We believe that in times of information overload and AI omnipresence, curation and quality will prevail. AI might write a decent essay, but it will never fully sound like you, unless, maybe, one day it has access to all your memories and experiences (hi there, sci-fi).
In a sea of information, Berlin is lucky to host so many independent projects, and there’s nothing like the feeling of finding the right one for you. That’s pretty much how we felt when, around 2023, we discovered The Handpicked Berlin, one of the first newsletters we personally subscribed to.
What made it stand out, we remember, was the curation of events and the value of the information. Newsletters weren’t that popular in the city yet, and subscribing felt like discovering a secret only a few people had access to.
In 2025, we got to know Igor, the person behind it. What began as networking became a real friendship, and he turned out to be exactly how he sounds in his newsletter: practical, kind, collaborative, and resourceful.
Some of you might have found us through The Handpicked Berlin, or maybe you subscribe to it too, but chances are you don’t know much about Igor himself. Today, we got to expose him (hehe). Everyone, meet Igor, who is not actually a “tech bro”. PS: Scroll down for events, communities and a cool resource tip.
Igor Ranc, 41, moved from Slovenia to Berlin for a master’s degree and ended up staying. He’s the founder of The Handpicked Berlin, the newsletter that turned a pandemic-era sabbatical into a full-time career. Even though he doesn’t have many favorites, Berlin is his favorite city.
The reason most of us don’t know much about Igor personally is that he’s a private person. The first time we met him at Fotografiska for coffee last year, he asked us all the questions and didn’t leave much space for us to ask back, a role reversal for two people usually used to doing the asking.
Igor has supported Späti Stories since the beginning, asking nothing in return, simply because he believed in what we were doing, and because he, as much as we do, has a deep affection for Berlin and everything it makes possible.
Coming from Slovenia, Igor moved to Germany on a whim to pursue a master’s degree. Like many of us, he never planned to stay forever; he was always sure he’d move back home after a few years. But he landed a good job, the pandemic hit, he started Handpicked Berlin on the side, and this past June, went full-time on it. Somewhere along the way, he also picked up C1-level German.
Because Igor is practical, we knew that when we asked him for a meaningful place to do the interview, he’d say something like “wherever is convenient.” We were right, so we asked to meet at his place in Bergmannkiez instead.
Ask Igor for a favorite anything and he’ll tell you he struggles with the concept. Favorite restaurant, cafe, movie, director? He likes too many to choose. But two exceptions stand out. “I have a favorite city, which is Berlin,” he told us. “I have a favorite football club, Manchester United.”
When he does need a cafe, he goes to the one nearest to him, Blinis Espresso Lounge, close to his place. “I like the feeling of familiarity,” he said. It’s not that the coffee is anything special, he admits, but he likes recognizing the people around him. “That’s my only place where I go really regularly.”
The Handpicked Berlin is primarily a tech newsletter. You’ll find job listings, salary info, and startup news, but also news about the city itself. We sometimes call Igor “our favorite tech bro,” so it surprised us to learn his background is actually in political science. Back in Slovenia, studying to be a political scientist, he was an active presence at concerts, events, and workshops. He even ran an online newspaper back home, and it got surprisingly big.
It started as a student forum where people could log in and chat, part of a student organization. Igor and a few close friends took it over and slowly built it into a proper news portal, out of a region of about 70,000 people. At its peak, in 2008, it drew 35,000 visits a month. They wrote about everything: event reports, commentaries, even which planes were flying overhead. They were terrible at business (they once released a print issue in the middle of summer, for no clear reason) but kept it running mostly out of idealism. The site stayed online for years. Rereading his old work recently, Igor was struck by how good it still was. “When you read your own text and you think, fuck, did I write this?”
During his master’s, an internship took him to Mercedes-Benz Bank in Stuttgart, which opened his eyes to technology and the business world. He was 28 at the time, and ended up staying there for almost 8 years, doing three different jobs. Then Corona hit. The company offered severance packages, and Igor took a leap of faith: take the package, start working on his own idea (personal finance app) and see what happens. The plan was: try to create something from nothing, and if nothing works, get a new job.
The plan also included a sabbatical. Instead, he couldn’t stop thinking about startups. He looked for a developer and a co-founder but struggled to find either. This led him to start his first Substack, where he wrote about his experience. The plan was to find a new job if a co-founder never came through, so he started applying and landed one in Berlin, working remotely before he’d even moved.
Since he only had basic knowledge of Python, and ChatGPT wasn’t around yet, launching a brand-new Substack started making sense again. He already loved writing and had a private one on the side, and a public newsletter could double as a distribution channel for whatever business he ended up building.
This is how Handpicked Berlin came to be: a place to share jobs and interesting information he couldn’t find anywhere else, and a project he could build without needing a developer. Handpicked Berlin went live in May 2022, before Igor had even officially moved to Berlin that August, right as the pandemic era was ending. One thing is certain: he’s never looked back since.
His original idea was simple: he’d noticed another newsletter curating job listings, and wondered if it was possible to spot a company’s real culture from the outside before joining. He told himself he’d publish 10 issues and see what happened. He started with 21 subscribers, people he couldn’t even know how they’d got there. By issue 10, he had 200. “At that time I felt, oh, fuck, this is something big,” he said. “Now, when I look back, I think, oh, but it’s nothing.”
We noticed that when Igor develops an interest, he dives all the way in. His home is clean and minimalist, but one piece of furniture stands out: a Sapiens bookshelf by Italian designer Bruno Rainaldi, a steel column that stretches to the ceiling, making the books look like they’re floating. It holds his library, an extensive and eclectic one. Beyond reading, writing, Berlin, Manchester United, and startups, there’s one more thing he loves: cooking. He claims to be a great cook, and he used to run a blog where he curated and shared his favorite recipes.
Igor also hosts the Everyday AI Club meetup, where people gather to learn and share their experiences with AI, often joined by professionals who can help. Handpicked Berlin isn’t on Substack anymore. It now has its own website, which he migrated himself from Wordpress to Astro with the help of Claude Code.
Igor supports using AI for technical, operational tasks, never for his writing. Even when he feeds his own material into Claude or ChatGPT, he says, the result never quite sounds like him; he always ends up rewriting it. Recently, he wrote about receiving a Gründungszuschuss, a startup subsidy from the German state.
He’s read countless books about writing and craft, and at some point, dreamed of publishing a book of his own (fiction!). In an earlier version of the newsletter, he wrote his first short story. Rereading it recently, he was pleasantly surprised: “I still find it good.” For his newsletter, he makes sure it’s him.
Now that he’s fully focused on the business, and with plenty of insight into Berlin’s founder community, we asked him about German bureaucracy and how it can slow new ideas down. His take: it’s not as bad as people complain.
You can start a business before your tax number even arrives, and register a Gewerbe retroactively if needed. The real friction, he says, is with notaries and the paperwork they require. “If it would be so bad, they wouldn’t be coming here,” he said. The system is more flexible than people think, if you’re willing to push. “You just need to be willing to.”
Igor joins and hosts a lot of events, sometimes moderating them too. Striking a conversation feels natural to him. “You shouldn’t neglect this aspect,” he said.
“If you go out there, you meet people, and something will happen.” His advice isn’t to network with an agenda, but to join a group doing something you care about, volunteer, show up. “If you’re kind to people, good things will happen. My advice is just go out.”`
Before we left, Igor pulled out a small collection of skincare products, his newest obsession, he admitted with a laugh. Classic Igor: whatever he gets into, he gets into all the way.
This issue was the first time we interviewed someone who was already our friend, and it’s awesome to have people like Igor around us. What we loved most is how layered Igor is: so many interests, facets, and skills, and he embraces every one of them. Being all the facets of yourself can happen anywhere in the world, but Berlin makes it easier, sometimes even expected.
Wishing you an awesome August, and we hope you feel encouraged to go all in on a new interest.
Cheers from (still) summer in Berlin,
Isabelle and Lua
Want Berlin to feel like home? Join the Inner Circle.* Berlin is transient. People flake. Making close friends here as an international is genuinely hard, and it doesn’t get easier by going to more events.
The Analog Circle is built for consistency. You’re matched to a group of eight vetted internationals and you have dinner together in each other’s homes. Same eight people, every time. Over time, they become people you can rely on.
Most members have been in Berlin a few years and are done with meeting people who disappear.
Your application is reviewed by a person and there’s a short 15-minute chat before anyone joins.
Their autumn cohort is open and there are limited spots. Apply here now.
* This is a sponsored partnership, but nevertheless we think The Analog Circle is a great initiative. Bolu is behind it, and he’s a great community builder who actually cares about real connection.
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Join our Book Swap at Kino International!
Once again we come together with our partners at Yorck Kinogruppe and we are hosting a super special morning movie-themed book swap at the Panorama Bar of Kino International. This time, we will bring a book we love that has been adapted to screens or that you think should become a movie.
August 29th, Saturday, at 10:15am.
The kino will open its doors earlier exclusively for our community. Space is limited. Grab your ticket and learn more about it here.
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