Hello my friends,

it's been a very long time actually.

This one covers two whole months, June and July. Quite a bit happened in the meanwhile.

The short version: I moved away from Hamburg and I'm staying with my parents back in Aachen for a few weeks. My scholarship is finally starting. I have a fun story from looking for apartments in Hamburg, where the police was involved (or at least threatening with the police was involved). And I'm in some very interesting conversations to improve my cash flow significantly.

01 The apartment story

End of June I had to move out of my old apartment in Hamburg. So I was looking for a new sublease, maybe three months or so, and found a room for July and August on the usual platform. We agreed, I signed the documents, sent my details over, and on July 1st I packed my stuff and moved in in the evening. The landlord herself wasn't there because it's a sublet, she was doing an internship in another city. But her flatmate was there, and she was cool. We did a quick apartment tour over FaceTime with the landlord, documenting potential damages, taking photos, signing documents remotely. Everything went fine. Then I wired her the money: the deposit was around €1,500, the monthly rent about €700. I sent the €1,500 as a real time transfer.

Then, 10 p.m. in the evening, she texts me: bro, my banking app says the money is only noted but didn't arrive yet. It looks weird. I don't want to do this. Please leave the flat.

I was like, what? No, wait, okay, give me a second, let me look through it, let me call you back in three, four minutes. She was like: no, I don't want to. Fuck off. Otherwise I'm gonna call the police.

Wait, what? Damn.

Long story short: the next morning she texts me, oh, the money arrived now and everything is fine. She could have just Googled it for one minute. It was an instant transfer, she had the money already, there is no way around it. She thought I could somehow pull the money back whenever I want and was scamming her. I think she was just very, very scared in the end. Even her flatmate was confused and felt sorry, because she didn't really know what happened. I got my money back within 24 hours, at least she was cooperative with that, and I think she felt sorry that things went this way. But someone threatening the police on you: this was definitely not on my bingo card on that day. And I was like, okay, fuck it, I don't want to move into this apartment anymore.

Which meant: from July 1st I was essentially homeless. I slept on different people's couches for like three weeks, a week here, a few days there. And I felt like a piece of shit, relying on people to host me. Everyone was really nice about it, but in the end I was like: come on bro, I don't want to be this broke and rely on other people, I want to be independent again.

Huge thanks to everyone hosting me: my sister Beste, my cousin Asya, Stefan and Paulina, Ermin, and especially Recep. The moment I told him the apartment didn't work out, he was like: “Come to me!” One of the most hospitable guys I've ever met. Hamburg people, I won't let you down. I will come back once in a while, I swear, and you come visit me wherever, and we'll have a good time together.

02 Why I left Hamburg

I was first looking for a new apartment for August 1st. But then I decided: nah, come on. What am I actually doing in this city? If I look at my life, these are the two most important bottlenecks right now: money and community. And Hamburg was bad for both.

Money: €700 a month for a single room in a shared apartment is a lot. It's really a lot. Back in Aachen I noticed a sandwich at the bakery is so much cheaper, because it's a small student city and not one of the most expensive cities in Germany. I easily get two sandwiches in Aachen where I get roughly one in Hamburg.

Community: back in China I was on a campus. A lot of young people around me doing exactly the same as me, solo work on their laptops. You could go to the canteen together, go to the gym together, everything within a radius of maybe 100 meters. Crazy nice community. Then I come to a large German city, and everyone has a job. They wake up early, go to the office, come back in the evening fully exhausted, then maybe sports, cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, and that's it. That's literally it. If I want to meet them, I can meet them for the two, three hours in the evening, and even then you have to schedule in advance. So in the majority of the day I have to do everything alone. A coworking space costs like €300 here, in China it was free, and because of the money problem I can't afford it. So I ended up spending like 80% of my days alone at home. People who know me know that I'm a very sociable, very extroverted guy who needs a lot of social contact. You can imagine this was not an environment where I was feeling very productive and happy.

Hamburg is still a cool city and I love the people over there. But for what I currently do, very independent solo work, it's not the best environment. So I packed my stuff, went back to Aachen, spending time with the people there, saving money, living on a budget for a few weeks, and then coming back stronger.

Staying with my parents is nice for a few weeks, but not a long term solution. They have a TV, so with my weird media addiction I spend a lot of time in front of it, and they have a lot of sweets, so I eat like a pig and gain weight again. Having my own place, like back in China, was really nice.

03 The money plan

Since I left China I haven't had a single euro of income. I've been living off my savings, which was quite painful, because that money was intended for retirement, not for this. The welfare money I applied for in April usually takes three weeks to process. For me it's been more than three months now, and it will probably take two to three more. I didn’t expect it to be that slow. German bureaucracy. I'll get around €6,000 back accumulated, but it roughly ends up at zero because I paid everything out of my savings in the meantime.

But: on September 1st, in exactly four weeks, my scholarship finally starts. The first batch of the €15k comes in, €2,400 for the first two months. Roughly like the unemployment money, not much more. But the better thing is: with welfare money you're not allowed to work. With the scholarship I'm allowed to work up to two days per week.

And that's the big thing I'm working on right now: combining the scholarship with a two day per week gig, but as a freelancer, not as an employee. That lets me charge more, gives me more flexibility, and forces me to set up my legal stuff, taxes and insurance, which I need for building a company anyways.

I had a first conversation with my former bosses. I worked with them four years ago and luckily left a very good impression back then (I'm really grateful for the young Alper who worked hard with them). They joined a new company as managers when it was still relatively small, and in the last years the company grew very strongly. It does AI for insurance and was bought by Allianz, one of the largest insurers in the world. They're in decision making positions now, one of them is literally allowed to sign contracts himself. And they want me. They have enough interesting, high impact topics I could work on. In a week or two I'll have the second meeting where we define the scope, and then I'll make them an offer. I'm very nervous and excited working out my hourly rate.

Funny detail: the scholarship plus a two day per week freelance mandate would give me a higher net income than a full time five day per week job.

If you guys know me, I'm a person who tends to dream a little bit and be overly optimistic and think too far ahead. So I really have to make sure I don't overcelebrate a freelance gig that isn't determined yet. If it doesn't work out, worst case I cancel the scholarship and take a full time job. I'm having those conversations in parallel, job interview next week. The job market in Germany is generally shit right now, but in certain niches it's still fine, especially with connections. If the freelance thing works out though, it will be such a game changer. Let me tell you. I hope, I really strongly hope. I'm doing it for the team.

04 Startup update

In Hamburg I spent a lot of time shipping features, which was nice. Lately I've been spending more and more time talking to customers again, more discovery calls, getting more insights on where the market could head and whether it's a nice niche. Over the next two, three months I want to wrap things up so I can fully decide: double down on this business idea, or switch. I definitely want to put a higher pace in now and make faster progress.

Random

• Everywhere here in NRW the grass that is usually green is so dried out. Everything is yellow. It looks like the dry places in central Anatolia. We've been having heat waves even in Germany, and you can really see climate change. It's quite bad actually.
• In May and June I was going to the gym almost every single day. In July, zero, because I was switching places every three, four days and didn't feel that good. My gym doesn't exist in Aachen, so now I ride to Cologne for it. Went yesterday, and I feel much better, much calmer.

What's next + how to find me

• Where I move next is open. It depends on the money. If the freelance gig works out, I'd probably move to Cologne, be at the company twice a week (they seem like a really nice team) and work on my startup the rest of the week. If it's a full time job, I'm bound to wherever that is, maybe Hamburg. If everything ends up remote, I might just move abroad again: Southeast Asia is my favorite (time zone advantage, super cheap, I could save stupid money), otherwise Spain or Bulgaria have some nice digital nomad places. Or I stay in Aachen in a student dormitory with a free coworking space full of founders, which comes with the scholarship. I hope I can fully decide in four to eight weeks.
• I will keep you updated, especially on the money thing. Things have never looked better than now.
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I miss you guys. Hope you’re doing good.

Peace out.

Alper

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