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nottorp 2 hours ago [-]
Being Germany, that means it only takes six months to properly register a startup? :)
CodesInChaos 53 minutes ago [-]
I really hope "EU Inc." will reduce the pain in that area.
egorfine 43 minutes ago [-]
It may, but only for the incorporation step. All other pain points in Germany are yours to enjoy.
CodesInChaos 37 minutes ago [-]
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.
jasonvorhe 13 hours ago [-]
That's not even 1,5% of all companies founded annually.
ant6n 13 hours ago [-]
Maybe more related to the possibility of boot strapping with random AI startups. German investors are pretty conservative.
Beijinger 10 hours ago [-]
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/
ant6n 10 hours ago [-]
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.
throw1234567891 9 hours ago [-]
HTGF?
Beijinger 5 hours ago [-]
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.
CodesInChaos 1 hours ago [-]
They can't be as bad as KfW, right?
kbelder 14 hours ago [-]
They had one?
alexbelyanin 4 hours ago [-]
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.
* 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.
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.
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.
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.