Already in Oliver Samwer’s family tree there are many ancestors from the Samwer line who held important positions during their lifetime. Starting with his great-great-grandfather, who was a professor of constitutional law in Kiel and a member of the government council in the state ministry of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. His great-grandfather was in turn made an honorary citizen of Gotha and headed the Gotha Life Insurance Bank. His great-granduncle rose to become chairman of the board of the German health insurance company in Cologne and was a member of the German Bundestag. And finally, both of Oliver Samwer’s parents worked as lawyers, with his father becoming well known through representing well-known clients such as the former Federal President Karl Carstens. It could thus be said that family members have always strived for great achievements.
A model student with big ambitions
Oliver Samwer was born on August 9, 1972 as the middle of three sons in Cologne. The wealthy family lived in the posh residential area of Marienburg. As a student, Samwer attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne. He is said to have completed his Abitur with an outstanding grade point average of 0.8. In line with his remarkable academic achievements, he began studying business administration at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, which has an excellent national and international reputation. Apparently, startups were already particularly interested in Samwer at that time. At that time he wrote the work together with a co-author: “America’s Most Successful Startups. Lessons for Entrepreneurs”. After completing his studies, he began working as a trainee at the investment bank Sal. Oppenheimer. However, this occupation did not last long. Samwer already had the plan to found a company with his brothers and become self-employed.
Alando, Jamba and Rocket Internet
The first joint venture between the three brothers was the online mail order company Alando, which was founded in 1999. This was a very accurate copy of eBay’s business concept. The Samwers will use this cloning of already successful business models more often in the future, so that it will become almost characteristic of their entrepreneurial approach. However, according to the frontal21 documentary “The big Samwer show. The billion-dollar business of the Zalando boys”, the trio has received strong criticism for copying ideas. Accordingly, founders and investors from Silicon Valley in particular should consider the business practices of the trio to be dishonest. But the method is worth it: Shortly after Alando went online, the company was bought by eBay for several million US dollars. In addition, Oliver Samwer will be appointed Managing Director at eBay in Europe.
The Jamba company was founded in 2000. According to the frontal21 documentation, this idea also originally came from a Japanese model and was simply copied. In just a few years, however, Jamba developed into the largest European ringtone provider, so that the sale of the company to the American group VeriSign in 2004 brought the Samwers a total of 273 million US dollars.
In 2007, Oliver Samwer and his brothers founded the start-up incubator Rocket Internet. Through this investment vehicle, he is still active today as a venture capitalist for young companies. The most famous investments include the online mail order company Zalando, the ordering platform Delivery Hero, the grocery delivery service HelloFresh and the online furniture retailer Home24. In 2014 Rocket Internet was converted into a public company and since then Oliver Samwer has been the company’s CEO.
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