Lars Orthmann

Why this persona fits the audience

Co-founder/CTO at a 12-person SaaS in Berlin. He handles product and support escalations himself, copies reproducible bugs from HubSpot into GitHub Issues, and coordinates one backend engineer plus a part-time support contractor. He has only ever used copy/paste and labels for this handoff.

• Age: 41
• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Occupation: Co-founder and CTO
• Income: €95k-€120k
• Education: MSc Computer Science
• Company size: 12
• Years in role: 4

“"I build systems to fix systems that were never meant to be there in the first place. It’s exhausting, but at least I get to pick the whiskey."”

Lars Orthmann, 41, built his first SaaS during the 2010s startup boom and never left. His current company started as a weekend hack to solve their own support-to-engineering handoff headaches. Now, four years in, he’s the only one who knows every line of production code (and most of their bugs). His desk is a minimalist’s nightmare: three monitors running Kubernetes dashboards, GitHub, and Jira; a single notebook with half-finished diagrams; and a coffee cup that’s never empty. Lars avoids hiring until it hurts, preferring to do 80% of technical work himself. His latest frustration: spending 15 hours a week copying bug reports from HubSpot into GitHub. He’s built a single Python script to help, but refuses to call it a real solution. Recently, he spent a weekend building a personal alternative to Linear, then shelved it when he realized he’d just recreate the same problems. Money is tight—he’s turned down venture capital twice—but he won’t pay for tools that don’t prove their value in 48 hours. His co-founder complains he’s "too hands-on," but Lars knows if he doesn’t fix the fundamental pain points, no one else will. He dreams of a future where his engineers can focus on building instead of tightening bolts, but for now, he’s stuck in the weeds. His only real luxury is the €50 Japanese whiskey he sips while writing rage-comments in GitHub Issues after midnight.

Background & daily life

A day in their life

6:30am: cold shower, black coffee, 90 minutes writing a bugfix in his home office. 8:30am: rides to work, mentally drafting GitHub comments. 9:00am: opens Slack to 46 unread messages. Spends first hour copying tickets to GitHub, muttering about ticket system labels. 10:30am: debugs a customer’s payment failure—finds it’s a rounding error in their Stripe integration. 12:00pm: eats ramen at desk while reading Hacker News. 1:00pm: pair-programming with his engineer (they argue about logging formats). 3:00pm: writes a support email so technical the customer asks for clarification. 4:30pm: opens his private repo to tinker with a personal project (a very opinionated deployment tool). 6:00pm: leaves office, buys whiskey, stops by Spätkauf for traubensaft. 7:00pm: codes while watching a YouTube Kubernetes tutorial. 11:30pm: falls asleep coding a script to auto-categorize GitHub issues (will use it once before forgetting).

Lifestyle

Lives in a 60m² apartment stuffed with vintage IBM keyboards, a single-serve espresso machine, and no TV. Wakes at 6:30am to cold-shower and code for two hours before the team wakes up. Rides a 2012 Vespa to work (rain or shine), always with a battered leather jacket. Spends weekends hiking in Grunewald or debugging his smart home setup (Raspberry Pi + Z-Wave). Health: ignores doctor appointments until something aches; favorite meal is self-cooked ramen with a side of wasabi. Social life revolves around Berlin’s startup scene—occasional dinner meetups but rarely stays late. Spends €200/month on whiskey and another €150 restocking espresso beans. Pays €1,800/rent but refuses to spend more than €100/month on SaaS tools.

Work life

At 7:30am, he’s already copied three HubSpot tickets into GitHub Issues, adding jumpy labels like "P0-bug" or "frust-customer". His days oscillate between debugging a payment integration, pair-programming with his backend engineer (a 25-year-old he mentors), and writing support responses that sound more technical than his ticket system allows. The company’s billing system is a Python script that alerts him via Slack when it crashes (which happens weekly). He skips co-founder meetings when possible, preferring to code in silence. Recent headspace: "Maybe we should stop using Postgres and just store everything as CSV—I spend more time optimizing indexes than building features."

Relationships

No family in Germany; calls his mum in Hamburg every Sunday. Close to a few ex-colleagues from his pre-startup days—rarely social, mostly Slack debates. His 25-year-old engineer looks up to him, which Lars both enjoys and finds stressful. Keeps his whiskey tasting group of three friends separate from his work circle. Secretly fears his co-founder’s venture capitalist brother is right about needing to "move faster".

How they decide

Research-heavy but heavily discounts opinions. Will write a 20-line script to test an idea before committing to a tool. Avoids spending money unless something visibly breaks. Trusts his gut after 20 years in tech, but second-guesses rash decisions until 3am. Hates being sold to but will buy from someone who admits a product isn’t perfect yet.

How they sound

Speaks in technical metaphors and abrupt sentences. Avoids jargon but will drop nicknames for tools ("that stupid HubSpot monstrosity"). Occasionally lets frustration leak into drier humor. Tends to self-deprecate about his management skills ("I’m really just a senior IC with a fancy title"). Occasionally mutters in German when frustrated with API responses. Prefers concrete examples over abstract explanations—"It’s not that we shouldn’t add slack integrations, it’s that our current queue system can’t handle another webhook."