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by nish1500 34 days ago
High initial capital requirements have repeatedly proven to be more detrimental than beneficial (https://mariusring.github.io/web/BacherFagerengRingWold_Sele...). Germany is an outlier in wanting to keep the barriers high.

Running a business in Germany is for a closed inner circle. The apparatus is not meant for broke college students turning their weekend project into a company.
3 comments
ffsm8 34 days ago
In Germany getting 25k as a working adult is hard, because before taxes and social security that's 50k you need to earn. Thats more then an average person earns in a year before taxes, so they'll likely be saving for 5-10 years if they want to start one.

Now wherever that's an issue with the 25k admission fee OR with the fact that wages have stagnated for about 25 years in Germany, consequently mostly wiping out the middle class ... That's debatable.

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chmod775 34 days ago
> In Germany getting 25k as a working adult is hard

German median household wealth is 4x that.

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ffsm8 34 days ago
You mean median household net worth.

This estimate includes things like a car, a partially paid off house and other assets.

Most of that wealth cannot easily be converted to cash which you'd need to start a company.

Also that's median. Germany is a country with a median age of 45. So yeah, someone who likely worked for 20+ years will likely have saved around 100k, I don't think you realize how that's an argument in favor of what I just stated...

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orthoxerox 34 days ago
Exactly, would bet 25% of all that your family has on a business venture?
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selfmodruntime 34 days ago
German is an outlier in anything. What the poster has yet to mention is the horrific state of things when actually running a company. Insolvency in Germany is easy to achieve, either from illiquidity or over-indebtedness. All responsibility is on the company's director to oversee possible insolvency tests, of which there are many. If you cannot pay at least 90% of due liabilities within 3 weeks (illiquidity), you're expected to run out of cash within the forecast horizon(imminent illiquidity), or have liabilities exceeding assets unless a 12-month going-concern forecast is positive (over-indebtedness), you will need to declare insolvency.

Filing insolvency must be done without undue delay (a special legal term) and no longer than 3 weeks after you have realized that you might be in insolvency. If you fail, you will be personally liable in full (though there is a honor codex amongst insolvency lawyers to not go after the family home) and you might face jail time. These rules and personal liability have actually been made much stricter in recent years as well.

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spacington 34 days ago
Why not?

Depends on your product and expectations of your customers.

B2C: I don't care what company structure you are.

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