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Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

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Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#51

Post by ptaipale »

Gravityloss wrote: post #41
ptaipale wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The peculiarity of Berlin is that it has lower cost than many other German cities. This is unusual, because typically you pay a premium for working in the capital of the nation. In Berlin, that is explained by the history (West Berlin was an enclave within DDR and the capital of BRD was in Bonn; Berlin was subsidized and had lots of relatively cheap housing which is not yet fully priced up 25 years after German unifi…

If your customer is a German business, and you would like to visit them, it's very likely their headquarters are in West Germany, which is far away. So you don't have much country offices of multinational companies in Berlin. It's very different from other countries' biggest cities. I guess it works better for pure internet companies that sell directly to consumers.

This is true, but I expect the situation will slowly change, and more business will concentrate in Berlin, because the federal administration is a big customer now that more of it is relocating in Berlin.

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#52

Post by rubber_duck »

Why Western Europe if you want to get cost of living down and move somewhere ? Eastern Europe is 1/3 cost of living, usually has very good tax rates (Bulgaria has 10% flat tax on income + local tax for example, Hungary is close AFAIK) and there are startup accelerators trying to take advantage of that.

If you're using your own money to fund it and have customers who don't care about your location you'll have much easier time finding employees, especially non-technical staff like art/marketing/sales/customer support.

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#53

Post by alicelthwaite »

roymurdock wrote: post #48
alicelthwaite wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm I kind of disagree there. I'm having to make new friends and get out of my comfort zone. In time I'm going to start exploring other areas. I'm really keen to get collaborators on board for instance. Nothing is perfect - this was just the best move for me at the time :)

As someone who is looking to make moves soon (possibly international), I quite enjoyed your post. RIP Fabric...you'll be sorely missed. Now you'll have to wait in line for Berghain. Best of luck on the new business!

Haha Berghain is yet to let me in. I wonder what the record is for consecutive refusals? I'll try and beat it... :)

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#54

Post by sotojuan »

petre wrote: post #37
alicelthwaite wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there - I'm the author of this piece. I don't actually speak German. I'm trying to improve - however, I wouldn't say it's required in Germany to start something on your own. Many of the meetups are in English and everyone I've spoken to is fluent. I think it's another story if you're trying to get a job though...

Why not start a business in Central or South Eastern Europe? Most cities are even cheaper than Berlin and still open to young people. Plus people are fluent in Englush, except maybe in Hungary.

People want to move to Berlin and the city has a great tech scene from what I can gather.

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#55

Post by Kliment »

mtmail wrote: post #40
DasIch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In times of Pegida I'm not sure Dresden is where you want to go.

Can you explain Pegida?

It's a highly vocal racist/xenophobic/sorta-nationalist movement that is based in Dresden. It started out as EU-criticism and has now grown more into a right-wing-fringe/anti-immigrant/anti-establishment movement focused on hating the media, the government, and anyone who doesn't side with them. They're famous for having invited speakers from the neonazi scene at their regular street rallies. The name literally translates to "patriotic europeans against the islamisation of the occident" (yes, really)

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#56

Post by elcapitan »

hellofunk wrote: post #8

Wow, 20 square meters for €480? That doesn't register as affordable on my books (even with utilities included).

It depends on where you are looking, I'm paying that for 60sqm in Berlin. It's a 7 year old rent contract though, may be more in the same area now.

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#57

Post by alicelthwaite »

TamDenholm wrote: post #50

Genuine question, Whats the business model for The Echo Chamber Club? I've always seen newsletters as a marketing tool for a business, rather than a business itself. Very interested to how you'd make money with it as a standalone business.

Hey Tam - thanks for your question. So my target market don't generally want to hear the topics I'm posting. They have to trust that I'm as liberal as they are before they start taking me seriously.

So it became clear that the most important part of the ECC was to create a trusted brand.

Otherwise, I spent about a year trying to figure out a solution to the filter bubble. I was looking at RSS feeds, new types of algorithms, and it was all very complicated. The idea of a newsletter MVP made sense.

After I get to about 5k subscribers I'll be putting on events - with the aim of creating a B2B qualitative research firm. But that's a long way off - who knows where the journey will take me.

Feel free to add me on twitter so we can discuss more - would love your thoughts! @alicelthwaite

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#58

Post by jkxyz »

I'm planning on moving from London to Berlin within 6 months (I'm British), and mostly for the same reasons (RIP fabric). I have a couple of German citizens as friends who are also seriously considering doing the same. My main concern is how to avoid joining the English-speaking bubble. Although nothing has charged my motivation for learning German more than the recent government responses to Brexit. It does feel a bit ironic that I'm fleeing to Germany from a fascist government.

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#59

Post by elcapitan »

DasIch wrote: post #24
hellofunk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, my experience after a week of work in Berlin was that a lot of the restaurants I visited, the waitress couldn't speak English at all. Or taking a cab was sometimes quite an effort to communicate as well. Even more strange, Berlin (and perhaps much of Germany, I don't know), places much greater emphasis on cash than on electronic payments like credit cards. I gave a credit card to a vendor once and they looke…

Cash is much more popular however another big factor is that credit cards aren't really a thing. Instead Germany has its own system of EC cards which are directly tied to your bank account (which most people get as a child here) and work more like debit cards. The only reason to have a credit card as a German is for buying this outside of Germany.

And for buying stuff on the internet - I use it more for that than when travelling.

Re: Why a Brit chose to start a business in Berlin

#60

Post by romanovcode »

matt4077 wrote: post #31
hellofunk wrote: post #8

Wow, 20 square meters for €480? That doesn't register as affordable on my books (even with utilities included).

Prices are obviously catching up. My 6-year old lease is about as much for 60m^2 (turn-of-the-century building in the center). But I fear the day when I need more space for children...

Average price of 60m^2 in not-so-shit area is about 700+ nowadays and keeps rising every year.
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