using metaphors and stuff that will help you remember, Did I do a good job of summarizing?

Jeremy:
[14:38] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Manuel:
[14:40] It's great in the beginning because he just makes you feel like you're learning so fast. Like when I started learning Spanish that way, I was just like: Oh my God, I'm leapfrogging everybody else! Which is only partially true, probably. But he has a good way of basically kickstarting you and telling you: Look, all the verbs that end on '-ing' are basically the same in Spanish so you already know them, and stuff like that.

Jeremy:
[15:00] Right. But I think one of the sort of magic pieces to what how the course is constructed is that ... I mean, you spend your whole time listening and speaking because you're hearing him tutor to students. He's prompting them with new phrases. He's asking them to repeat the phrases as he introduces them. So the student who's listening to the audio course can also pause the recording, you know, repeat as he he prompts the phrase, and then he'll ask for you to make a translation, giving all the phrases that you've been taught. And then you pause the recording, you make an attempt at the translation, you then hit play to see if you're correct. And so that was actually the piece of it that I thought was, like, worthy of making an interactive kind of piece of software around. You know, like listen to somebody speaking German, repeat what they say, and then make translations and hear if you're correct. And to me, that was already, like, a big difference over something like Duolingo where you're just kind of dragging a little pieces of text around the screen, you know?

[16:11] And I just remember, like, after the first day of using Michelle Thomas, I was, like, walking around the streets of Nepal saying German phrases out loud, saying like: Wow, I can do this! Like I got sort of the wheel ... you know, the ball rolling with with this course. And he got me speaking these sentences. And now I'm just sort of, like, it feels easy, like the muscle memory of saying these things is sticking with me.

Manuel:
[16:38] Right. And he does it like he has a good pacing too, where it's always challenging, but you never feel like you're dumb or you can't do it.

Jeremy:
[16:47] Yeah, but also the genius of it is that he has two students.

Manuel:
[16:51] A good one and a bad one. So you're somewhere in the middle. And you.

Jeremy:
[16:51] A good one and a bad one. Yeah. You always feel smarter than the bad students, so. Yeah, it's ...

Manuel:
[16:57] So, but I always wondered if that was really on purpose. Like, how do you hire people on purpose? You know? And it's like ... because those students were legitimately people who didn't speak a word.

Jeremy:
[17:00] I don't think it was on purpose.

[17:07] The other absolute beginners. Yeah.

Manuel:
[17:08] Right. So it must have been a little bit of luck, too. But it was the same on my courses where I was always like ...

Jae:
[17:13] I mean, you can probably tell by that person's background that they've studied anything else. Are they a good student or a bad student?

Jeremy:
[17:20] How well they'll catch on. I think it's a lot to do with short term memory, though, because the people that are sort of latching on, they're just ... I think actually a short term memory has a lot to do with how your success will go with learning a language. Like, people that say, "Oh, but it's easy!" Like, "You know, I don't have any special talent." I think they underestimate probably their own kind of strengths, like, with short term memory. Because I have a ridiculously terrible short term memory, and I've always found it very challenging to sort of ...

Jae:
[17:47] I have a bad short term memory.

Jeremy:
[17:52] ... to remember vocabulary. And so ... but I've always thought me being a poor language student is good for Seedlang, kind of like pedagogy, because I'm always reinforcing, and trying to make things as vivid and colorful as possible.

Jae:
[18:07] I will say that's one of the cool things about Seedlang that I appreciate. Personal positive review.

Jeremy:
[18:08] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

Manuel:
[18:13] Seedlang is based all on the idea of, like, videos. Every word is a video. Every sentence is a video. Every ... Like, am I doing a good job explaining your app?

Jeremy:
[18:23] Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. Everything's a vid ... I mean, that was one of the original kind of, like, outlandish ideas. I remember I used to tell people in Berlin what I was working on, and I was like, "Yeah, it's going to be this app where every single word in the entire, like, ... dictionary is going to be a video, every sentence, every word."

Manuel:
[18:37] ... dictionary.

Jeremy:
[18:41] And I remember one guy telling me ... Well, he was a German. Germans can be very skeptical with your startup ideas, you know.

Manuel:
[18:47] Yes.

Jae:
[18:47] Really? Really? Huh! Shocking!

Jeremy:
[18:51] Very, very skeptical. And he told me, "Well, that's impossible." And I was like, "Well, I don't see why it's impossible." Like, like what's impossible? And, you know ... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Manuel:
[18:57] "That's impossible." It's a finite set of words. Yeah. I mean, early on ... I remember early on when when I first met you, you had already done it, like, Seedlang already existed. It wasn't a native app yet, but you could use it on the website. And the closest comparison that I could come up with is Google Street View, where it's also, like ... I mean, it's a different scale altogether, but I think when Google started saying: We're just going to take photos of every single street, and like the entire street, so you can look at every street and every house in the world, you know. It's like it just sounds impossible until someone does it.

Jeremy:
[19:34] Sounds impossible. Just sounds impossible. Yeah. Someone does it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Manuel:
[19:37] And now it's like taken for granted. And other companies are doing the same thing now, actually, so there's duplicate sets... So ... it's crazy.

Jeremy:
[19:42] That's okay. Yeah, I mean ... but I mean, early on in the early prototypes, I was recording the video with, you know, a video camera and then editing in Premiere.

Manuel:
[19:43] Yeah.

Jeremy:
[19:55] And I quickly realized that, okay, if I really want to make a video for every word, every sentence, I have to create software to make the recording process really efficient. And so that's built into the backend of Seedlang, that we prompt our teachers with, like, what words and sentences they should record, and then they record it directly into the browser, and without even any review process. As soon as they record it, it appears in the app, you know.

Manuel:
[20:21] At some point you're going to have a teacher, like a disgruntled employee type of situation, where they're going to record a bunch of obscenities.

Jeremy:
[20:29] Could happen. I mean, now there's 15,000 words in German. It would take a long time before we heard, you know, that this video is maybe inappropriate.

Jae:
[20:38] So do you come from like a app programming, like, background? Like, is it very easy for you to say: Oh, I'm just going to make this type of software right now and try it out?

Jeremy:
[20:47] I mean, I think the the sort of ... the superpower of developers is that once you learn any form of development, you think you can do everything else. So even though I hadn't ever made an app like a mobile app, like, I thought, well, other people do it, I can do it, you know? And I mean ... but I had a good philosophy going in. I mean, from a technical standpoint, I don't know if this is interesting or not, but I built the website in React, and then I made everything very portable to this technology called the React Native, which allows me to reuse a lot of the code in the app. And I mean, for a long time I was the only developer on Seedlang, like doing it this way was the only way I could make an app, you know. Because most companies that are doing comparably ambitious projects would have, you know, let's say at least at least six or seven developers, but more often like a lot more, you know.

Jae:
[21:41] Yeah. Okay. So back to how you got this idea. You're in Nepal ... And you're listening to Michelle Thomas. And that kind of sparked this idea that you would like to create a language learning app primarily for German.

Manuel:
[21:45] You're still ... you're still in Nepal at this stage ...

Jeremy:
[21:53] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I always had the ambition of adding other languages, but I knew I wanted to build something that I wanted to use. And so, starting with German made sense. It kept everything kind of, you know, doable. And so I started, I built a small prototype. I came back to Berlin. I started going to meetups, telling everybody about my great idea, getting some skeptical responses. But I started reaching out to different creators that were, you know, working in the German teaching field with my idea to find a collaborator, because obviously I couldn't do this myself. And my first collaborator was Emmanuel from Your Daily German, the blog that both Seedlang and Easy German collaborates with fairly often. And we're, you know ... he's friends of all of ours. And yeah, and so that was an interesting collaboration.

Manuel:
[22:50] It's interesting because he strikes me as a skeptical person.

Jeremy:
[22:53] He's skeptical.

Manuel:
[22:55] How did you get him? Of all people to buy in.

Jeremy:
[22:57] Yeah, it's a good question. I'd have to ask him. I mean, I think. Yeah, we'd have to ask him. But in the end, I needed somebody that would be in front of the camera.So I was always targeting YouTubers. Because I just thought: Okay, like, they're self-selecting themselves as like being good in front of the camera, they have an audience. And ... so I started reaching out to YouTubers and I worked with Jenny from German ... What's her channel called? German with Jenny? And now it's called ... Wait ... 'lingoni'. And so I worked with her for a little bit. You know, it wasn't exactly a creative match, and then reached out to Cari from Easy German and ...

Manuel:
[23:41] ....She ignored you at first. Right?

Jeremy:
[23:48] She did. We made a video on the topic, where we recreated me reaching out to her. I wrote a very, very long email, which is ill advised. If anybody's out there trying to reach out to an influencer to get them to collaborate on your project, do not write an eight paragraph email. Yeah.

Manuel:
[23:59] I disagree. Honestly, I disagree, because it's not about brevity. It's about sincerity and heartfeltness. And like if it's a generic email that is clearly being sent to several people, and maybe you changed one paragraph, then it's a problem if the email is long because then it's just like: What's this? Oh no, I'm not even going to read this. But if it's clearly actually written to you, then I think most people, including very busy people, would read it.

Jeremy:
[24:33] Yeah, that's true. And I don't know if you read it originally and this kind of like set it aside, but there was some weeks or even longer - I don't remember how long I didn't hear back from her. And yeah, eventually she wrote and said, you know: Hey, I'm sorry, I'm too busy for this project. It does sound interesting. If you'd like to come by the office and just chat, you know, I'd be happy to chat with you. And I remember she said, in fact: I'm trying to reduce my own projects. So I was like: Oh, then there's really no chance if she's trying to cut down on her own projects. And so I went into the meeting thinking the best I could really hope for is that she knows somebody, you know, and that we formed some kind of bond or or connection, like she gets it and she's like, yeah, a hub of, like, meeting somebody else. But, yeah, so I remember I went to the office in Pankow, which is now Seedlang's office, you know ...

Manuel:
[25:27] Yeah. You've inherited it.

Jeremy:
[25:31] Yeah, we inherited it. And I just remember, you know, she opened the door so warmly, you know. Everybody should know, like, who you see on video is who you get in real life.

Jae:
[25:39] That's what I tell everybody, say it to everybody.

Jeremy:
[25:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If not even warmer ... Because in real life, you don't expect, you know, somebody ... you know ...

Jae:
[25:48] And like, she's so nice, guys. She's awesome! She's the best!

Jeremy:
[25:50] So nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, I met her, I met Janusz, and also their interactions were, you know, kind of like ... like I've just entered into the YouTube world, and I'm just observing them and their interactions. But yeah, so I remember I played it real cool, because I was like the one thing I didn't want to do is show up and like, immediately start demo-ing my app for sure.

Jae:
[26:16] Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah.

Jeremy:
[26:17] You know, I was like: Okay, let me just chill out, let's have some small talk, let's get to know each other. And then when the time is right, it's going to ... I'm going to, you know, start doing the pitch. Yeah, yeah. And I remember she gave me a good segue, because she was talking about how she was using some of YouTube's features to ... I think, this like banner that you can put into the YouTube video to click to somewhere else, and she was talking about how they were using it to sort of, like, tie videos together. And I was like: Well, wouldn't it be great if we that there was software that was built specifically for language learning, also while keeping video in mind and ... etc. etc.

[26:57] And so I just broke out the laptop and showed her the demo, sort of, prototype that I had at the time. And she, you know, watched it for a few minutes and was like: Oh, that's cool. I want to work on that. And it was like that quick, and suddenly she's in. And so, yeah, so then that started. But it was an interesting situation though, because I'd always expected that I needed a real linguistically-oriented teacher, because I thought I was looking for Michelle Thomas substitute. Like at the time I was still very tied into this idea of his sort of methodologies and pedagogies, and ...

[27:36] ... I hadn't broken into having my own kind of structure of how to approach things yet. And so ... but when we started collaborating, I was, like: Okay, here's what what you have, you know, in the absence of linguistic ability, is like sense of humor, empathy, you know, storytelling ability. And so our original first lessons we built on Seedlang were just like meme gifs that I pulled off Reddit of, like, animals and babies, and Cari would describe them. So like, there's one of like a monkey in a barber chair getting a haircut, and it's, like, the cutest little guy that seems completely out of, like, what's happening. And she's describing the scene, and then the student repeats what, you know, she's describing, and then, yeah, and then that's enough. Like because you're ... this is the Michelle Thomas listening, repeating and they're making translations. So we just start there, you know. So in the beginning the idea was: Okay, let's just have kind of unstructured content that ... and put it out there for the students to kind of browse like YouTube. And so that was the initial version of Seedlang. But the feedback we were getting was like: Okay, you guys aren't really teaching me German because you're just giving me all these gifts.

Manuel:
[28:58] Teaching me how to translate memes.

Jeremy:
[29:00] Yeah. Memes and like: Where do I start? And where do I finish? And how do I know when I'm like A2? And so I remember I had a meeting with Cari where I was like: Should we build an entire curriculum ourselves? You know, like I'm not a teacher. You're not a teacher. Like, should we do this? And to me, I mean, my issue wasn't that we weren't teachers, because I thought we could figure it out and we could figure out a curriculum. My issue was more like: there are very large language learning apps that have not taken on a project so ambitious as to make an entire curriculum of videos, you know, of everything being video and everything. So like, unlike Duolingo or some other apps, where they can basically enter their content in the backend and just hit enter and then it it appears, we have to go shoot it. And it's like, how long will it take us to build this curriculum of video stories? Because that's the other thing ... is we decided instead of doing memes that we would build a story around every grammatical concept and script it, and we wanted jokes, and we wanted, you know, Janusz to appear in them, and all this. And so, yeah, we decided to do it, and got going. Which ... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jae:
[30:17] So I have questions about, like, the legality aspects of, you know, how you started your company ...

Manuel:
[30:26] Also, we still haven't answered the the visa question now. It reminds me. How did you end up coming back and being able to stay?

Jae:
[30:29] Yeah. Yes. Yes. Visa ...

Jeremy:
[30:33] Yeah. So I came back. I hired somebody to help me with the visa because I was like: Okay. The reason it didn't go well the first time was partly my tendency to procrastinate everything. And so I needed somebody.

Jae:
[30:46] High five! Yeah.

Manuel:
[30:47] High fives all around!

Jeremy:
[30:48] I just needed somebody to keep me on track. And I completely overpaid for it, you know, like, I think I should say the number, because it's actually useful for people that are thinking of moving here. I don't remember where I found this person. Somebody had recommended her, that I met, and it was like 1200 euro, for her to just take me through every step of the way.

Jae:
[31:03] Uh!

[31:10] Who'd be charging that?

Jeremy:
[31:12] It's a good business! Like ...

Manuel:
[31:13] What? I don't want to do that as a job. That does not sound like fun.

Jae:
[31:13] Yeah.

[31:18] Rinse and repeat ...

Jeremy:
[31:19] Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I've met people since then where I was like ... They were looking for work, and I was like: "You should do this, you know? I mean, this is easy." Yeah. Yeah.

Jae:
[31:25] Yeah. 1200 dollars for essentially someone to guide you through the process ...

Manuel:
[31:26] I mean, hold people's hands while you go to their house and ...

Jeremy:
[31:32] The whole process, do the paperwork, you know, even show you where you can bend the rules or sort of work around the system.

Jae:
[31:37] Yeah. I mean, to be fair, I would pay. I think there's ... like, there's some way of smart thinking into that, especially if what you're doing, like, you kind of need to, kind of just ... Yeah.

Jeremy:
[31:47] Yeah. To stay here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at the time, I don't even know how far along it was on Seedlang, but I knew I wanted to stay. But the interesting thing is ... so she had guided me through the whole process. We had an appointment, and she had told me some time, that I had arrived at that time and she wasn't there, and I was so upset. I was like, I just wasted 1200 euro and you didn't show up at the appointment. And I started actually just heading home because I was like: I can't actually get through the interview without somebody helping me. And she called me and said, you know, "I told you the time, to make sure you were early." You know. ... always late. And so I was like: Well, that's that's some tricky stuff right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, I ... Yeah.

Manuel:
[32:35] ... because my clients are always late.

Jae:
[32:37] Yeah. That's weird. I guess I get her thinking, but then ...

Manuel:
[32:39] Yeah, but you should say, like: Hey, just ... you know, like: This is an actual time. If you miss it ... I don't know. There's different ways.

Jeremy:
[32:51] I was panicked. I mean, that's the thing. She put me through an actual panic, and so I think she could have avoided that somehow.

Jae:
[32:51] Yeah, Yeah, I know, exactly.

Jeremy:
[32:57] I think if I had somewhere where I could leave her a review, that then I would have put that in the review, and then it would cost her some customers.

Manuel:
[33:03] Okay, so you ended up getting a freelance visa and then - so I think this was your question too, Jae - like, basically the legalities of, like, founding a business here. Right? And I think I don't know how deep we want to get into it, because I know that Seedlang's situation is a little bit unique and maybe more complex than other founders.

Jeremy:
[33:25] Yeah. So I started the business under my my personal tax ID, like, basically started, you know, working on on Seedlang, it started to make a little bit of money. You know, it took us from the point that me and Cari decided to start building that curriculum, it was still like 9 or 12 more months before we started making any money. Those first months, we were making, you know, a couple hundred euro, or something. And so there was such small money on the table and I was kind of running low on my own funds, that I just set up a Stripe account to my bank account. So, I mean, just to be, you know, transparent here, it's something you should never, ever, ever do, because I've spent years since then, trying to untangle and get things straightened out, and it's been a bit of a nightmare. I think also the American systems are more used to people making mistakes, and in the German systems they're like, "But that's not correct." And I was like: "No, I know it's not correct. I just meant to untangle it later, because I was short of funds and it was small amounts of money and yeah..." "But why did you do that? That's that's not the way it's done." Yeah.

Jae:
[34:30] ... "But why did you do that? It doesn't make sense!"

Jeremy:
[34:42] I mean, I've had meetings with, you know, German accountants and lawyers where, oh my God, they don't hold back telling you what you did wrong, and it's almost like moral judgment against you, you know, And like in the US, then you'll have a meeting with an American lawyer or accountant speaking about the same exact thing, and they're like, "Oh, we can handle this. You know, we got this. No problems." You know?

Jae:
[35:01] We'll figure it out ...

Jeremy:
[35:03] Yeah, we'll figure it out, don't worry. And I'm just like: Wow! That's a cultural difference.

Jae:
[35:08] I have a question - and we might have to get back on track - but it's a really big one that's on my mind. Why not make your company in the US and then just work in Germany?

Manuel:
[35:21] So, turns out ...

Jeremy:
[35:22] Turns out that that was actually how we ... how we ended up doing it. So we have an American parent corporation with a German subsidiary to handle all our payroll. Yeah.

Jae:
[35:33] Gotcha. Gotcha.

Jeremy:
[35:35] Because all of our employees, except for two, are are in Berlin. Yeah. Yeah. So ...

Jae:
[35:43] That was my mindset from the beginning.

Manuel:
[35:45] But is that ... so in terms of ... what would you recommend someone who starts a business here and is from the US, let's say? Yeah. Is that the route you would recommend for both?

Jeremy:
[35:55] No. Do not do this. Do not do this.

Jae:
[36:00] Okay, why not? And what would be the alternative?

Jeremy:
[36:04] Yeah. So, I mean, the thing is, is that I had a friend, a German friend here who went through Y Combinator, which is an accelerator for, kind of, taking early stage companies and mentoring them and helping them find investors. And it usually kind of catapults a business into being a much larger business when you go through this program. And he had told me - because he had created a German corporation - that the process of then creating an American corporation after the fact, that would be the umbrella corporation for the sake of American investors, is, like, an amazingly painful process. And he was, like: If you intend to raise money in the future, you should, as early as possible, have this American umbrella corporation, so that they can invest in it safely.

[36:59] But I think most companies don't need to orient themselves towards eventually raising money, you know. And I think, you know, we have ended up raising a small, like, kind of Angel Round. I haven't yet, kind of, gone to the US and tried to raise on behalf of Seedlang. If I never do that, then I had gone through the whole process for nothing. And so now that possibility strikes me as maybe more likely than two years ago. I mean, two years ago I would have thought it was almost certain that I would eventually raise money in the US. And now it's 50-50. I'm just not sure.

[37:41] But it creates so much operational complexity. You own two corporations. They need to have a relationship with each other. Like, one becomes essentially a services company that provides services to the other, but you need to even find a way of distributing the revenue and the profit across both companies, so that both countries' tax authorities are happy. And so we have much ... I mean, we spend a lot of time discussing how to keep the German tax authorities happy with our construction. And we have a situation that seems to work for now. But because most of our operations are in Berlin, it creates ... yeah, they want to make sure that we're distributing the the profit fairly.

Manuel:
[38:37] So besides transferring your Stripe income to your personal bank account, what are some other mistakes you've made, or things you've learned, in the in the process of starting a company here?

Jeremy:
[38:51] Yeah, I think basically it's trying to do too much yourself, and not looking for external help sooner. You know, like I think a lot of founders ... I mean, you start yourself, you start potentially - you know, I was a solo founder before Cari joined, and she joined as kind of a part-time founder because she had Easy Languages - that you have this mindset that you can do everything yourself and even ... you kind of enjoy the process of learning all of these other things that are not even your your core competencies. But I think it holds you back in the long run, because it's kind of like a small mindset, you know, like eventually if the company succeeds, you're going to need to delegate a lot of things anyway, and it's a good skill to practice. It's a good thing to to work on. And so, yeah, I would be looking for external help as soon as possible, even if it's, you know, somebody that's just, kind of, donating their time in exchange for a little bit of equity or something. I mean, I think that's a possible thing that you can do.

Jae:
[39:57] Okay. Yeah, that was going to be my next question, is like a lot of times people do it themselves. It's because, as you have mentioned earlier, it costs less. In the beginning, you don't have that much money and stuff like that. So with those options, like, what additional options do you have of asking for help when you don't have the money to ... ?

Jeremy:
[40:14] Well, I think one thing is, I mean, you should be going to meetups and telling people your idea and they should be excited. Like, if you're telling people the idea, and everybody is kind of lukewarm or ... Like, never think: Oh, but when I build it, then they'll see how great it is! Like, the narrative alone should be sparking some excitement from somebody. And if you tell the story enough times, you should find people that are actually excited to kind of pitch in with you. I mean, I had the experience that ... I mean, I had people sort of offering to ... like, to join and sort of co-found it with me. And it was never the right fit. But I always found that to be a good sign that I was on the right path. You know, so.

Manuel:
[40:56] So apart from the fact that you have a company in Germany and in the US - technically speaking it's the same company, but they're both companies, corporations - let's just compare starting a company in the US and Germany. Like the thing that I hear is that it's much more difficult in Germany in terms of the bureaucracy you have to go through and the forms you have to fill, and stuff like that.

Jeremy:
[41:25] Yeah, well, the German corporation that we created took years for us to to ... from start to finish. It took, I think about two years. I mean, I think it took that long also because we had some things to untangle, you know, just, you know, a variety of things, and also ... but maybe even more than that was that, you know, actually me and Cari were undertaking this effort in the beginning. And actually one of my biggest recommendations would be: Don't try to save money by doing things yourself, because we try to do it ourselves and there's some logistical challenges to this process, that if you miss a window of time, you have to start everything over. And it was things like, we would need to get a certificate of good standing from the US, from our Delaware corporation of our American company, our American parent company. But it's only valid for, like, X weeks. And as soon as it's invalid, all of the German side has to start over. We have to go get this document again, and ..

[42:30] But my biggest recommendation, looking back, is: Spend the money. Like, don't try to save the money, because we were ... we were faced with like: Okay, we do it ourselves and we'll pay, you know, let's say low thousands, and we hire somebody else and we'll pay 10,000. Just pay the 10,000 if you can, because I think it'll it'll actually, in the end, save money, and it'll save your own frustration, and you'll get it done right, and you won't have to redo anything, and ... Yeah.

Manuel:
[42:59] There's one question - that maybe should have come before. When would you even turn a project into a company? Because you could literally have done Seedlang ... because, I mean, you just mentioned you were the only developer for a long time, and you could have done it just on your own time and moved the money to your private, personal bank account and just be done with it. Right? At what point - I mean, I'm sure once employees are coming into the mix, you kind of need to incorporate - but. like. what's the point when you even should decide to deal with all of this?

Jeremy:
[43:36] As soon as you make your first dollar. I mean, looking back on it, that's the answer. And what I thought was that when you're small and and you're broke, you know, which I was in a sense, that the stakes are so low that how can you make a mistake? Like you just do what you do. But this is the thing, of spending all this time untangling it. So in Germany, they have something called the UG, which is like the German corporations, the GmbH, the sort of formal one. But the UG is exactly the same as the GmbH, except it carries less stature within German society. And so ... But the difference is that for the GmbH you need €25,000 in the bank to get started. In contrast, to create an American corporation, you can do it using Stripe Atlas - which is what we used - for $100. And I think it takes a few days to get your tax ID, something like that. And so, you know you're talking about, you know, from the American side, $100, to the German side, thousands. And from the American side, like days and from the German side, months. It's like it's vastly different in terms of the complexity.

Manuel:
[44:50] But coming back to this question, any project that you start that makes any amount of money, you think is worth incorporating into a company? Instead of just doing it under your own name and telling the tax office, "Hey, I am also earning with this project."

Jeremy:
[45:06] Yeah. I mean, the Tax Office will accept this idea that you're receiving money, but they want that money. Like, their idea of what you must be doing, is that you're doing a service business. Like you're, you know, you're a graphic designer, you're charging per project or whatever, but they don't want you taking subscription money from customers across the world into your personal account. Like, that's just ... it just ... it should be a corporation as soon as you're taking like, subscription fees. Kind of like, you know, a SaaS business, or something like that, you should have a corporation from the start.

Manuel:
[45:43] So, sincere question. Jae and I have like five supporters on Buy Me a Coffee who sent us a few euros.

Jeremy:
[45:48] Uh huh. A few euros. Uh huh.

Manuel:
[45:51] We haven't withdrawn that money yet, because I'm slightly scared of what might happen.

Jeremy:
[45:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Manuel:
[45:56] Is that like, too much already, or what's ... like what? What do we do?

Jeremy:
[46:01] I don't know. I mean, I think if the numbers always stay small, that then it's kind of not a risk. You know, the risk is when the numbers get big, or bigger ... then going and backtracking and trying to get everything straightened out. But it's not it's not illegal to mix the funds.

Manuel:
[46:10] ... then how do you untangle it?

Jeremy:
[46:20] It's just an accounting nightmare to get them unmixed in the future, you know. So it's kind of up to you - you know, of course, I'm not an expert, so I'm just speaking from my own experience - but I think it's up to you just ... you know ... where do you think it's going to go, and how much risk do you want to take, essentially?

Jae:
[46:36] Mm hmm. So speaking of, like, where you want to go. I know now Seedlang is working, you now do the Spanish portion, and the French portion, and stuff. Where do you see Seedlang going? And now that you are working on different apps, or different languages, do you see yourself expanding to different locations as well, or keeping everything in Berlin?

Jeremy:
[47:00] I mean, I think we'll keep our content creation in Berlin. I mean, even though we lose a little bit of authenticity, you know. Like we're creating a French and Spanish program, you know, the French teachers are shooting in Berlin, they're not in Paris. But operationally, it's so much cheaper. And then we have the ability for ... like, our different language teams to collaborate on content. Because, I mean, yeah, it should be sort of understood that we create stories, so we're often writing kind of narratives and everything. And so the fact that the different language teams are all together means, like ... we have a storyline where the French, German and Spanish teachers are roommates in an apartment, and they can play as, like, you know, having all the challenges of being roommates. So it's just a nice thing to have everybody here and collaborating. In terms of the future, I mean, we're in a strange position where, I mean, a lot of people who use our app think we're, like, the best app, you know? I mean, we can't claim we're the best app, but we have some say.

Jae:
[48:08] They say we're the best app. So I'm just going to let you guys know that they're saying we're the best.

Manuel:
[48:13] Look at the reviews and then ...

Jeremy:
[48:13] Yeah, and in the App Store, they're quite high.

Jae:
[48:16] It's a really great app. Yeah.

Jeremy:
[48:18] So I think from a product standpoint, we we could be on the same level as like Memrise and Babbel and so forth. And so it's a question of, like, where do we want to go? And I think actually the next year or so will tell us a lot about where we're headed. Essentially the reception of the French and Spanish apps will have a lot to tell us, you know. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, if nothing else, we're going to be a great app, that kind of operates in a kind of modest scale, from Berlin. But I always have my eye on how do we become a very large app, possibly without raising any money, which I think makes that challenge harder, you know.

Jae:
[49:10] Okay. And I have one last question, on my side. What advice do you have to anyone who might be from like a national place, maybe from the US, who wants to come to Berlin to start a company or whatnot?

Jeremy:
[49:26] Okay. Interesting. I mean, to come here just to start a company ...

Jae:
[49:34] Or they see something in Berlin that they feel like they can offer, and maybe doing a company would be the best way.

Jeremy:
[49:41] Yeah, I ... it's hard for me to give that kind of global advice. I mean, I think the thing to do is, come here to see if you like it. Keep your options open for where to start the company. If you can start it in the US, you know, maybe just start it in the US. If you start it in the US as a Delaware corporation, they make it very easy to transfer that corporation to somewhere else. They make it very easy to disband that corporation. And so it might be ... the easiest way to do it might be to start a Delaware corporation from Germany and decide later, if the company starts to grow and you need to reincorporate as a German corporation. I don't know. I wouldn't be very aggressively trying to create a German corporation. I think it's so ... it's just there's so much bureaucracy, so much headache, so much expense, that I would leave that only for when it's necessary because you're hiring a bunch of German people, essentially.

Manuel:
[50:43] What's Berlin's founder scene like? Are you, like best friends with all the founders that are in Berlin?

Jeremy:
[50:51] I mean, when I first got here, I was more active on the sort of like EdTech scene. Like there's actually ... well, I belong to the Factory Coworking, which is a nice place to check out if you come here, and somebody there was organizing an EdTech dinner every - I don't know - one or two months? And I was attending those, and then Corona kind of killed that. I mean, I was a lot more active on the, sort of, startup scene before Corona, and then after Corona ... I don't know, I think I'm getting a little bit like crotchety, old, you know, founder that's seen it all, been there, done it. I don't get as enthusiastic about ... I think I'm a little more skeptical about whether people really should start a business. You know, I think it's harder than you'll expect. I think even when you have many advantages in your favor, you'll be surprised at how hard it is.

Jae:
[51:53] What are the alternatives then?

Jeremy:
[51:56] Well, but my feeling is that there are some people that just have to be a founder because they don't feel like they're employable. And I feel like I'm in that camp. Like I hate being an employee. If I'm an employee, I'm creating a lot of noise because I want everything to be done differently. If you're this type, then go start a business. But if you're the type that actually can operate well within a corporation and add value, and be creative, and be fulfilled, it's a much easier life. It often leads to a better financial outcome, to be honest, because, you know, starting a business could end up that you're kind of scraping for years and holding on to dreams, and ... Yeah, I think maybe I just think it's one of those endeavors where ... it's like a lot of things in life that you're competing against people who are living and breathing this thing, like, who who feel they have no choice but to do it. And if you're questioning whether you should do it, then you shouldn't do it, you know? Yeah, that's kind of my my take. Like, the people that actually should be doing it wouldn't need any advice because they're, you know, they're single minded, you know, for years. Okay, so I got a job at a Berlin startup in 2012, I think. And in my interview I told them, you know, just so you know, I'm going to be leaving soon because I started this thing called Seedlang.

Manuel:
[53:17] Your job interviews have been going great! So ...

Jeremy:
[53:20] Well, they hired me. I mean, it makes you very attractive when you're telling them, you know, look, I've got options. I ... and so, I mean, I remember ... I have a friend that I met at this company, and I was talking to him recently and he was saying, "You know, the first day I met you, the first thing you told me is about Seedlang. You just started talking about Seedlang." And so I was like, I was like a man on a mission. I was like ... I was like living, breathing ... I was working constantly. I was working seven days a week for years. I mean, literally seven days a week for years, and obsessed. And I think you should be like that if you're going to do this, because if you're not, your competitors are like this, and they're going to, I don't know ... This isn't a very ... yeah, this isn't a very German cultural, you know, work-life balance kind of approach. This might be my old American kind of workaholism ... hustle culture approach. I mean, I would say I've toned that down a lot over the years, but I just think, yeah, if you're meant to do this, you'll know. You don't need to, to debate it, you know?