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How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

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Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#781

Post by hnbad »

somat wrote: post #172
morkalork wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Canada, it's not government employees but rather not-quite-a-lawyer types who are glorified ID verifiers.

I was a but optimistic on my wording, But in the US they are not government employees(they are not paid any sort of salary) just citizens who are authorized to verify signatures(a governmental duty, which is why I called them minor government officials) and are are allowed to collect a small fixed fee for their effort.

FWIW in Germany in order to apply as a notary you have to be a lawyer and the number of notaries is very limited and they're lifetime positions. As with all public officials, there are severe penalties for professional misconduct and losing your lifetime position and benefits is usually enough of an incentive to keep these people honest and careful.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#782

Post by dotnet00 »

ricardobayes wrote: post #658
dotnet00 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the other user said, this is just the conspiracy politcs obsessed partisan weirdos would like for you to believe. After all, if their side is so benevolent and immigrant loving, why haven't they pushed any genuine immigration system reforms instead of just creating a captive subclass in the form of illegal immigrants? For instance, if Republicans are really so hateful of certain minorities, why do they not properl…

In the US, there is a path for PhD holders, to my knowledge, it's called EB-2.

EB-2 is technically a path, but from all I've heard it's not that much easier than the regular pipeline, since it involves having 10 years of post-degree experience, thus still leaving you at the mercy of the H1B process in the meantime. That process is also still dependent on the employer's willingness to sponsor, and I've seen several cases of employers refusing to go beyond an H1B sponsorship (of course, they only outright say that right near the end of the H1B's maximum term). 10 years is also still on the order of the time it takes to get permanent residency through the normal lottery.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#783

Post by vereinbar »

croes wrote: post #759
RamblingCTO wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sooo is statisa [1] also a conservative think tank? I don't see anything wrong with the quote you provided. > Social security and pesnions aren't financed by taxes, in Germany taxes are not earmarked for a specific purpose. Not sure I can follow. Of course the pensions and social security are quite substantially tax funded [2]. [1] https://de.statista.com/infografik/13660/oecd-vergleich-steu... [2] https://www.ihre-v…

They used the pension money for other things so it's logical to pay it back. And just because tax money is used for pensions doesn't mean the socuial security and pension contributions are tax burden. Like I said, if all social security was through private insurance the tax burden would be lower but the people wouldn't have more money. Health insurance proved otherwise. As long as you are healthy you pay less but as…

>Like I said, if all social security was through private insurance the tax burden would be lower but the people wouldn't have more money.

It won't be that lower. The German pension has existing liabilities that they must pay. Since it is backed by the state, it will inevitably be paid by the taxes.

Even if the pension payments were abolished, just to pay existing entitlements, the taxes would be increased proportionally. The public pension can be considered a plus in a young country with a healthy demographics. In a geriatric state such as Germany, it is a big burden.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#784

Post by GrumpySloth »

treprinum wrote: post #753
askonomm wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why does everyone on HN think that Estonia is Eastern Europe when it is actually Northern Europe ( https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe ). All of the Baltic countries are Northern.

It's the same as Czechia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary being Eastern European when they are Central European. Soviet legacy, west vs east.

The popularisation of the concept of Central Europe stems from some people being ashamed of being from Eastern Europe and feeling inferior to Western Europe. Eastern Europe is defined by the Iron Curtain whose effects are still visible today, while Central Europe is a category created purely by selecting a region on the map without regard for political or cultural factors, just to push Eastern Europe further East and exclude some countries from it. It’s fairly arbitrary. I don’t see Eastern Europe as inferior and am not ashamed of being from a part of it, so I see no point in using an arbitrary term like Central Europe.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#785

Post by data_maan »

martin_a wrote: post #606
data_maan wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading a lot on Germany business culture, my takeaway is that Germany is not made for lean founders who start small but aim big, i.e. your typical startup. It seems to be aimed either at well established business magnates who want to open yet another business (and 25k€ is nothing in that case) or small bakery-on-the-corner businesses who will go for GmbH anyways (and hence no reason to cough up 25k€). There's no pat…

Start with a "Einzelunternehmung". Registering that takes 15 to 30 minutes at your local mayors office and costs 30 Euro. From there on you can make something like 20k Euro turnover per year, if you grow out of that, you can still "invest" in a GmbH or whatever suits your needs best. On the other hand, if you are sure that you're building the next Facebook, getting the money for a GmbH together on day -1 should be no…

Still suboptimal to have to iterate between business types as I grow (compared to other jurisdictions).

This "slow grow" mindset is so typical German. No one know who the next Facebook/Meta will be - but I would guess for some VCs (not all though) it helps to show you're not some random sole trader

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#786

Post by underdeserver »

SeanLuke wrote: post #735

For those of you griping about German bureaucracy I urge you to come to Italy to learn just how good you have it. My wife is Italian and wanted to get married in her small home town. In order for her to get married to an American in her home town required paperwork that bordered on the Kafkaesque. We had to show up at the Italian embassy in Washington DC (fortunately we live there!) with proof and witnesses that I wa…

But why didn't you just get legally married in the US (and have a faux celebration in her home town)?

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#787

Post by dntrkv »

mharig wrote: post #688
usr1106 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am familiar with both German and Finnish bureaucracy. German bureaucracy is (in)famous for paperwork and using faxes. Citizens/residents have no unique identifier (more and more weakened recently) and need to present documentation for everything. If you have no paper birth certificate you are not born... Finland has had much higher digitalization for decades. You have a person number and authorities store everythin…

> You have a person number and authorities store everything centrally. A big brother nightmare for Germans. Should be a big brother nightmare for all humans. Your number is 666.

So having a health database, drivers license database, social security, banking etc are all ok but creating a proper national ID system would somehow push it over the edge to where an authoritarian government can come about and take control of our lives?

Your argument boils down to “let’s purposely make our government inefficient because it might one day turn on us”

Which, judging from other countries, is actually the opposite of what happens.

The worst offenders of human rights and government overreach are the ones that don’t have their shit together.

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#788

Post by jacomoRodriguez »

nicbou wrote: post #114

I document German bureaucracy for a living,[0] and everything is like that. Every life event - immigrating, getting a job, getting married, having a child, buying a car - is mired in slow, paper-based bureaucracy. It is a constant, significant impediment to life in the country. Just last week, I was telling people that the best way to get married in Germany is to get married in Denmark. I cannot overstate how terribl…

Just wanted to say "hey", when reading the topic and you nickname I thought is was you. The link in you commented confirmed it. We met at verkstedt (Mario)

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#789

Post by SeanLuke »

underdeserver wrote: post #786
SeanLuke wrote: post #735

For those of you griping about German bureaucracy I urge you to come to Italy to learn just how good you have it. My wife is Italian and wanted to get married in her small home town. In order for her to get married to an American in her home town required paperwork that bordered on the Kafkaesque. We had to show up at the Italian embassy in Washington DC (fortunately we live there!) with proof and witnesses that I wa…

But why didn't you just get legally married in the US (and have a faux celebration in her home town)?

You've not dated an Italian, have you. :-)

Re: How to found a company in Germany: 14 "easy" steps and lots of pain

#790

Post by biztos »

kome wrote: post #779
pavel_lishin wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then even though I wrote the vows myself in Italian, just because I am American we had to have it translated by someone else back into English, by hand, just so I understood the vows I had myself written. We then had to contract someone to read the vows out loud in English at the ceremony so I understood my own words. I badly want to learn the historical reason for this insistence that non-Italian-speaking foreigne…

In Hungarian courts a contract that you cannot read is invalid, or at least, highly contestable in court. So translations are needed. I guess it must be the same in many other jurisdictions.

I can confirm this, when dealing with a Hungarian court I was asked repeatedly whether I understood what was going on and what exactly I was agreeing to. I did, but it was good of them to check.
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