163 karma · joined March 19, 2016
I’m back in founder mode, building Vendis.ai (https://vendis.ai/), a category-redefining AI-native CRM while still backing deep-tech founders through Expedite Ventures.
Coding since age 8 and connected to the internet since ’90, I co-founded my first software company straight out of high school (’97) and, as CTO, built award-winning B2B platforms that served tens of thousands of customers.
Tech Stack: Ruby on Rails since ’09, AWS since ’10, knee-deep in AI for the past five years.
Expedite Ventures is a crew of CTOs/CPOs investing and mentoring at pre-seed, leveraging our network and decades of collective expertise. Got something ambitious? Read our playbook at https://expedite.ventures/playbook
When the screens dim you’ll find me making music, flying, sailing, behind a lens, or in the kitchen.
In an ideal world we would upgrade 5.4 to 5.6 terra and 5.4 mini to 5.4 luna. But does somebody already have some measurements at least in terms of speed?
The tax explanation in the post is oversimplified.
Examples: With a KG, if the business earns €100k, that profit is attributed directly to you and taxed as personal income, whether you distribute it or not. At higher income levels, that’s roughly 45% including solidarity surcharge (and potentially church tax).
With a UG or GmbH, the company pays Körperschaftssteuer plus Gewerbesteuer, typically around 30% combined (depending on where its incorporated). On €100k profit, about €70k remains inside the company. If you later distribute it, you’ll pay capital gains tax based on the Halbeinkünfteverfahren on the distribution - which is 25% + Soli, bringing the total tax burden to roughly the same level as the KG.
The key difference is that with a UG/GmbH you can leave profits inside the company. That money can be reinvested into the business, other startups, ETFs, stocks, etc. - most often with only 1,5% effective tax while the money is working for you. You defer the second layer of taxation until you actually take the money out.
Also, you can pay yourself a salary. Whatever portion you pay out as salary is taxed personally just as it would be in the KG structure - but this time its company expenses, so no double taxation here either.
A few other points:
* A GmbH no longer requires €25k - its only 12,5k€ - and its also not to be locked away forever. The money can be used for legitimate business expenses immediately after incorporation.
* A decent tax advisor can usually get a VAT ID much faster than described in the article.
* A UG is widely accepted in the startup ecosystem. I’ve never seen customers reject an otherwise attractive startup because it started life as a UG. For investors, it's routine.
* Converting a UG into a GmbH later is routine, if you want to start small. If you have the 12,5k€ money, do a GmbH to save administrative hassle.
* A UG & Co. KG creates significantly more administration: two entities, two annual accounts, additional bookkeeping, additional filings, and additional advisor costs.
Of course there are valid reasons to use a GmbH & Co. KG, especially for complicated co-investment arrangements, but from what you wrote, that's not the case here. Therefore, for a solo software founder, I’d question whether the additional complexity buys you anything meaningful.
Bonus tip: You MIGHT want to consider owning your share in the Software UG not directly but through another UG, paolino UG or so. When you foresee to sell your business for significant money later, then you'll have exactly the same advantage, the money can stay in the company for reinvestment and you don't have to give up 50% of your capital gains in the moment you sign the sellers agreement. You CAN't do this easily later.
Not legal or tax advice. Just my personal experience.
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I added $133 credits which I still had from somewhere. That lasted 27 minutes.
I think we are being prepared for a Post-IPO-World in terms of pricing.
Clearly there are many people - including me - who built highly scalable, available and near maintenance-free systems using DynamoDB for a ridiculously low cost.
I have no idea how you can actually burn more than $5 in development for DDB. If you don't make the effort to explore what a technology is built for and/or clearly didn't understand it, maybe you should holding back ranting about it. Unless you want to look like a fool.
Same goes for IAM. It's complex but still easily understandable to get the basics. Creating e.g. a rule where you can only read from a DynamoDB table but not delete entries or the whole table takes you under 10 clicks.
As icing on the cake: Their iOS app “Pool panel” by the developer “Guangzhou Wo Jie Information Technology Co., Ltd” is unmaintained since 2019, the contact link leads to a broken link (https://www.axen-heatpump.com/contactus.html), nobody responded via email. Very trustworthy.
This is the story of how I got control back, learned a few uncomfortable things along the way, and ended up with a small Docker container that exposes my pool pump as a clean local REST API.
In the end the air traffic system is a highly complex but also a highly reliable system, especially when you compare accident rates.
I am sure the working conditions of ATC staff might be improved - but being both a pilot and a programmer, I know that there is no easy digitalization magic wand for aviation.
That refers back to my original answer when the poster said Porsche are "in trouble" because they are "technologically underequipped" and "don't deliver meaningful benefits". There is a lot of stuff China and other carmakers haven't caught up to. Will they in the future? Maybe.
To take that German-centric thing out: Try going on a mountain road and have fun in the corners. I am sure, if you have multiple cars to do the same thing, the Porsche will rank pretty high.
In any case, of course, this is all a pretty niche market for people who love driving sports cars. In 99%, a Toyota can deliver exactly the same value for the base use case (going from A to B) for way less money.
- BMW is indeed very nice, I agree. I also once had a 6 series convertible which was - apart from the very low consumption (Diesel) - really nice to drive. Their cars are indeed a good alternative at a lower price point. - Audi is the utmost catastrophe. Apart from the abysmal navigation system, the car simply doesn't feel safe at higher speeds (had an A6, your mileage may vary with tuned S models). I didn't want to drive faster than 180km/h - Same goes for Mercedes (drove C, E and S Classes). The entertainment system is straight from the 90ies and the steering gets super wobbly at higher speeds. - Toyota - are you kidding me? Very reliable, good value, but nowhere near the driving capabilities of a BMW or Porsche.
Of course they are all nice cars and should do the job, especially in countries with speed limits - until 120 km/h that all doesn't matter. I'm just saying, if you really want (and can) go fast, most of those cars don't deliver in my opinion.
Design is obviously a totally personal matter of taste, but as they have made many iconic shapes, apparently they're in the broad opinion not too bad at it.
The main difference is driving. I have driven many cars in my life, from very cheap to very expensive. For me personally, Porsche is in my opinion comparable to using a Mac - they're one of the few who "get it right":
- The entire workmanship is fantastic—nothing wobbles and nothing rattles. - Everything looks very harmonic, from interior to usability. Every button is where it has to be. Even the built-in entertainment system is highly usable (which in my opinion others like Mercedes never got right). - And, most importantly, despite being ICE or EV, the whole driving experience is just lightyears away from many competitors. Whether it's a 911 or a 718, they are just a joy to drive. Even a Cayenne just doesn't feel like a bulky SUV. There seems to be a lot of engineering going into all of that, weight distribution, chassis tuning, etc.
Apart from that - again, having owned many cars in my life - they're the most service-unintense cars ever. They just - work. You change the oil, sometimes the tires and that's it. I never had a single bigger problem with them.
Is there a lot of stuff which they didn't get? Agreed. Would it be nice to have better self-driving options? Without a doubt, but that's just a question of time.
But at least you have to give them that they, in strong contrast to many other German car manufacturers, didn't miss the trend and started to produce sexy EVs (hello Taycan) from very early on.
As long as I can, I will stay a loyal customer to them. If you have never driven a Porsche, get a test drive. I can only highly recommend it.
PS: And double points if you can do it on the German Autobahn. Try driving 240+ km/h with any other large-volume-production car, you'll be sweaty. With a Porsche, it just feels joyful.
Seems to be really limited to us-east-1 (https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status). I think they host a lot of console and backend stuff there.
I got a Behringer WING a couple of years ago, and I couldn't be happier for my home studio: Excellent connection with Midas stage boxes who have (at least for my requirements) great pre-amps, you can basically route everything, it's kind of intuitive, the possibilities are endless, it's at the same time a 32-channel USB Audio Interface which works great with Logic, I can even live-stream multi channel audio to my Mac in the other room to Logic using the DANTE card, it has easy live recording with SD cards, remote control via iPad and even 3rd party apps with APIs, etc. etc. etc. … And they just released a rack and smaller version of it, but didn't cut on the features.
As we say in Germany, maybe it's some kind of "What the farmer doesn't know, he won't eat" syndrome. From what I know and use, I am a big fan of Behringer, and especially the WING.
• Post-MVP AI-powered B2B SaaS; serial founder-built & self-funded (pre-angel/VC), first customers onboarding – hiring employee #2. Modernizing a software category every company needs.
• Stack: Rails 8 · Hotwire (low-JS) · ViewComponents · Tailwind 4 · AWS · DynamoDB · OpenSearch · LLM APIs (zero legacy).
• You: 5+ yrs Rails, full-stack; non-relational DB + AI/LLM integration; autonomous builder & team player.
• Culture: tiny senior a-team, zero managers – you code or you sell. Values: Ownership · Pragmatism · Tempo · Kindness · No Ego.
• Comp: € 80-100 k base + € 20-25 k stock options (Delaware C-corp).
• Process: founder call → code walkthrough → 4 h remote pairing → decision in days. Apply: https://vendis.ai/jobs/ or reply here with intro/CV + GitHub + LinkedIn.
Q: Why did you decide to rewrite the whole image handling instead of just relying on the jekyll_picture_tag gem (https://github.com/rbuchberger/jekyll_picture_tag) - I am using that since years and it just works just fine.
I switched (back) to firefox a while ago after Chrome was simply super sluggish and slow on a MacStudio (!). Not having UBlock Origin is the final killer. Firefox was always super snappy to me and just does everything I want, in a very data-protective way.
Only downside (not Firefox'es fault) is that it can't use Safari's private relay feature.