What advice would you share with other founders?
Founding involves lots of ups and downs. That’s why it’s important to build a network that supports and helps you from the beginning. My advice is to make connections:
- with other founders: find local funding initiatives, incubators, and other points of contact
- with consultants: approach the IHKs right from the start and attend their events. Inquire about legal issues there first and address the business development of your city, region and federal state
- With professionals/potential employees: attend relevant meetups and get-togethers, network through events in the region.
What surprised you the most when you started out?
The naivety of many startups’ business models and their relaxed approach to company shares. I’d recommend founders to:
- Think very carefully about how many people you want to start a business with. Do not divide your shares equally, and ask yourself at the beginning of each contract what’s important to you in a separation or exit.
- Consider from the beginning how you want to earn money and from what point you will start to earn money. Hoping for the next Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat is not very clever, but actually rather stupid.
What do you want from politics and from Germany as a business location?
I’d like to see a "digital foundation". In exaggerated terms, this means that you can start a business without having a fax machine or a company stamp. Even in 2017, it was absolutely necessary for our company to fax documents and stamp them in advance, when communicating with authorities. It's all unnecessary and not really legal anymore. Overall, I think that Germany is one of the best locations for setting up a company. For cost-intensive startups, for example, in the high-tech sector, I would like to see our willingness to invest recognised for tax purposes. I would also like to see corporate and/or trade taxes waived for the first three years. On this basis, all those involved make a contribution to innovation: companies invest and the state doesn’t incur any direct costs.
Why doesn’t Germany have a leading startup ecosystem?
I beg to differ. Germany has a leading startup ecosystem. It will be important for the coming years that we counteract the centralisation of startups in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Munich.
Setting up a startup, especially a tech startup, must also be attractive in medium-sized cities. The city of Nuremberg, for example, together with local institutions, has created the ideal starting point with the ZOLLHOF Tech Incubator. Embedded in the Digital Hub initiative, this is the perfect starting point for entrepreneurs.
