Setting up a new business in Germany

Ok, here it is:

I've got a great business idea, but no money, no idea how to go about starting up a business in germany, little german knowledge, no business plan yet, BUT GREAT enthusiasm ... I know the idea would work. So what do i do? Is it a mission impossible or can it be done somehow? Any ideas appreciated.

ezitte@hotmail.com

Research. See if your idea is actually new or if there are a dozen others doing the same thing that you just didn't know about.

Make a business plan. Again, research, this time easy stuff online, will show you how to do that.

Once you have that, start asking people you trust who they would suggest to help you with your idea.

But a airy-fairy "I have a great idea" certainly won't get much support or financing.

Well whats the idea? And if its something that will be ruined if you tell anyone, then it probably wouldnt have worked.

Now I have never started a business but I am planning to do it by working in someone elses business for a while, doing something pretty close to what I eventually want to do in my company, introduce some of the ideas slowly as I work for this other company, but make sure the part I want to turn into my own business depends on me, and when I have made a name for myself, built up a customer base, capital and experience, I intend to start my own business, bringing like minded co-workers with me, and steal the customers over to my business.

Too hard to start from nothing I reckon, especially as a foreigner in germany, but starting from an existing company and emerging out of it should be a smaller more manageable step.

I have been involved in this sort of thing, not as the guy starting his own business, but as an employee thats followed someone from one business to start another company, and it worked well, depending on a lot of factors of course.

More info?

very very long shot, but maybe endorse the help of a business prof. at one of the uni's here. surely LMU has a business school, enter your idea into a competition, throw a plan, presentation and a bit of an idea what this idea is, how it works, who's gonna use it and why, and someone's bound to think it's a winner.

unfortunately, you need to spend a bit of coin at the start. if you've had money from a source other than government payouts come into your account here at least three times, you're eligible for a bank loan. give that a shirl.

Well, if you want people to give you their money, you need to present your idea clearly, define all the pros n cons, risks, potential gains etc. Basically, you need to have a business plan. No one will be interested otherwise. Start here

I wish you all the best. I am sure many TTers have their own businesses. You should come across some good advise here.

Cheers!
Xargy

The City of Munich maintains an overview in English for business development here. Make an appointment with the Wirtschaftsförderung, and they can give you plenty of brochures and info regarding cheap office spaces, business development planning & coaching, employment laws, etc. Their financial advice is limited to bank loans provided via government subsidies, anything from 10,000 up to 500,000 - all of it personally liable by you (but they don't take any ownership either). Actually, the bank loans are a bit of a raw deal, since the government gives a low rate with limited liability to the banks, and the banks give a standard rate with full liability to you

They also offer business plan presentations where you can test your plan against volunteer/retired bank officers, v.c.'s etc. They'll do a full grilling, and then give you feedback at the end of your presentation. I think it's once a quarter, and pretty cheap to present your plan (well worth it).

Hmmm. At best unethical, in some business environments (finance) it could get you in big legal trouble as well.

As this is the real world, go for it!

@Ez: Another of your posts (looking for a room) says:


So why then does your Profile say you are a female Hungarian?

Don't use a Munich Notar. Go to Regensburg - much cheaper

I guess both the husband and wife use the same id

As far as I know before you can start a business you need the following:

- a good business plan

- bookkeeping skills

Have I missed anything out?

you can sub-contract the bookkeeping although I don't think its particularly tricky for a one man firm

I left out marketing, a charming topic.

Any online resources free to browse to helpo with that?

Tim

Samy's answer is right.

You must have a clearly thought out and documented business plan,
If your idea involves a product then you must get a few made and sell them to a few people. Giving away product won't convince investors.

The advice you may get in Germany may be a litte "skewed" e.g. you're business does not have to be registered in Germany for you to trade.

Accounting can be done by others but you need a clear idea of how much it will cost you to set / up and trade
Do as much market research as you can and understand overheads and running costs and the tax you will pay on your profits.

And don't order your X5 yet

Best of luck

Download a "Non-Disclosure Agreement" from the Internet. Send it to me. I will sign it, you tell me the business idea and I will tell you if your idea sucks or not.

I seem to spend most of the day doing this anyway for friends and customers!

If its a good idea then of course I will back it...pretty much a standard VC situation in effect.

More reading on NDA's here:

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/actio...icId=1074415494

I appreciate that NDA's are a US/UK concept but would assume that you would also be protected in the same way in Germany. Depends on paranoia levels of course.

So TT has a private VC in JE? I knew this website had everything.

I need a good local hedge fund, a bit of long/short equity maybe with a slice of global macro/CTA thrown in for spice - who here takes care of that? Yes, I already did a search.

Seriously though, JE's advice is sound. You need money, people who have money seem to need good ideas. If you have a good idea and no money you need to hook up and a NDA will protect you if you are worried about someone stealing your idea. But as someone said earlier, if someone else can steal your idea (low barriers to entry) it probably isn't that good an idea, and if it is something you need to patent, you really need a lawyer, not an internet chat site. The fact that Munich has WAY more than her share of patent attorneys would, in that case, probably be a good thing.

If you just have agood business idea that needs hours and hours of back breaking work (yours) and you need a bit of money to get it going (someone else's), you should probably just tell us what it is you would like to do and wait for some rich, bored English speaker to send you a PM.

Regardless, good luck.

In addition, once you start getting the logistics of the business plan together and figuring out some of the other essentials, you should also consider setting up a business entity. Of course, I have to say that I am not giving legal advice here...but the advantages of a business entity is that depending on the one you choose you can limit your liability.

To give you a US example, the most popular business entity for small to medium sized businesses in the US are Limited Liability Companys (LLC's). If something happens and someone files a claim against you because of your business, they can only satisfy a judgment with the assets of the company and not go after your personal assets (personal checking account, retirement fund, house...) Of course there are some ways to pierce the corporate veil, but generally speaking you become insulated. A similar entity to the LLC in Germany is the GmbH. Not real difficult, but something to think about later in the game.

Whether to go Ltd, LLP, Gmbh or Gbr is just a tiny side issue - sounds like we are still at the "will it fly" stage.

I got some great advice from a guy about 20 years ago at a meeting of budding business starters. He was running the meeting and said that he was pretty much not interested in wasting too much time on those that thought they had invented a unique "killer" patentable product.

His point was they for every "Cats Eye" or "Dyson Vacuum" or "Paper Clip" invention that actually succeeded there were 100,000+ that failed. I'm not trying to disencourage inventors but if you wanna get into business this is the hardest route because an invention:

1. Might already be patented/produced
2. Might be impossible to patent
3. Might be copied even when patented
4. Will be expensive to patent
5. Might be too expensive to manufacture
6. Might be too expensive to market
7. Might not be wanted by the marketplace
8. Might be a product that will go redundant (3G licence anyone?)

For instance my wife said the other day "What about producing a First Aid Kit for animals" and I said "go onto google and get back to me". Even if you produce a €10 first aid kit for dogs its gonna be a really hard product to sell...because you need "push" the product - no-one really goes searching for one of these things.

So the general advice if you wanna get into business for yourself was:

Enter an existing busy marketplace and take some market share. Don't be scared to enter an existing market. As a new company you will have enthusiasm to convert every order, a low running cost, and the ability to change direction instantly with new ideas. The existing players will be slower, lazier etc - their advantage will be mainly reputation and an existing customer database. If you enter a busy market (e.g. selling IPODS) you only need probably 0.0001% of sales to get a foothold.

So you can follow the logic. Enter a busy market with enthusiasm and you have perhaps a 50/50 change of success. Try and invent a new vacuum cleaner and you drop your chances of success to 10,000 to 1.

Bang on. If you are a good and motivated salesperson you can make money in vitrtually any business.

Johnny English is full of good advice today. I can't give you more + Karma yet, but I will.

Thanks Showem...I am welling up :-)

Don't be a fool and be intimidated into posting your ideas here on Toytown!!

If you have a good idea, you need to protect it. There are a lot of people ranting about how NDAs will protect you, but this is not necessarily the case... You can get someone to sign an NDA, but there is nothing to stop them discussing it with their contacts and them doing something with it... It could be very difficult to prove where the information came from.

The same goes for patents. You have only limited protection. There is nothing to stop a company copying your idea, but if you do not have a bank full of euros in order to fight them in an expensive court case, you have no protection whatsoever. I know of a small tile-making company who had to pay 1m Euros in order to try and fight a company that stole their idea.

It is not the case that your idea will not work when it is not something you cannot discuss with anyone. Your idea can always be copied (in fact most of the best ideas have been copied in one way or another and changed). It is better if you can develop something proprietary (for instance a software algorithm) that cannot easily be copied, that would require a lot of time and money to be invested by potential competitors in order to copy it.

Also, I would suggest meeting and getting to know your contacts over a period of time and building up a trusting relationship. Trust your gut instinct - if you do not feel comfortable with someone, don't tell them your idea!

I would also recommend that you limit how much of your idea you tell to other investors etc. Tell them enough that they can assess the viability of your idea, but hold back the intimate details that would enable someone to easily copy it.


It is quite evident that you have no experience of starting a business from what you have posted. Your idea is a little on the unethical side, and I would suggest that you do not use the same TT account in order to develop contacts for this business as business relationships require trust, and your posting doesn't paint a picture of someone who can be trusted. If you can screw your employers, you can screw others too.

If you are going to go along this line, you need to also check your employment contract as often there are clauses that stipulate that you are not allowed to setup in a similar business for a period of time and that you are not allowed to poach customers or employees.

A less unethical approach might be to start your own business or get someone else to start it. Develop your idea with your own company, then introduce them to this company that "you have found"... You could then try to influence them internally to use this technology and maybe become dependent on it.

You say you want the company to somehow be "dependent on you"... It is not clear from your posting whether you want the company to continue using your idea later, or whether you want to take the idea yourself and leave your company in the lurch.

If the former, this means that in the future they would need to maintain a relationship with you. It could also then be very easy for the company to realise where their employees and customers have gone and you could end-up with a messy legal battle on your hands.

If you start on your own in the same industry and if your company keeps themselves informed of competitors, they could also realise what you have done and you could have a fight on your hands.

Either way, you need to be careful with such an approach...

If your idea is so good, why not leave this company and just start a business yourself? If it is something that will benefit their company, they will certainly have interest...