A Week in Germany with Dennis Yu

By Leo Pohlmann · 9 July 2026

Dennis Yu flew from Las Vegas to Germany this week for one main reason: to work with me in person. When your calendar entry literally reads “Fly to see Leo,” you take the week seriously.

Here’s what it actually looked like.

Mornings start at the bakery

If you’ve never started a German workday at a proper Bäckerei, you’re missing out. Fresh Brötchen still warm from the oven, real coffee, and a table to spread out on. Some of the best conversations we had all week happened over breakfast before we’d opened a single laptop — what to build next, what’s working, what I should be paying attention to as I get started.

Long working sessions

The core of the week was sitting side by side and actually doing the work — cutting video, shaping content, and learning the systems Dennis and the Local Service Spotlight team run. There’s a difference between watching someone work over Zoom and sitting next to them while they do it. Small things — how he decides what’s worth publishing, how fast he moves from idea to shipped — are hard to pick up any other way.

Meeting people

Between the working sessions, we got out. The one I’ll remember most was meeting Jan Koch at Motorworld in Cologne — a WordPress veteran now building AI agents inside German companies, and a longtime friend of Dennis’s. Meals together, a lot of walking, and the kind of unhurried conversation that only happens in person.

What I’m learning

A few things are sinking in this week:

• The craft. Turning raw footage into a story people actually watch is a skill, and it rewards reps.
• Personal brand is real work, not luck. The people I’m around didn’t get found by accident — they built it deliberately, one published piece at a time.
• The standard. Ship the finished thing, not a plan to build it. That one’s going to stick.

This site is my own small start on that. Thanks to Dennis for the week — and for showing up in person to make it count.