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Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

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Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#21

Post by rayiner »

davidw wrote: post #12
kintamanimatt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the capital requirements don't have to be met with cash, but can be satisfied by things like IP. Developed an app? That could be included.

Yes, but who evaluates how much it's worth? And why the hell should someone even have to be doing that? It's utterly useless bureaucracy. If the goal of having capital is to cover wages, say, should the company go under, then you should have that specific requirement, not some vague notion of 25K being a magical number.

The goal of having capital is if you order a bunch of Aereon chairs and fail to pay, or your delivery driver runs over someone, these folks have some hold of collecting because by law they can't come after you personally. $25k is an arbitrary number because it can't be anything but arbitrary in this situation.

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#22

Post by egor83 »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #2

Why is Belin becoming so popular? I could be very wrong, but Germany seems to be relatively harder jurisdiction within which to operate a business (especially a start-up), with the extra bureaucracy and harsher privacy laws. I'm surprised more American businesses aren't picking somewhere like Amsterdam if they're wanting to set up shop in continental Europe, especially with its lower immigration barriers for non-Euro…

A Dutch guy I know moved to Berlin to work on his startup there. We didn't discuss the reasons, but it seems Berlin has something better to offer.

If I start guessing - probably a better startup community. Amsterdam and Netherlands are corporation-friendly, with quite some big companies having headquarters there; but startups and corporations have different needs and make different communities.

UPDATE: Another point I can think of is the size of local market.

Maybe not too important for web startups that go global right away, but if you start locally (and thus use Dutch), you have 16M people in the Netherlands (+maybe 5 in the Dutch part of Belgium), while in Germany you get 82M, five times as much; plus another 8M in Austria and some more German speakers from Switzerland.

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#23

Post by davidw »

rayiner wrote: post #21
davidw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but who evaluates how much it's worth? And why the hell should someone even have to be doing that? It's utterly useless bureaucracy. If the goal of having capital is to cover wages, say, should the company go under, then you should have that specific requirement, not some vague notion of 25K being a magical number.

The goal of having capital is if you order a bunch of Aereon chairs and fail to pay, or your delivery driver runs over someone, these folks have some hold of collecting because by law they can't come after you personally. $25k is an arbitrary number because it can't be anything but arbitrary in this situation.

Countries like the US, France and UK get by just fine without this requirement. The arbitrariness of the number is an indication that it's a bad idea: the number is too low to guarantee compensation in many situations, and adds another obstacle for would-be entrepreneurs, especially those who do not come from a well-to-do background.

Far better might be some transparency requirements.

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#24

Post by Xylakant »

rayiner wrote: post #20
davidw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the UG, you are required to sock away capital until you hit the 25K, though, no? http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/germany/ vs http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/united-ki... UK still looks easier, and doesn't have any capital requirements. > minimum capital of 25.000 Euros This is a very continental European concept that, IMO, is basically useless. It's a number picked by some p…

Minimum capital requirements aren't useless. A limited liability entity is only liable up to its capital assets. This ensures that the company has capital assets to level against if it is sued by creditors, etc.

Actually, that's a pretty common misconception. The only information is that there was at least a base capital. You can spent all of that on wages, then it's gone. But it certainly shows that someone had the dedication to invest a certain amount and thus has an incentive to keep the company alive.

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#25

Post by Xylakant »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #11
davidw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the UG, you are required to sock away capital until you hit the 25K, though, no? http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/germany/ vs http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/united-ki... UK still looks easier, and doesn't have any capital requirements. > minimum capital of 25.000 Euros This is a very continental European concept that, IMO, is basically useless. It's a number picked by some p…

IIRC the capital requirements don't have to be met with cash, but can be satisfied by things like IP. Developed an app? That could be included.

You may use something else in place of cash. But unless it's high-value goods or machinery, the general recommendation is that you take cash. The estimates are just too much hassle and when you get them wrong the tax office might intervene and that's something you might go to jail for since it may count as tax evasion. Now if you have an app that's worth a million bucks, go ahead...

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#26

Post by Xylakant »

davidw wrote: post #10
Xylakant wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Opening a company in Germany, for instance, is not as cheap/simple as an LLC in many US states or an Ltd in the UK. That really depends on what kind of LLC you want to open. There the so-called "UG Haftungsbeschränkt" which was created as response to the British Ltd. and costs somewhat less than 200 Euros + whatever capital you want to invest. For larger enterprises, you'd probably found a GmbH which usually costs…

With the UG, you are required to sock away capital until you hit the 25K, though, no? http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/germany/ vs http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/united-ki... UK still looks easier, and doesn't have any capital requirements. > minimum capital of 25.000 Euros This is a very continental European concept that, IMO, is basically useless. It's a number picked by some p…

> With the UG, you are required to sock away capital until you hit the 25K, though, no?

Only a part of the company profits. But you can invest that capital, so if you'd by a new macbook on the company, that counts IIRC. You don't have to keep that in money in a bank account. If you're a sole founder you'd probably pay yourself a regular wage and save what's left, so that doesn't apply either.

Those doingbusiness numbers seem far off from my personal experience. The german ones don't apply in all cases (you don't need half the steps if you don't have employees) and certainly don't cover the UG case - charges and timelines are way off. They seem to apply to the standard GmbH, but there the timeline is far too quick - it takes more like 4 - 6 weeks to have all the paperwork through court and it took more than another month until the tax administration in Berlin acknowledged our existence - they're currently a little overloaded.

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#27

Post by Xylakant »

davidw wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of having capital is if you order a bunch of Aereon chairs and fail to pay, or your delivery driver runs over someone, these folks have some hold of collecting because by law they can't come after you personally. $25k is an arbitrary number because it can't be anything but arbitrary in this situation.

Countries like the US, France and UK get by just fine without this requirement. The arbitrariness of the number is an indication that it's a bad idea: the number is too low to guarantee compensation in many situations, and adds another obstacle for would-be entrepreneurs, especially those who do not come from a well-to-do background. Far better might be some transparency requirements.

Take the standard UG (haftungsbeschränkt) if you don't have the capital. There the base capital requirement is 1 Euro. You can even found a GbR which is not a limitied liability company but serves quite well in most standard cases.

In any case, the number is not too low to guarantee compensation: The base capital of the company is public. Every business person in Germany knows that number. So if you're trading with a fresh GmbH you can safely assume that at least 25k were available at some point. Excluding plain fraud, you can be pretty sure that at least bills in a given range can be paid from that capital. You'd have a second look if they try to order something which goes beyond their base capital. Transparency requirements don't help much with fresh companies since there is now history to judge from.

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#28

Post by derda »

davidw wrote: post #10
Xylakant wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Opening a company in Germany, for instance, is not as cheap/simple as an LLC in many US states or an Ltd in the UK. That really depends on what kind of LLC you want to open. There the so-called "UG Haftungsbeschränkt" which was created as response to the British Ltd. and costs somewhat less than 200 Euros + whatever capital you want to invest. For larger enterprises, you'd probably found a GmbH which usually costs…

With the UG, you are required to sock away capital until you hit the 25K, though, no? http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/germany/ vs http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/united-ki... UK still looks easier, and doesn't have any capital requirements. > minimum capital of 25.000 Euros This is a very continental European concept that, IMO, is basically useless. It's a number picked by some p…

If you want to avoid that do a UG & co. KG. Costs a bit more, since it technically is two companies but you dont have to build up the capital and you are also exempt from "Körperschaftssteuer"-tax.

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#29

Post by _ak »

patrickg wrote: post #14
_ak wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin is dead cheap. Cheap flats, cheap office space, several universities with CS programs, a laid-back life style, good living quality in many of the inner districts.

dead cheap is getting more and more to "starting to get expensive". Prices are rising so much the last years, especially in Kreuzberg and other cool places. Offices are also getting more expensive and harder to get. Currently looking for a nice and affordable office in Schöneberg... :( I think it's time for killing the "Berlin is dead cheap" myth

Even though Berlin is not as cheap as it was a few years ago, it's still much cheaper than other big cities with a comparable tech/startup scene. Ever tried to rent in London? New York? Silicon Valley? Even Munich or Hamburg (and I'm not claiming those two have even remotely comparable tech scenes)? Compared to these places, Berlin is still cheap.

Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)

#30

Post by patrickg »

_ak wrote: post #29
patrickg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dead cheap is getting more and more to "starting to get expensive". Prices are rising so much the last years, especially in Kreuzberg and other cool places. Offices are also getting more expensive and harder to get. Currently looking for a nice and affordable office in Schöneberg... :( I think it's time for killing the "Berlin is dead cheap" myth

Even though Berlin is not as cheap as it was a few years ago, it's still much cheaper than other big cities with a comparable tech/startup scene. Ever tried to rent in London? New York? Silicon Valley? Even Munich or Hamburg (and I'm not claiming those two have even remotely comparable tech scenes)? Compared to these places, Berlin is still cheap.

Cheap is not "dead cheap".
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