In theory, you can do the notarization online, but when I attempted to do it, the first notary did not even reply, and the second one told me: “The system is currently down. I would need to come to the office.”
In the US, you can just use Stripe Atlas or similar services, and get everything done for $500 in a nice digital interface within 2 or 3 days. But even if it took 2 weeks, it wouldn’t matter much because one doesn’t have to put time and energy into it whereas in Germany you have to contact people, coordinate, etc…
The friction that you seem to like has almost certainly cost Germany a good deal of jobs from people who decides that the hassle just wasn't worth it.
On the other hand, an ordinary individual considering starting a new business, perhaps only a few times in their lifetime, may indeed be dissuaded from pursuing this venture.
This issue mirrors the inefficacy of anti-money laundering policies, which, while intended to curb criminal activities, have a negligible impact estimated at merely 0.1%; but the global cost of implementing these policies exceeds their benefits of two orders of magnitude (see DOI:10.1080/25741292.2020.1725366 for details).
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25741292.2020.1...
If you’re an entrepreneur AML will cause you nothing but harm while the rich avoid it through the caribbean, Luxembourg, Monaco, Switzerland, etc.
Each little step of friction discourages some entrepreneurs and adds barriers to entry for incumbents to prevent competition.
And just in general, not doing something very often is not a valid reason for making it needlessly expensive and time consuming.
Starting this process should only require that they know their responsibilities, have identified themselves, and have fulfilled any obligations like payment. With government having our ID’s and login/sig/payment tech, each step should be done in seconds. Then, some fraud prevention spotting obvious issues might add a bit more time. It should still be quick.
It’s on law enforcement and regulators to counter fraudsters. Ordinary citizens should not bear pain because of them.
Here in the US (at least in entrepreneurial circles) it's common advice to wrap an LLC around anything that involves money. Hobby website starting to get some traffic? LLC. Selling earrings at the craft fair? LLC. I own a small building with my brother--you bet there's an LLC there. I started a $0 capital consulting company while a post-doc, just to try.
It's not a daily occurrence, but often enough that I don't want to waste time.
When my wife started her current business as a consultant, she was living off her savings from teaching high school. If you think every entrepreneur has €25k of capital, you need to reevaluate what your country thinks of entrepreneurship.
Germany insolvency can take a decade, make getting a flat or even keeping your bank account a challenge and rarely results in debt relief to boot [1].
[1] http://www.privatinsolvenz-hilfe.org/en/german-bankruptcy-la...
What would you need to mess up to be liable for huge sums as a single consultant company?
Suppose you find out your cvs editor infringes on a patent and you’re liable. Suppose some business suffers data loss and sues. These things do happen in Europe too.
Also, it’s just a matter of professionalism. A sole proprietor isn’t very professional and many medium-size businesses won’t do business with sole proprietorships.
Imagine if you’re a consultant and for whatever reason, you get sued or worse. That’s what the LLC is for.
You can get the simple company type (disregarded entity) and all the advantages of limited liability with an LLC.
If you are selling Hot Dogs, nobody will bat an eye if it’s a UG, but if you apply for a big software contract, people might be wary.
It seems to me that a sole proprietorship would do more to protect against counterparty risk, i.e. more of the person's assets would be available to satisfy the debt.
My guess is that counterparties prefer a limited liability partner to arguably insulate themselves from employment liabilities.
I am generally suspicious of rhetoric like "you're a little well off, so we can heap arbitrary amounts of bullshit on you and you shouldn't complain".
They can open an Einzelunternehmen (sole proprietorship) instead. You shouldn't (and cannot) go all the way to the complexities of a GmbH (LLC) if your company is that tiny.
> But also many ordinary inexperienced people can have that amount of money up front, yet still be deterred by the complexity of a 6 week long incorporation process as described in this article.
Back to my point then. If they're not ready to put up with okay-ish bureaucratic friction in the founding phase, they're not ready to open a company. Because if you think opening the company is hard, wait until payroll or tax season is upon you.
> I am generally suspicious of rhetoric like "you're a little well off, so we can heap arbitrary amounts of bullshit on you and you shouldn't complain".
You're completely mischaracterizing what I said. Don't do that.
Sole proprietorship doesn't have liability protection. That's not a small thing.
>You shouldn't (and cannot) go all the way to the complexities of a GmbH (LLC) if your company is that tiny.
"[Thing] is too complex, don't bother with it" is not an argument against making [thing] less complex. It's actually just a restatement of the problem!
Other countries make it easy to set up a limited company. UK, US, Singapore, they're all just a token fee and a handful of forms. I see no reason for Germany to make it so difficult as described in the article.
A lot of successful companies were started by broke college grads out of their dorms; they would never have gotten off the ground if they had to scrounge together the equivalent 25k euros before even getting started. Hell, I don't have a spare 25k lying around and I've been working full time for 4 years.
With this mentality, it's actually a miracle a German startup scene exists at all.
The _last thing_ a founder wants is to wade through useless bureaucracy when there's a product to push and Vacs to talk to.
But Germany never really was a founder's country, and much more ruled by big conglomerates it seems or small family business who did non-innovative things (the bakery at the corner - necessary&nice, but not innovative), than startup culture.
Anyone should be able to start a business, reasonably easily and cheaply – I feel it's a matter of basic freedom and liberty: you should be able to do what you bloody well want with your life, including starting a business. Basic protections to prevent the most egregious of abuse is fine, but mostly it's just about registration and paperwork.
Having to pay tens of thousands of euros for limited liability so you don't risk getting completely assraped if your business fails is how you keep the poor plebs in their place. All of this is classic "one set of rules for the poor, another set of rules for the rich" type of stuff.
Are you a German? :D :D
And you probably won't do it that fast anyway. But that figure demonstrates the small amount of red tape.