We can make change.
In 1995, we set out to catapult the digital from the starting blocks into the world - inspired by the maxims of the internet hippies. It wasn't always easy. It took a lot of convincing to remove all the question marks from people's faces: Do we really need digital? Will it catch on? It will. But even 28 years later, the digital revolution is still far from complete. The desire to shape the future has become part of 3pc's DNA. Internet and whatever comes next.
Who could have imagined in 1994 where the digital revolution would take us?
In the beginning was the hypertext
In 1994, all websites are grey and Google is at most a fleeting thought. In the midst of this digital wasteland, Armin Berger discovered an article in the legendary WIRED magazine that would change everything. He realised: The Internet is not hype. The digital will fundamentally change our world - and he was proved right.
The article that started it all...
Leap into the digital age
In 1995, we set out to catapult digital from the starting blocks into the world - what was it like back then? In this interview, Armin Berger talks about a flash of inspiration in Los Angeles, 72 hours without sleep, a momentous mix-up and the very projects he still likes to get up for after 25 years.
This is what departure looked like in 1995.
Even back then, we defined principles that are state of the art today: "The customer and their need for information take centre stage": Design Thinking 1995 - perhaps a little more thinking than design.
The first Berlinale website sees the light of day
Revolution on the CRT screen
The Berlinale is one of the world's first film festivals to go online and the website is named "EU best site". Armin Berger coded for 3 days and 3 nights - interrupted only by phone calls from the Berlinale director at the time, Moritz de Hadeln, who couldn't get things done fast enough.
"We now have fields of activity that didn't even exist in our early days. Digital requirements have increased enormously since then."
Fortune hunters of the new economy
Not the garage, but also unfinished in start-up terms: our first office in Chausseestraße - a combination of a former shop and a flat that could be reached via the courtyard. As "soldiers of fortune of the new economy" (Netzeitung), we set out from there to fight for the digital. And we found our fortune.
The predecessor of Immoscout
We could have become rich and famous back in 1999. Long before Immobilienscout24.de became our daily property search tool, we had already launched the Berlin Real Estate platform. We were about to be taken over by Quadriga Immobilien.
Great show. Great silence
On the day the contract was signed, we were picked up by the then CEO and an Indian software developer in a Hummer and chauffeured to the new offices in the then up-and-coming Oberbaum City. The future seemed to be set. Then came the great silence. Instead of our contract, Quadriga Immobilien signed its own insolvency a little later. At least the idea didn't go bankrupt.
The era of the "new economy" was full of great visions. Everything was new, but in the end not much remained of the economy. The rise and fall took place at breathtaking speed.
What is the name of the agency again, Mrs Merkel?
The Oscar of the digital
What Armin Berger is holding in his hands is the highly coveted trophy for the Grimme Online Award, which we received in 2003 for the lexical website of the MDR science programme LexiTV. The aim is always to win over users. But sometimes you're also happy to receive encouragement from a select jury! (And yes, the hair was really long).
"I'm happy to be able to work for customers that I really support. Without any moral balancing act. That hasn't changed to this day."
How Karl Valenti's heiress brought down our first magazine
Long before Bento, Buzzfeed and the like, we launched Omnimag in 2007, a magazine in which we collected and curated the best finds from the web and published them.
No more fun
As the legal situation regarding links and embeddings was unclear at the time, the fun soon came to an end: Karl Valentin's granddaughter sent us a warning letter because of a YouTube video of her grandfather that we had embedded. To put it positively: Valentin's heirs also read Omnimag!
"A small desk in a dark backyard room became a beautiful desk in a sunny window seat in an open-plan office."
An epochal upheaval
From a two-desk flat to an open-plan office with almost 100 colleagues: 3pc has gone through numerous stages of refinement over the past 25 years. And we are still nowhere near the end, but rather at the beginning of something new year after year - as Corona 2020 has shown us. What has the virus done to the world? What can we take away from 2020? Insights and outlook from Armin Berger.
Risen from the ruins
However, it was not socialism that emerged from these ruins, but our new office in the Max Taut House on Oranienplatz, which we moved into in 2013. The move was also historically significant for us: 3-point concepts became 3pc, a backyard start-up became a company with almost 100 pioneers of the digital revolution.
Back to the future
In the mid-1990s, the Internet was an absolute revelation, characterised by the idea of freedom and independence, cultural exchange across space and time - one of the main reasons why Armin Berger has dedicated his life to the medium. Why we could do with a little peace and happiness again today, why we are still at the beginning of a huge experiment and why 3pc is not primarily about technology, but about people - find out more in the interview.