Yes, accounting/tax related stuff is still annoying. But there are a few more advantages:
* Employee share options are taxed when they sell the shares, not when issuing the option (regardless of strike price) nor when exercising it.
* Changes to the shareholder structure (e.g. raising capital) don't require visiting a notary
And I'm not sure if incorporating in a different EU country (while still looking just like a German EU Inc) would avoid some of the German pain points.
I'm pretty sure Germany is more than capable to negate all those. For instance it is inconceivable to imagine company law practiced in Germany without a notary speaking out loud the whole shebang.
It's amusing how top law students become glorified narrators/voice actors.
Had to visit one of these every time we raised capital. He never did more than read the text aloud and perhaps correct a typo. I don't want to know how much the company paid for that privilege.
What do you think all those IT engineers who were made redundant in the last months are doing? Some of them might prefer founding a start-up to joblessness. It's not the first time that a job market crisis increases the rate of start-up registrations.
No shit man. Their government high tech (!) VC fund rejected a high tech proposal from me (Medical devices), instead financed things like: https://www.mymuesli.com/
In Germany, innovation is defined and funded by grant agencies. The only projects that are deemed innovative are those that look like existing projects that are known to be innovative.
Yes. I actually also interviewed once for a job there.
Not the sharpest minds. More bureaucratic than entrepreneurial. At the time, none of the C-suite had ever run their own company. Zero international experience. Complete mediocrity.
This deserves an article of its own, to be honest, I don't think people are aware of the incompetencies at this level. I am betting it's the same across EU.
The bootstrapping-without-VC point tracks with what I keep hearing from people building small AI-adjacent tools on their own. A few have told me directly they never considered raising – not because they couldn't, but because the traction they needed was small enough that a few months of paying customers did the job faster than a pitch deck would have.
That might also explain part of the discrepancy in this thread: a count like this only captures what registers as a "startup" in the first place. If AI is mostly lowering the cost of getting to a working, revenue-generating product solo, a meaningful chunk of that activity may never show up in a founder database – it just looks like someone quietly running a small profitable thing.
Curious whether anyone here started something in Germany this year without going near a grant or VC process – and if so, whether that was deliberate or just never came up.
Being Germany, that means it only takes six months to properly register a startup? :)
I really hope "EU Inc." will reduce the pain in that area.
It may, but only for the incorporation step. All other pain points in Germany are yours to enjoy.
Yes, accounting/tax related stuff is still annoying. But there are a few more advantages:
* Employee share options are taxed when they sell the shares, not when issuing the option (regardless of strike price) nor when exercising it.
* Changes to the shareholder structure (e.g. raising capital) don't require visiting a notary
And I'm not sure if incorporating in a different EU country (while still looking just like a German EU Inc) would avoid some of the German pain points.
> there are a few more advantages
I'm pretty sure Germany is more than capable to negate all those. For instance it is inconceivable to imagine company law practiced in Germany without a notary speaking out loud the whole shebang.
It's amusing how top law students become glorified narrators/voice actors.
Had to visit one of these every time we raised capital. He never did more than read the text aloud and perhaps correct a typo. I don't want to know how much the company paid for that privilege.
EU inc is what made me start believing, my idea is possible.
What do you think all those IT engineers who were made redundant in the last months are doing? Some of them might prefer founding a start-up to joblessness. It's not the first time that a job market crisis increases the rate of start-up registrations.
Maybe more related to the possibility of boot strapping with random AI startups. German investors are pretty conservative.
No shit man. Their government high tech (!) VC fund rejected a high tech proposal from me (Medical devices), instead financed things like: https://www.mymuesli.com/
Pretty much.
In Germany, innovation is defined and funded by grant agencies. The only projects that are deemed innovative are those that look like existing projects that are known to be innovative.
Austria is the same. Vienna is seriously a horrible in that regard.
HTGF?
Yes. I actually also interviewed once for a job there.
Not the sharpest minds. More bureaucratic than entrepreneurial. At the time, none of the C-suite had ever run their own company. Zero international experience. Complete mediocrity.
This deserves an article of its own, to be honest, I don't think people are aware of the incompetencies at this level. I am betting it's the same across EU.
They can't be as bad as KfW, right?
Probably the same level, but I have no experience with KfW. But I could ask a buddy.
That's not even 1,5% of all companies founded annually.
They had one?
The bootstrapping-without-VC point tracks with what I keep hearing from people building small AI-adjacent tools on their own. A few have told me directly they never considered raising – not because they couldn't, but because the traction they needed was small enough that a few months of paying customers did the job faster than a pitch deck would have.
That might also explain part of the discrepancy in this thread: a count like this only captures what registers as a "startup" in the first place. If AI is mostly lowering the cost of getting to a working, revenue-generating product solo, a meaningful chunk of that activity may never show up in a founder database – it just looks like someone quietly running a small profitable thing.
Curious whether anyone here started something in Germany this year without going near a grant or VC process – and if so, whether that was deliberate or just never came up.