Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
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Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#2Why 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-European entrepreneurs.
Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#3Why 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…
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.
Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#4Friends of mine who are planning on open up a business incubator in Continental Europe rave about the Berlin Tech scene.
Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#5Title should read: Groupon moves INTERNATIONAL headquarters to Berlin
Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#6Why 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…
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.
+ excellent filter coffee culture :-)
Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#7Why 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…
tl;dr: Esp. for standard positions, Berlin combines low salaries & rents with a growing (young & international) population and trustworthy German processes; bureaucracy is the same hassle all over Europe.
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Germany is no(t much) better or worse than other EU countries in terms of bureaucracy or immigration barriers. To deal with legal/ tax/ privacy stuff, you would mostly set up a formal HQ in Ireland, Luxemburg or Switzerland (the latter being home to Groupon EU's legal HQ).
The comparatively low salaries across the board in Berlin coupled with the potential for subsidies from the state make it a good proposition to have a working office. (If you're looking for engineers and highly skilled staff, Zurich and Munich still have an edge but are much more expensive.) Berlin is also large enough to have a talent pool for most positions/ departments and is growing due to perceived and/ or real attractiveness. And with the influx of young people from all over the world, informal immigration barriers like language are vanishing, too.
Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#8Why 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…
tl;dr: Esp. for standard positions, Berlin combines low salaries & rents with a growing (young & international) population and trustworthy German processes; bureaucracy is the same hassle all over Europe. -- Germany is no(t much) better or worse than other EU countries in terms of bureaucracy or immigration barriers. To deal with legal/ tax/ privacy stuff, you would mostly set up a formal HQ in Ireland, Luxemburg or…
> bureaucracy is the same hassle all over Europe.
This would indicate that that is not entirely true:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings
My more subjective impression during two years in Austria was that it's just about as bureaucratic as Italy, just that they tackle it with more efficiency. I imagine Germany being similar.
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.
Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
tl;dr: Esp. for standard positions, Berlin combines low salaries & rents with a growing (young & international) population and trustworthy German processes; bureaucracy is the same hassle all over Europe. -- Germany is no(t much) better or worse than other EU countries in terms of bureaucracy or immigration barriers. To deal with legal/ tax/ privacy stuff, you would mostly set up a formal HQ in Ireland, Luxemburg or…
> bureaucracy is the same hassle all over Europe. This would indicate that that is not entirely true: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings My more subjective impression during two years in Austria was that it's just about as bureaucratic as Italy, just that they tackle it with more efficiency. I imagine Germany being similar. Opening a company in Germany, for instance, is not as cheap/simple as an LLC in many US sta…
> 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 somewhere between 1000 - 2000 Euros in Legal Fees [1] and needs a minimum capital of 25.000 Euros (which you can use to pay the legal fees, so you don't need those extra). The costs of creating a business in germany are probably not higher than anywhere else in Europe.
[1] as always, legal fees can be significantly higher than that depending on how complicated the case is.
Re: Groupon moves headquarters to Berlin (German, English summary)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> bureaucracy is the same hassle all over Europe. This would indicate that that is not entirely true: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings My more subjective impression during two years in Austria was that it's just about as bureaucratic as Italy, just that they tackle it with more efficiency. I imagine Germany being similar. Opening a company in Germany, for instance, is not as cheap/simple as an LLC in many US sta…
> 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 politician, nothing more, nothing less.