Born and raised in Berlin
Worked in the 1st VR and Internetcafé in Berlin
Went from playing a Russian mobster that ended in a dumpster behind Zoo station in Germany’s 1st Internet soap opera to an internship in direct marketing agency MMD where I learned to build banners, how to organise early online advertising partnerships and that branding isn’t worth anything if you can’t measure it in more sales/bookings.
Endured a terrible defeat working for mediaedge:cia, because I am way better at organizing and being creative than I am at keeping tabs of huge Excel files and dozens of items that need to happen simultaneously.
Let myself being convinced to become marketing director for Videobuster’s online DVD rental service(an early Netflix clone) and moved to the beautiful countryside of the Harz mountains and enjoyed the amazing mountainbike trails starting right behind my house.
After moving back to Berlin in 2009 I was looking for other mtb enthusiasts and typed „Berlin bike“ in a search engine. The top result was a company named on Bike looking tour guides for sightseeing tours done by bike.
I suffered a huge accident crushing my spine at the end of my 1st season, had to undergo multiple surgeries until I could get back on my bike – which to this day is my biggest win and proof to myself, that dedication can overcome nearly anything.
Went from being just a guide to their social media guy, helping them redesign their website, writing their blog, shooting photos and doing SEO. In short I got a deep understanding of what a small to medium-sized tour operator needs from their marketing. I like to think I helped Berlin on Bike in becoming the latter in a small but meaningful way.
On top of still being a tour guide in Berlin I currently help a number of small international cycling and hiking companies with their organic social media and Google Ads and general marketing consulting.
Business Services
If you run an independent tour company and feel that your marketing is ready for the next step, I would love to chat with you and maybe give you some pointers and maybe take over a few more complicated tasks you don’t find the time in your busy schedule. I will never sell you a service you don’t need, just to grab a fee. My goal is always a longterm partnership, because frankly – I hate the whole new business dance and one way to reduce that is radical honesty, even if it means loosing revenue.
So, if you’re still interested, drop me an email or just book a video meeting – absolutely no strings attached.
Tours
If you want to book me as a guide, please take a look at the tours I offer or send me a request with what you’re looking for. After 15 years in the business I feel confident to be able to customize something especially for your needs.
What a strange name
tl;dr: don’t be scared to fail, just fail better next time
Jump straight to who I am/CV
So, yeah, originally I bought this domain for a trip I never took. The plan was to buy a camper van and then start travelling east until I get scared. But then Covid came and not only did I need the money I had set aside for the bus to buy pay my rent, the prices for camper vans went absolutely through the roof.
But I started thinking about all the times people are scared. Even me, that went through a horrible mountain bike crash that could’ve left me paralyzed and sentenced me to a life of chronic pain, can’t stop being scared by small and in the end rather meaningless things, instead of focussing on the positives. Instead of seeing being scared as the end point of journey I’m trying to see it as a starting point to create a braver me, to challenge myself to learn new things.
I had a mentor for a while, when I was still trying to be a proper business man instead of really focussing on the stuff I am good at, who taught me an important lesson: there are no failed experiments. If you’re willing to adopt this outlook, even an experiment that gives different results to what you were expecting and hoping for, you still learned something and can shape the next experiment accordingly.