#557 - VO - Robert Gentz - Zalando - Building a Shopping Empire on Flip Flops

**Robert Gentz** (0:06)
At the end of 2008, we started Zalando, and then did like a very first test with flip flops.

**Matthieu Stefani** (0:10)
If you want to start a business with flip flops, it must be in Germany at least. How did it go ?

**Robert Gentz** (0:14)
It went well. We actually bought flip flops from the stores and just sold it online. We scaled in Germany in one year from 6 million in revenues to 150 million revenues.

**Matthieu Stefani** (0:22)
One year, okay.

**Robert Gentz** (0:22)
So that was the second year. So at first it was 6 million, second year 150 or 160 million, third year 500 million.

**Matthieu Stefani** (0:28)
What would you say that makes the success of Zalando ? What is the recipe ?

**Robert Gentz** (0:32)
The broad proposition that Zalando brought to consumers was the democratization of fashion. No matter where you live, like Paris, close to Champs-Elysees, or if you live actually in the north of Finland, that you have the same kind of convenience and access to fashion and lifestyle, which you didn't have like 15 years ago. At the time there was just no scalable solutions out there. And we even had, when we started off with our own servers, the shop software is our own, the logistics software is our own. So these are like really the very big important points and differentiations that we actually are developing our own.

**Matthieu Stefani** (0:58)
So if I want to launch my e-commerce website, I can do it almost fully on Zalando technology and infrastructure.

**Robert Gentz** (1:05)
Yeah, I mean, it's not really catered for the very small ones yet. It's better for enterprise grades.

**Matthieu Stefani** (1:15)
We are the average of the people we spend the most time with. My name is Mathieu Stéphanie, and I invite entrepreneurs, athletes and artists to raise my average, and yours. Just before we begin this episode, I'll switch to French for a brief moment to thank my sponsors.
Robert, welcome to Zalando. I'm happy to have you in your place, actually.

**Robert Gentz** (1:36)
Thank you for coming by here in Berlin.

**Matthieu Stefani** (1:38)
We are so, so happy. I've read somewhere that when you launched your first startup, was it your first in Monterrey ? Monterrey, yeah.

**Robert Gentz** (1:50)
Do you speak Spanish ? I speak Spanish.

**Matthieu Stefani** (1:52)
A little bit. You only speak a little bit.
You were so broke when you went bankrupt, that you couldn't pay your flight tickets back to Germany. Is that true ? Or is that a...

**Robert Gentz** (2:08)
Yeah, I mean, it's...
I mean, I still have my parents, but I think we... Me and my co-founder, we couldn't really afford that. Yeah, we didn't have enough money on our bank account to actually buy a flight back at the time. Yeah, it's true. But I mean, many years ago, I think I was 23 When I was 24

**Matthieu Stefani** (2:29)
Well, it's not that long ago. I mean, it was like 20 years ago or something like this.

**Robert Gentz** (2:33)
Yeah, so 17 years ago.

**Matthieu Stefani** (2:36)
Yeah, so yeah. I mean, well, you've worked a lot in the meantime. But yeah, that's true.
And was it the same founders which whom you created Zalando with ?

**Robert Gentz** (2:47)
Yeah, so it's my co-founder of Zalando, David and I. And in the very first company we started before Zalando, it's name was Unibicate, it was like a Latin American social network. And there was like a few co-founder, like one co-founder from Mexico, one from Chile. So there were a couple of more.
But yeah, it was David and me and then David and me, we then afterwards started Zalando.

**Matthieu Stefani** (3:19)
Interesting. Well, I have so many questions for you. If you agree, we'll talk about, of course, a lot of Zalando about Europe, about Germany, about maybe logistics, about AI, hopefully agentic AI, the future of e-commerce.
What else ? I mean, many, many, many things I have in mind. The German market. I have so many questions about that and how can you go onto the German market ? Maybe it's easier for you because you're from here, but it seems for foreigners, for French people, I mean, it seems as Fort Knox somehow.

**Robert Gentz** (4:02)
I mean, it's probably the same for Germans entering into French markets.

**Matthieu Stefani** (4:06)
Is it ? Okay. You'll tell me the difficulties you have or you see when you go to France and maybe what you can tell for to other entrepreneurs and how to go to France maybe. But before all of this, if you allow me, would you introduce yourself ?