The Germany Expat Business Show
A podcast that shares knowledge, stories and inspiration for anyone starting, running or growing a business as a non-German in Germany.
The Germany Expat Business Show
Freelancing in Munich as an Industrial Designer with Gray Dawdy
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In this episode of the Germany Expat Business Show, I caught up with a friend, and sort-of-former-colleague, Gray Dawdy. I met Gray while I was contracting at a service design agency, where he often enjoyed a friendly chat while making a coffee in the agency Teeküche and bonded over our mutual Californian backgrounds.
Gray is an industrial designer and expat solopreneur who’s built a successful freelance career in Munich, Germany. He talked about his journey from California to Germany, his experiences in the industrial design field, and the ectasy and the agony of freelancing here in Deutschland.
This conversation will be very instructive for anyone considering a move to Germany, thinking about leaving a full time job or looking to start a business in Germany.
You can find this episode and all episodes as well as show notes for each at https://thegermanylist.de/the-germany-expat-business-show-podcast/
Starting or running a business in Germany as a foreigner? Already running an online business in Germany as an expat? Wanting to grow your German-based business? Working as a freelancer in Germany? You'll love my guide with over 30 resources for expat business owners in Germany.
Hi, I'm Eleanor Meyerhofer, a native Californian designer and digital strategist. In October of 1999, a few years after graduating from design school, I flew from San Francisco to Munich with a fistful of Deutschmarks, a dial-up connection and an extremely vague plan. Twenty-plus years later, after a 10-year stint at a global agency agency freelancing and launching two online businesses, I'm still here Now I'm talking to other expat business owners to share knowledge, stories and inspiration for other non-Germans running businesses in Germany. I am here with Gray Dowdy and I'll do a little bit of preamble. You and I met so total, like full disclosure. We met because at the time I was freelancing at a service design agency here in weekend and we were talking in the tea kusha and I said, oh, how are you doing Gray? And he said pretty good, life's pretty easy in Germany. And we both had a laugh. I've never forgotten that. So I'll kick off with the question I ask everybody at the start of this podcast, which is can you tell me the two minute story of how you ended up in Germany?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so in my bachelor's. I grew up in California and did my bachelor's there. I wanted to do study abroad because I heard it's fun. And they said you could go to Spain Cool, but the classes are in Spanish Not possible. Or you can go to Germany. And I was like, well, I don't really want to go to Germany, but I'll go. Came here actually, to Munich. I was out, I was at a club doing shots, I met a girl there and we started dating. I left and I ended up coming back and now I'm married, living in Munich full time Most of the time. I float back to San Francisco sometimes, but yeah, that's the story.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you did study here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did like six months, like a semester here in Munich, basically.
Speaker 2:And you could do that in English.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they actually have a pretty good study abroad program. I I think mostly because there's a lot of german kids that want to go to california. So if you're in california and want to go to germany, it's pretty much an automatic into the program, um, as long as somebody wants to go the other way.
Speaker 2:So yeah, was it through your school in california?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, I was through my uh. I went to this place called california polytechnic okay then, uh, it was like an exchange. So you know, I go there, german kid takes my spot okay, okay, like a one-to-one exchange.
Speaker 2:okay, so like student visa, nothing complicated, you didn't just like get all through a school program.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, so that was that was. And then when I came back I luckily I knew somebody that was in Germany working in a place and he got me interviewed and I got a job there and so I actually had a blue card coming into Germany the first time or the second time, I guess. Um, until I got married and I switched it to the, the marriage visa.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, and the blue card visa is the study visa, right.
Speaker 3:The blue cards, the um like professional expert thing. Uh okay, you're like um, if basically it's it's like a green card in the U S for for people listening that are from the U S, but basically if you're a professional and you meet some certain qualifications, you can get a work visa. That that's a little bit easier to get to in Germany and especially if you do certain professions like I think, like scientists and engineers.
Speaker 3:Right, I feel like you're a little more relaxed which I actually started as an engineer, so I had my. I made sure my job said industrial design engineer in the title.
Speaker 2:Okay, so okay. So I know that you are an industrial designer. Yes. And so, like I said, we met when you were a full-time employee at an agency, and so with that visa, did you have to have a full-time job like a position waiting, or could you come here and be freelance.
Speaker 3:The freelancing thing I did later. So with their initial visa, the blue card it's. It's tied to your employment. So literally say your employer on the little card. Um and then if it makes it difficult to switch jobs, um, because you have to get the new employer to like responsor your visa and go through that process again. There's some switching thing. I don't know, but I got married like a year after I got to Germany, so I switched it to that visa, which is a lot more chill about doing things.
Speaker 2:So then you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Then you're pretty pretty close to citizenship. Okay.
Speaker 2:Let's back up a little bit. So I mean, I know, what an industrial designer is, but maybe not everybody listening does. So can you talk a little bit about what you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's. If, if you don't know what an industrial designer is and you try to think of it, I think the answers people give are you design factories, which is not right, or you're an industrial engineer, which is something pretty much completely different. Industrial designer is basically just a product designer that designs physical products. So the easiest way to think about it is like an architect, but for smaller things. Like an architect does the design and how a house or building looks. An industrial designer will do like a chair or a speaker or a lamp. So basically all the things in your home and office were probably designed by industrial designer.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, and so you went freelance. What? What can you talk about your decision to go freelance, like why you did it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had always liked the idea of being self-employed, like, actually, my parents were self-employed for a lot of their lives, so I'd always been really interested in doing that. I was at said agency where we met, which I was like so excited to meet another person from California. Anyway, I was at this agency and, like a few years ago, all of a sudden, a lot of the big business consulting firms started by design agencies.
Speaker 2:I think they're all bought up at this point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, including the one I was at which led to this situation where we had a pretty big client account that, because this big business consultancy was doing tax work, that legally they couldn't offer so many extra services on the side. So that meant we had this big client that we couldn't work with anymore. So me and some other people that were at this agency said, hey, why don't we go? Just go work with them and we can all basically work for ourselves. And that's what we did, and so I basically left the agency with kind of a big account waiting for me to get started on my freelance career, which is a really good soft start in that business.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, and I've been doing that for about three years now and it's been great maybe too small for sapient, but he had a relationship with them and then he went freelance. He does like agile stuff and he like just slipped right into that client. Um, that process is fascinating to me, so I have a couple questions there. So, like you, so you did this with a couple other people yeah.
Speaker 3:So we, uh, they, they actually uh. I left with like three other people at the same time and they started a company together, and my skill set is a little bit different from theirs, so I decided it's better if I'm on my own, yeah, better if I'm on my own, um, yeah, but then uh, yeah. So we basically just were doing joint projects together for this big client, which was something we had been doing for years already.
Speaker 3:And um, we had a really good relationship with them and we're kind of just part of their team, uh, so it was. It was funny because we legally switched companies but like the projects and relationships kind of felt the same. So it was kind of like the job didn't change but the legal framework around it kind of changed, which was really funny, yeah. And then of course I had to build up a client base on the side of that, which has been, um, a super new learning experience for me, because I I think I'm a good designer, slash engineer sometimes, but the sales stuff is totally yes they don't teach you that at design school yeah that's a learn on the job thing.
Speaker 2:So yeah, talk about that a little, because that was kind of my next question like, do you like for what I do, like digital stuff, online marketing, websites, blah, that's like easy for business to consumer. But for what you do, that's you know your clients, or must all be firms, companies imagining nobody like hires an industrial designer, like I need you to design me my own mic. So how do you how? Who are your clients? How do you get them? What's your process?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, uh, who my clients are. Um, there's kind of like I grouped them into like three categories. One is like either like a very small business, like a startup, or a very small firm or something, or sometimes it's even people that want to start a company around a product, so like individual, and they're just looking to have, uh, the design of a product. A lot of times in this early stages it's just like getting the idea for a product, because it's a big, long process that takes takes multiple months, sometimes years. I have the small, the I guess small like business starters or like new product starters.
Speaker 3:Then there's a lot of like you you were saying mid-size kind of firms, things where it's either it's either like an agency or an engineering firm that just needs an extra design muscle is what I come and do and do that, the physical product design part or it's like a company that's just like expanding their, their product portfolio or need some updates on some old products and that, yeah and uh, usually with them I'll work on like kind of a a time basis, cause they need continual work over a long period of time. And then there's like the, the big clients, which are larger companies, which is actually what I started with um when I started freelancing, and those are like bigger projects. You're like a small part on a very big project and, uh, it's like you know multiple months or years working kind of on the same product and you just kind of continually keep chipping away at it. So those are, those are the three you have. How do I get them?
Speaker 3:I also get asked by, especially by young people. I was asking new clients um, the most, the most valuable one and the one that's worked the most and well for me has definitely been just network and people I know, or I get referrals or something like that. Um, so, for instance, I I worked with this client a couple months ago that me and him had worked at the same company for like two months.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm him had worked at the same company for like two months to Jeremy and like he just happened to remember me, um, so it's a lot of like this kind of like either somebody I used to work with or like a friend of a friend kind of thing, um, and then the second way I get clients is, uh, I actually started this YouTube channel yes around industrial design and that's kind of a little bit of a pipeline for me, Although I want to caution anybody that wants to start a YouTube channel around trying to get clients.
Speaker 3:The network is a lot more successful than marketing stuff.
Speaker 2:Okay, so much to dig into there. So are most of your clients in Germany or Europe.
Speaker 3:It's a mix, I would say. Usually most of them are in Germany. I also get a lot of Munich because my network's just really good here. But I also have a lot of clients in the US and especially San Francisco, because I worked there for a few years. A little bit of a network there, um, and then I'll just get like kind of random stuff, uh, usually from other parts of Europe. Like I had a French client, uh, a few months ago, um and uh yeah.
Speaker 2:Um and uh. Yeah, and for these larger clients, are you usually embedded on a team or is it just you're a principal designer and you're they have no design team in house, like or yeah, how does that work?
Speaker 3:Yeah, For the, for the larger client stuff. Uh yes, usually I'm embedded in a design team, Um, because it's usually like bigger, more complex stuff, Like I've done a lot of automotive stuff which you can imagine in Germany.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um and you know, obviously I'm not designing a whole car, um, so I'm usually getting like design this part of the interior, like you get like this um, square um half meter on the dashboard that you have to design. It's kind of like little chunks and then, especially with that stuff, you have to kind of niche into it. So there usually is an in-house design team. Sometimes they just need an extra skill that doesn't make sense for them to have in-house.
Speaker 3:Especially with these automotive clients I've done a lot of like prototyping stuff around lights um interest, like internal dashboard lights yeah, like like like dashboard lights or interior lights, sometimes exterior lights, um, I've done a lot of stuff around this which, um, if you're in a big company to make a prototype of a light, you have to uh, you have to like clear that with like 10 different departments, god.
Speaker 3:But if you just work with an external and have them do it, then it's like no, I do it, I do it a few weeks. That was kind of like the thing where we were like the fast, non-political way to get things done, which was this little little niche I had in there around that type of product like the like they're like call gray, he's the dashboard light guy or just anything automotive that's not in-house and easy to get through uh, I would say, uh, lights and kind of user experience stuff are was a niche that me and also these other people that I left this company with, um, that we we had kind of offered and we're pretty good at because it was kind of a weird little thing that you need to do with cars.
Speaker 3:But one really learns that skill in school and there's no department really structured around that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Okay, Okay. And then do you usually sorry if this is a dumb question. I don't want to get too much in the weeds of industrial design, but do you have to be on site because the stuff you do is tangible?
Speaker 3:it's not all digital yeah, that's, that's a great question. So, uh, five years ago the answer probably would have been yes, as you're making things um and you have to be where that thing is, um, with corona, I think the whole at least, like my clients and I figured out how to make it work remotely. So, um, it's a lot of like shipping stuff between clients. It's a lot of like digital presentations. Um, at some point you usually have to meet around a single thing. But if it's not a huge object, like if it's something that fits on top of a table, for instance, I'll do a design and then I'll build a little like mock-up or 3d print or prototype and I can ship it to a client.
Speaker 2:Um, I can ship it in germany, I walking over to the dhl box, okay, or yeah, okay, um, and then I just think germany, I think about this, with people that start like food businesses, too, or anything like producing physical things. Are there a lot of regulations? Or like materials, like, do you have to know all of the stuff around that? Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so. I usually focus on some certain kinds of products. So I will do, I'd say, like, consumer electronics is like bread and butter the thing I'm really good at and I know a lot of. Electronics is like bread and butter, the thing I'm really good at and I know a lot of. And then I've done some other industries, like I've done some heavy equipment stuff, I've done a lot of little home goods and lighting kind of things. I've done some.
Speaker 3:I've even done some like agricultural stuff, which is super weird for me, but usually like, uh, on my level, uh, I need to know the basic overall regulations. But a lot of times it's like clients, especially if it's a company in that industry, for instance, like in medical devices, a lot of these companies know what regulations there are and what they need to deal with because it's just part of the planning of an overall product design process. Um like getting designing and releasing and selling a physical product usually is not a small task and a good amount of money. Um, so a lot of the times I get pretty lucky where I have clients that know the process and um understand what goes into that and um basically plan all that stuff in, including the regulation stuff, although with smaller clients, sometimes there are newer, and then I end up doing a lot of like education on stuff too.
Speaker 3:Um, for instance, like the difference, especially in Europe, the difference between selling a product that doesn't have any electronics versus electronics in it. So if you wanted to sell a table in Germany, it's not too bad. I think you basically just need like a comparable license, which is like to sell objects or products and stuff, but if you put electronics in it, then you have to get the CE marking and that's like a whole nother level. Oh wow, and it kind of like exponentially blooms from there. So on that level I know, but, like you know, what it says in paragraph 12 of the CE regulations, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, okay. I want to go back to a couple of things you said. So the networking part, which is a hundred percent true, like when I left Sapient and that started, the kind of the time we met and was contracting, I like never had to pick up the phone just because of the network I have.
Speaker 2:Oh nice, you must be good pick up the phone just because of the network I have. Oh nice, you must be good, Well. Well, of course I'm good, but it wasn't. I mean, that was just also a time where, like every, it wasn't yes I'm good, but it was more that that was a very, very big company with people that went all over the place to a bunch of different agencies.
Speaker 2:So it was like if you just sort of put the word out that you were looking for, you know you were open to work, people would call you. I was also not like trying to fill my schedule all the time and I had a baby, I think, when I worked, when I was with the same agency you were, I think I, my daughter was already born, so I was like not full-time.
Speaker 3:Didn't you have a dog too?
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yeah, we got the dog when I was like six weeks pregnant, I don't know it like seemed like a good idea at the time. He's like under my desk right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to bring the dog to the office, but great icebreaker, my Corgi Louie. Yeah, dog and kid are both doing well and it's all good. But yeah, so that networking and even now, like that, I'm doing this, I mean I have a lot of a decent amount of clients come through that old network too, like there was just no. I just think there was no replacing that, so but that doesn't mean that you can rely on it entirely. I am curious about your youtube channel because, even if it's not like the biggest pipeline builder, you do have 30 000 followers.
Speaker 3:I could not help but notice yeah, I was also the other day. I was also surprised how and like how.
Speaker 2:How did that just accidentally happen?
Speaker 3:like uh, yine, which is a good, good word in german for people want to move to germany. Yes and no. Um the the story, the quick story behind how I started that was I was very bored during corona and this is when everybody first started making video calls, and I'm an office clown. So I was like, oh, I'll make a video about how to look good in a video call, because all my coworkers don't understand the concept of turning a light on when you're on video, not having the camera sticking up your nose.
Speaker 3:It was more of a jab at the co-workers, so it was. It was fun. Uh, it's kind of a fun process. My, my co-workers liked it. They were like you should put it on youtube. So I did that, um, and then, uh, I don't know, like you know, like 500 people watched it or something. I was like, oh, this is kind of fun, but I don't want to make calls, I don't want to make videos about how to look good in a call or something.
Speaker 3:So I was like oh, I want to do stuff around design and then I just morphed it into that, where now I make videos about industrial design Usually involves me designing some product within the video, and yeah, it's kind of started as a joke and then just turned into a creative outlet and yeah, it's a fun thing to do. I don't know, I think, because sometimes I also get asked what's the business value behind it? If I did like a return on investment for my time and these videos, it would be like abysmal so is it fair to say it's more of a passion project and occasional client acquisition tool yeah, I think that's fair to say.
Speaker 3:Um, it's, you know, it's, it's. It's the funny thing about it is it's kind of also a nice way to connect with people, because I'll post a video and some friend I haven't talked to in years will text me and say hey, I saw your video, how's it going then, yeah, so it's a little bit of uh, like hey, remember me to to my friends and stuff too. Um, so yeah, but yeah, I think, exactly like you said, it's kind of a passion project. Um, maybe it turns into some business every once in a while and but it's it's mostly just screwing around, having fun but those like.
Speaker 2:So I have this other well, not other. This is like now under the germany list and we're thinking about, you know, building up traffic and everybody. I know it's just all video. Now this like podcast I'm gonna put on youtube as shorts or something. That's the plan anyway, and it just seems like so much work. So much work, like, how long does it take you to make and your production value is, of course, very slick and beautiful and designed yeah like how much? How long does it take you to do one video?
Speaker 3:uh to to film. It is like a half a day because I film in my apartment. I'm still wearing everything I got. So I set up the equipment To do the script before that is probably a little less than a week and to edit it it's a week. But if anyone looks at my YouTube channel they'll see that I post like once every three or four months.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Because I think you probably do this too. I focus on like client work most of it yeah.
Speaker 3:And then if I come up with an idea that I like enough, and then I'll screw around with some design for the video when I feel, when I get in the mood like I feel like this could be something good, then I'll make the video, which is why it's still fun, because I don't take it too seriously. But to answer your question directly yes, it's. It's a pretty good amount of work, especially in the beginning. Um, especially being on camera and seeing yourself is like yeah the weirdest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you haven't done it before, but you kind of you get faster, you get better at it and it kind of gets easier. And you know, like the, the tense video you make is a a tenth of the work it'll just be shorts and, like me, talking, let's see.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, I just the podcast. It's, it's, it's very much the same for me, like it's a little bit of a passion project. I love doing it, but it is um, it's a little easier cause it's an interview format so I don't have to have a script. But nice. Um doing the show notes and promoting it, and I'm a pretty casual editor, but it's work, it's a lot of work.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and then also the thing because I had a good, uh good conversation with a friend about this few weeks ago um, just finding, finding a thing that people are going to click into um, I don't, I don't really know if there's a formula for it. So for me, I make a good range of videos on industrial design, so I've done like videos on sustainability, on AI, on uh, just me, here's something I was designing and I just kind of filmed the process a little bit. Um, no one really watches those, except I make this one trends video every year and people watch that. I think people will follow me based on that, and I have no idea why people like the trends but don't like the sustainability stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It just, it just is what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did this and I think I'm going to redo it. I looked at all. So I use this tool called headline analyzer because so much of what the podcast, and I think it's the same with YouTube you know like there's these like formulas, these hooks, and it's like you can type in your headline and then you like tweak the words or add certain words and it like gives you this value of like this is clickable. But I think I'm going to stop doing that because it's just like these headlines become so tortured and it's just like you know what. I'm just going to call it what it is and I'm not like trying to get 10 million downloads here and that's that. But, yeah, you can. I mean, that's a whole industry of making thumbnails and titles yeah, clickable, and all of that. So, yeah, so yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:I mean just just to add on top of that I, I totally agree. It's crazy how important on, at least on the youtube platform, how important your thumbnail and title are. It's half the importance and the video is the other half the importance. One trick I did so when I first started making industrial design videos on YouTube. There weren't really any other industrial designers doing that kind of stuff People doing sketching tutorials, but that was kind of it. So I went on some graphic design channels and saw like what kind of videos are they making? And that's where I saw like there's a. Somebody had a graphic design trends video. I was like, oh, that sounds fun, yeah, for product design, um, and so doing that. But you know, now, now it's a little better. Now there's some other channels of people making content around product design, uh, which is really cool to see. Um, because it feels like I'm not the only weirdo out there, there's other weirdos but it's good to be the one of the first weirdos out there.
Speaker 2:That's like if there's a untapped niche. So maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it really feels like you know, throwing a rock down a black well and not flicks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, interesting, I don't know. Yeah, this is this. There's a lot of people doing like expat content, like how to move to Germany and all this, but that actually, when I cause I started doing this, cause I was gonna, I made this like pivot, that that was gonna be my target market, was like other expats living in Germany. So I was like I'm gonna get on some podcasts and then there was no podcast just for this. So that's like how I ended up starting this podcast, but it does make it easier to kind of find your people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, it's funny, you said that because when okay, maybe I should have also said this in the networking portion, which I forgot and I started an industrial design meetup.
Speaker 2:Right, I think I saw that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is basically it's like a bar night, like we reserve a space at a bar and then we just go there and meet up and there's not really talks, there's no sponsors or anything. It's just like a gathering place for community that is there in Munich. That didn't really have a meeting point, but it was exactly the same thing. There was no industrial design meetup, I think. For the first few years I was here. I was like why is there no industrial design meetup? Um, because I know it happens in some other places. And then, uh, I was on a walk with my wife. I was like maybe I should just make one and she's like, yeah, just do that.
Speaker 3:And then it was like, really, just like you know the website and you make yeah like it's now, now it's there, now it's now it's cool, which is actually that's also a good little networking thing too. Um, so basically just forming a community if there isn't the one that that you're looking for, because there's probably other people looking for it too and what?
Speaker 3:so you just use meetupcom or whatever was there yeah, I do, um, I also, like, will post on linkedin and then so, um, there's, there's a bit of a mailing list as well. Um, so it's kind of slowly grown. I think we've been doing it for like two years now, two and a half, something like that too. Um, and uh, yeah, and just also um, in munich it's in the city we're in in munich there's this week called munich creative business week, right, which is essentially munich design week. Yeah, so I was a bit strategic on the first one, where I'd plan the meetup, and then, to be a little bit after Munich Creative Business Week, to every event I could and personally invited people so they wouldn't think it was a weird scam cult group or something like that, but they saw like a real person behind it. Cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was smart. So, and did you get? Like, how many people came to the first one.
Speaker 3:The first one, I think we were like 30 or 40, somewhat in that range, and then it's slowly grown, every event maybe like five, five or 10 people. So now, now we're like somewhere around 80.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:Um, which is which is awesome, cause I mean, in essence, it's just a party. So it's this party with people who do the same thing that I do, which is great, yeah, and where do you this party with people who do?
Speaker 2:the same thing that I do, which is great, yeah. And where do you do? You just do it at a different place every time, Like and like does everybody show up, Like how do you organize it? I know that's like a silly question, but yeah, so we we have like two things.
Speaker 3:One is the inviting the people, which is we have the meetupcom page. If you look at natural designers in Munich, you can find our page on meetupcom, which is kind of like this, this website to organize groups, events, and we'll post each new event that comes on there. Then I'll announce it on LinkedIn and then there's also a little bit of a mailing list. But that's funny because I started this industrial designers meetup group and I started doing it and then somebody told me hey, there's some older industrial designers in Munich that were doing this before and they stopped and you should connect with them. Um, so I got in touch with the people doing that and we kind of merged, okay, or like this bigger group, um, yeah, so there's. It's funny because, like, I think there's like this group of people that were kind of there in munich. Um, so I didn't really start a community or anything, we just gave a time and place for all these people to meet and, uh, they came together and where, and the, the physical place.
Speaker 2:Where do you guys meet?
Speaker 3:yeah. So that was the hardest part about it. You know if, if you're in munich and you look at an event space, you go and you check it out, it looks cool, and they say, okay, it's like 5 000 or 15, yeah, because I plus you have to buy drinks from us and all this stuff. Um, so I just called a lot of bars until I found one where, uh, the owner is really cool and he's like, how many people are you? And I was like I don't know, maybe 60. He's like no problem, just come down to the bar. Um, so we, we don't have like catering anything, we just go meet at a bar and you give your money to the bartender okay um yeah.
Speaker 3:So just like letting a bar know we're gonna be a lot of people what bar is it, if I can ask? Uh, we do two places now. Uh, we do it at Lola Bar in Glockenbach Fugel, which is a great little bar, if you're ever around that way.
Speaker 2:Where is that? There's like an Etica in Glockenbach oh in that little corner where the movie theater is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah so I think it's around there, and then we'll do it also at Golden Bar, which is behind Monster Peace, which is a museum in Munich. They have a cool bar in the back where they also let us show up with a lot of people. Those are the two main places. We're always open to new places. Those are just the ones that seem to work pretty well for us yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2:One might not appreciate how much of a task it is to find a public meeting space for a lot of people. It's not, it's.
Speaker 2:It's easier said than done yeah, for sure um, I want to ask you a little bit about you mentioned you worked in the automotive industry or had clients there, as many of us do, living in munich, um, in southern germany, or just your general um, what, what is? Can you tell me like what the vibe is right now with clients and business and industry has been a lot of gloom. What's your, what have you been experiencing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's it's been a dip. Right now, um, like, uh, automotive in Germany in general is really slow, and it's it. It was interesting because I think the automotive industry started to dip, but I still had projects for a while, because they plan their budgets out like a year in advance usually, so we're kind of riding the last wave of it and now it's pretty slow in that sector generally and I think, um, in my field, which is designing physical products, that's something that a company will do when they have a good economic situation. So right now stuff has moved pretty slow within Germany. So actually a lot of my clients right now are US-based clients, because somehow startups seem to always get money, which I still never understand. But I've been doing it all my life, wow.
Speaker 2:Are there other sectors here that you would pivot to or that you think are going to do well?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. I really don't know in Germany what's looking pretty bright because at least like physical products in Germany have been slowing down just because of, like the whole global economy. Less in germy they produced in asia and now some companies are also just slowly not selling as many physical products in germany, so it's just slowing down a little bit.
Speaker 3:Um, in general, as far as what's looking good, you know, I, I don't know I've. I went to the Milan Design Week last week actually, which is a lot of chairs and lights and that kind of stuff, and I was really amazed at how many companies are still there. But if you work in chairs and lights, a lot of those people get pretty specialized. So probably not going to design a chair anytime soon?
Speaker 2:Well, everybody got to sit and be in the dark. I guess that never goes out of. Is there anything you would say? I mean, so you came with you know school and then later with your now wife, but if anybody was you know, maybe it's just what's happening on my feeds, but I feel like there's a lot more chatter, especially from Americans, about coming over here or just you know, to Europe, places like that. Is there something you would say to those people, like what they need to think about if they're coming to Germany?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think a lot of people have kind of a little bit of like a fantasy of like, oh, I'll just move there and get a job, it will be easy. I think there's a lot of things that people don't take into account. One is like the cultural barrier.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's moving. If you've never lived in another country for, like, let's say, more than four months, um, it's a different experience than, like, going on vacation there, um. And then, two, you're moving to a place like, for instance, if you move to europe from the us, um, you probably don't speak the language, which puts you at disadvantage trying to find, um, a position or clients, uh, in that place. So you also have like a little bit of a of a like a slow start from everyone else that grew up living there and that kind of thing, um. And then three is like the stuff we brought up a lot, which is the visa stuff isn't totally trivial, it's usually not too bad, but it's something you have to think about too.
Speaker 3:So I would say like, I think a lot of people say I'm going to move out of the U? S and move to Europe, and I think maybe, like, let's say, like 50% of the people are just kind of saying that Cause it's kind of fun to say, but if you really want to do it, it's probably a little bit more difficult than you first imagined. So if you know people somewhere, if you have connections somewhere, that can really help you, which is me. Coming to Munich. I had some connections to help me get started, connections to help me get started which is, like you know, I'm infinitely grateful for, because I think, um, if, uh, my, my wife had my now wife and me like with all the visa stuff.
Speaker 3:I would have been, yeah, totally lost if I hadn't just randomly known a guy who was really good friends with one of my really good friends that lived in munich, that got this interview Like I wouldn't have had a job. It was just all all total luck. But yeah, I mean you can make it happen and a lot of people do it, but it's it's not like just move here and figure it out when you get here, kind of thing. You have to do a lot of planning and be smart about it.
Speaker 2:What about German? How much do you work in German versus English?
Speaker 3:I do like probably like 80% English. You know, if you speak two languages, you're known as bilingual. If you speak three languages, you're known as trilingual. If you speak one language, you're known as American. We're just me when I first got here. Now I I speak, I'm probably like c1, c2 oh, wow um intensive courses.
Speaker 2:That's the only way we'll do the intensive courses yeah, I did that many, many years ago and I I'm gonna do my citizenship oh, I applied for that. You did, did you do all the things?
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:Did you do the Einbergungs test already?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's not too hard, that's easy.
Speaker 2:My husband read me the questions from an app. But I got up to B1, which I think is a minimal requirement, but it was intensive courses. I took it in 2001. But it was at the LMU and they they're like oh yeah, we still have your records. So I was like, oh, thank god, because I couldn't. I was like rummaging around in the killer, like that paper has got to be here somewhere yeah, I got that one piece of paper in a.
Speaker 3:Okay, if you move to Germany, you'll quickly find out that everyone puts pieces of paper and little plastic folder things. And I got her, I got mine in one of those little plastic folder things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did not do that. One one non-related question Speaking of pieces of paper, are you in the cause, car? Yeah. So, as an industrial designer, that's considered building the kunst.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, guess. I guess, to give context for people listening, the kaskam or ksk as I like to call it kunstsozialkasse, and if you're an artist or related work in germany and you are self-employed, there's basically this government program to give you some of the benefits that you would get if you were employed, which is mostly like helping pay for health insurance in the Social Security equivalent in Germany, and designers are part of that program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like influencers can be in it too.
Speaker 3:Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've looked. Not that I'm an influencer, but I looked. I've talked to other people, I think, on this podcast, some that are like like creators and stuff and that counts, but they, they like I don't know about you, but I'm like they're constantly sending me stuff to check. Like I got audited and I actually overpaid because I'm like an optimistic american and I was like, do I get the money back? And they're like nope. And then they sent me another one's like are you an it person? Like no, I'm not an it person, I'm webbed. Like they just kind of want to always make sure you're not, uh, gaming them and yeah, that makes sense, fair enough and they are great.
Speaker 2:It's like, basically you have an employer, or when I have my baby, they paid. You know, it was just all my mantras, all that, oh cool. I didn't know that. It's really great yeah.
Speaker 3:They're one of those. I guess it's like government office or a company.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to explain. I don't know how to explain it. Is it a guild? We don't have the equivalent, but it's one of those you send them of freelancing in Germany. Do you have any thoughts or advice or lessons learned you'd share with all the loiter out there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's hard to say because I'm always self-doubting too, which I know I shouldn't do. No, which I know I shouldn't do. No, yes, I'm never really sure if I'm doing it right. But I will say, just being a cool person that's good to work with, you don't really know, you go down the line. Now I'm working with somebody who I worked with 10 years ago, just gotten along really well when we worked, and that's that's led to, like you know, some really really fun projects for me.
Speaker 3:So just just being like a, a cool dude, as we say in California, I think it's like weirdly really important. And then you know, just, it's so easy sometimes to like just post online and be a part of like online communities or stuff around you. So I'm really into the whole industrial design world uh, both around me in munich and germany and san francisco, and also like online um. So I think just, uh, I would have started my youtube channel earlier if I knew how fun and nice it was going to be to connect with people through that. And yeah, and starting starting a community around what you do Like I started the meetup like functionally is pretty easy, minus the finding the first place that was hard. Yeah, it's pretty easy and, uh, it's a great thing to get out of it. So that's that's what I would say for my career.
Speaker 3:But if you're coming to germany, um, the, the language is no joke. Germans are notoriously I'm not saying this, this is out there that they're hard to break into as friends, so just be prepared for that. But once you get in, you're in and you're on the inner circle, so that's really great and I guess just do your homework and be aware of what it is. But, um, once you get here, life's pretty good. Uh, the weather's not great compared to California. I get the well, today's pretty nice.
Speaker 2:I mean it's sound. You know, the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco it. You know, the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco it summers there. I think it's like Northern California, it's a tie, I would say.
Speaker 3:You know everyone says that, but you just got to bring your Patagonia jacket. Yeah, that's what everyone wears in San Francisco. It's as soon as the sun goes down it's like 10 degrees Celsius cold. You know that's going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not Baywatch All right.
Speaker 3:Southern California is California, northern California is Oregon.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. All right, gray. Well, thanks so much for coming on the podcast, and where can people find you?
Speaker 3:You can find me at somegraythingscom. That's somegraythingscom Gray with an A. That's my website or YouTube channel. Some Gray Things. It's always Some Gray Things If you look up Some. Gray Things, you'll find me.
Speaker 2:Okay, we'll put that all in the show notes. So thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3:Thanks. Yeah, my name is Gray Dowdy and I feel hashtag blessed about being Eleanor Meyerhofer's friend.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, what a great ending. Thanks, thanks for listening. You can find this and all other germany expat business show podcasts at the germany listde bye.