Solopreneur’s Workspace in Berlin, Germany

Name: Alexey Chernikov

Location: Berlin, Germany

Occupation: App business founder

Room size: 10 m² (108 ft²)

Cost of setup: ~$2,5K

Social media: Instagram, X

Website: Alexey

Hello! Tell us a bit about yourself

Hey! I’m Alexey, and I’m deeply interested in building software for millions of people with the smallest team possible and no external funding.

I’ve built a translator app called Mate Translate. It’s got 1M monthly active users now.

It integrates very well with web pages and operating systems like iOS and macOS.

It’s especially loved by language learners and expats (who translate a lot) because it saves a lot of time compared to Google Translate.

I built it as a Chrome extension for myself around ten years ago.

Since then, I’ve hired, fired, ported it to more platforms, and experimented with different sorts of user acquisition — learned a lot, to put it shortly.

At the moment, I’m not actively working on Mate anymore.

Instead, I spend my days hacking around different projects involving generating images with AI.

Currently for example, on Rosa — a simple web app that turns you into a Halloween character from just one selfie.

I also like writing, but I’m so far too shy to publish most of the things I’ve written.

On numerous occasions, I’ve overcome shyness and posted a few things.

Maybe, it’s the right time to mention my Substack that I created, hoping to publish more of my stuff.

Take us through your setup

I moved into this flat three days before the first COVID lockdown started. All shops shut their doors.

Thankfully, there was a click and collect option.

I had some ideas about what I wanted, but still, it wasn’t ideal to shop online without seeing and touching things first.