7 ms·

tl;dr: Esp. for standard positions, Berlin combines low salaries & rents with a growing (young & international) population and trustworthy German processes; bur

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 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.

davidw 14y ago
> bureaucracy is the same hassle all over Europe. This would indicate that that is not entirely true: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings 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.
- Xylakant 14y ago
  > 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.
  - davidw 14y ago
    With the UG, you are required to sock away capital until you hit the 25K, though, no? http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/germany/ http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/germany/ vs http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/united-kingdom/ 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.
    - kintamanimatt 14y ago
      IIRC the capital requirements don't have to be met with cash, but can be satisfied by things like IP. Developed an app? That could be included.
      - davidw 14y ago
        Yes, but who evaluates how much it's worth? And why the hell should someone even have to be doing that? It's utterly useless bureaucracy. If the goal of having capital is to cover wages, say, should the company go under, then you should have that specific requirement, not some vague notion of 25K being a magical number.
        kintamanimatt 14y ago
        I agree, but in the absence of a change in company law, the option to be able to satisfy it with intangibles is ok. I think so long as the valuation is reasonable, it counts. Any decent-sized app would easily cost >€25k, and even the website can cost that much in some cases. It's easy to discount the value of our own work, but we shouldn't. Plus, instead of handing over the copyright to the company, it might be possible to do something like grant an exclusive license to the company instead.
        rayiner 14y ago
        The goal of having capital is if you order a bunch of Aereon chairs and fail to pay, or your delivery driver runs over someone, these folks have some hold of collecting because by law they can't come after you personally. $25k is an arbitrary number because it can't be anything but arbitrary in this situation.

davidw 14y ago

> bureaucracy is the same hassle all over Europe. This would indicate that that is not entirely true: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings 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.

Xylakant 14y ago
> 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.
- davidw 14y ago
  With the UG, you are required to sock away capital until you hit the 25K, though, no? http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/germany/ http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/germany/ vs http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/united-kingdom/ 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.
  - kintamanimatt 14y ago
    IIRC the capital requirements don't have to be met with cash, but can be satisfied by things like IP. Developed an app? That could be included.
    - davidw 14y ago
      Yes, but who evaluates how much it's worth? And why the hell should someone even have to be doing that? It's utterly useless bureaucracy. If the goal of having capital is to cover wages, say, should the company go under, then you should have that specific requirement, not some vague notion of 25K being a magical number.
      - kintamanimatt 14y ago
        I agree, but in the absence of a change in company law, the option to be able to satisfy it with intangibles is ok. I think so long as the valuation is reasonable, it counts. Any decent-sized app would easily cost >€25k, and even the website can cost that much in some cases. It's easy to discount the value of our own work, but we shouldn't. Plus, instead of handing over the copyright to the company, it might be possible to do something like grant an exclusive license to the company instead.
      - rayiner 14y ago
        The goal of having capital is if you order a bunch of Aereon chairs and fail to pay, or your delivery driver runs over someone, these folks have some hold of collecting because by law they can't come after you personally. $25k is an arbitrary number because it can't be anything but arbitrary in this situation.