About Paul Piper

I’m Paul Piper, born 1983 in Göttingen, Germany, currently living in Wiesbaden. It’s hard to describe oneself in a few words, especially when trying to sound generally likeable (which of course I am!), but here’s my shot:

I’m a serial entrepreneur with degrees from EBS Business School, San Francisco State University, and University of St. Gallen. Over the past 20 years, I’ve built enterprise systems that handle millions of users - most notably Scipio ERP, which was & is used by companies like 1&1, Sedo, and Konica Minolta.

The Journey

My startup journey began with bazaaria.com, an eBay-like bartering system I built from scratch. Since then, I’ve founded companies like Cumonian GmbH (2007-2013) and worked with Mutschler Ventures AG. I’ve led over 100+ enterprise deployments and published “Start/Up - Set the net on fire” about my experiences in the German startup scene.

I also develop JetBrains plugins (5 published including Rookout and Scipio ERP Integration), contribute to open source projects like Hugging Face Chat UI, and to this day run one of the oldest Jurassic Park communities for the 1998 game “Trespasser” at trescom.org.

Notable Projects

• Scipio ERP - Complete ERP & ecommerce system powering millions of users • buchhandel.de - Amazon competitor for German book industry • Enterprise solutions for L’Oréal, Amadeus, Konica Minolta, Sedo • Digital platforms for 1&1 Internet, Aktion Mensch • Consultant for Telering, Orange Telecom, Ikea and others • JetBrains IDE integrations for Rookout & Sourcegraph

Who I Am

I am what you would call an outgoing-person. Not so much a person who enjoys to “go out”, nope – can barely stand “parties” (I hate random smalltalk, for instance), but one who is always on the road. I tend to spend time with people who share my view on life and especially work.

I get the most out of my life, while working on projects that matter. This could be anything, ranging from building enterprise systems, playing in one of my bands, or those geeky internet things I do for a living. I am easily entertained as well and love to be part of a working team.

I hate modern technologies and how they always sound overly-complicated while being overly simple in reality. This explains my stubbornness against apple-machines (there’s nothing wrong with apple, I just can’t stand the fandom) and why I prefer pc-classics over modern computer games any day.

I like a good set of goals and can’t stand the process of change (though I usually enjoy the outcome of it)! Oh and I also love to tackle problems that seem unbearable at first – call it whatever you like, I get a kick out of failing and retrying…

Oh and last but not least, I get cranky when not fed regularly (lunch: 11.30am, snack: 4pm, dinner: 7-8ish and lots of cookies in between)

2023 Update

It’s 2023 and it’s been years since i posted this. My life’s been turned upside down. I got a daughter and a wife, who i both love very much. I picked up a guitar and learned myself some through the magic that is the internet. I also started to take care of my body and did some writing (you know, body and mind those sorts of things - not that I really believe in any of that). I still get cranky when I’m not fed on time, though…