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

Épisode de Génération Do It Yourself par Matthieu Stefani | Collision Productions · 26 juillet 2026 · 2 h 12 min

Notre nouveau film « Europe : il va falloir arrêter de subir 🇪🇺 » disponible ce mercredi 28 octobre à 18h sur YouTube !

Retrouvez l'épisode en version française ici : https://www.gdiy.fr/podcast/robert-gentz-vf/

It's the largest e-commerce company in Europe, just behind Amazon.

And it all started with flip flops.

Robert Gentz co-founded Zalando in 2008, after his first startup left him too broke to buy a flight ticket home from Mexico.

With his co-founder, they tested the market with a one-page flip flop shop in Berlin. It worked. So they built a full shoe destination on top of it.

The growth that followed is hard to believe: 6 million euros the first entire year, 160 million in year two, 500 million in year three.

Today Zalando does 20 billion euros in gross merchandise value across 29 countries.

But Europe doesn't make it easy.

Robert learned that the hard way when the TV ad that turned Zalando into a German phenomenon became "the worst ad in the Netherlands" a few months later.

Same continent, completely different reaction.

That's the real story of building at scale in Europe: 29 different markets, 29 different consumer psychologies, and no shortcuts around any of them.

In this episode, Robert reveals:

Why Europe's fragmentation is both Zalando's biggest obstacle and its strongest moat

The real reason free returns increase order value instead of killing margins

Why Zalando builds its own tech stack instead of buying off the shelf

How AI is already rewriting the rules of e-commerce

Why he turned down a US listing and what that says about Europe's future

A rare look into a company that proved Europe can build at global scale in less than 20 years, and what it will take to do it again.

You can follow Robert on LinkedIn.

The GDIY15 code will get you 15% off on Zalando from €50 spent, valid until 31.07.2026 at 11:59pm.

TIMELINE:

00:00:00 - The flip flop test before the shoe empire

00:12:06 - Fundraising Needs a Reference Point

00:19:38 - Build vs Buy: When to Own Your Technology

00:30:24 - "Europe is the hardest market on earth"

00:40:58 - The biggest mistake Zalando ever made

00:53:11 - Why the US Out-Scales Europe

01:00:31 - Running a company is like co-parenting

01:10:12 - The Country Launch Playbook

01:19:03 - Democratizing fashion from Paris to northern Finland

01:28:54 - Why fashion is still one of the most inefficient businesses

01:36:43 - AI could turn us into a commodity

01:47:41 - Stock market : Why Chosing Frankfurt Over Nasdaq ?

02:01:52 - "Speed Is the Only Advantage That Matters in the AI Age"

We referred to previous GDIY episodes :

#496 - Sébastien Kopp - VEJA - Faire du business autrement

#487 - VF - Anton Osika - Lovable - Internet, Business et IA : rien ne sera jamais plus comme avant

#487 - VO - Anton Osika - Lovable - Internet, Business, and AI: Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again

#311 - Pascal Meyer - QoQa - Vendre un Picasso à sa communauté : quand l'e-commerce n'a plus de limite

#81 - Jacques Antoine Granjon - Cofondateur VEEPEE - l'aventure, l'hypercroissance, les marques et l'instinct

#11 - Sébastien Kopp - VEJA 2/2 - Réussir dans la mode en préservant le monde

#10 - Sébastien Kopp - VEJA 1/2 - concurrencer Nike et Adidas avec du Développement Durable

A few recent episodes in English :

#542 - VO - Yoni Assia - eToro - “AI Will Replace Most Traders in 18 Months”

#513 - VO - Jesper Brodin - IKEA - 40 billion in revenue empire with no bank loan

#500 - VO - Reid Hoffman - LinkedIn, Paypal - How to master humanity’s most powerful invention

#487 - VO - Anton Osika - Lovable - Internet, Business, and AI: Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again

#475 - VO - Shane Parrish - Farnam Street - Clear Thinking: The Decision-Making Expert

#473 - VO - Brian Chesky - Airbnb - « We're just getting started »

#452 - VO - Reid Hoffman - LinkedIn, Paypal - L’humanité 2.0 : Homo technicus plus qu’Homo sapiens

#437 - James Dyson - Dyson - “Failure is more exciting than success”

#431 - Sean Rad - Tinder - How the swipe fever took over the world

We spoke about :

Fort Knox

Salesforce CRM

Amazon Web Services

N8N : AI agents and workflowsyou can see and control

Lovable

Reading Recommendations :

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, by Tony Hsieh 🇬🇧

L'Entreprise du bonheur, de Tony Hsieh 🇫🇷

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Max Tegmark 🇬🇧

La Vie 3.0 - Être humain à l'ère de l'intelligence artificielle, de Max Tegmark 🇫🇷

A huge THANK YOU to our sponsors :

Squarespace : https://squarespace.com/doit

Qonto: https://qonto.com/r/2i7tk9

Brevo: brevo.com/doit

eToro: https://bit.ly/3GTSh0k

Payfit: payfit.com

Club Med : clubmed.fr

Cuure : https://cuure.com/product-onely

You'll find the full list of gear we use to record our episodes on this page.

Interested in sponsoring Generation Do It Yourself or proposing a partnership ? Contact my label Orso Media through this form.

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