The fact that this absurd situation exists is a huge proof that the bureaucracy has gotten out of hand and that Germany is unfriendly to starting new businesses.
While this is somewhat true, this is not an indication. You can start a business tomorrow for a fee of 30€. Even a normal UG is somewhat quick to set up and less expensive. Just because you insist on some non standardized company setup is not a good indication for an economy
I makes a lot of sense too. This is a one-time fee for something you gain nothing from and you learn nothing useful from.
It doesn't sound easy nor cheap to buy a company and change the company name.
UG & Co. KG has a couple of advantages and while it did add some money and time to the table, it doesn't change the story.
Notaries in the US are the price of a dinner. Many people have waited up to 6 months to receive their VAT ID from Berlin.
That's your problem right there. If you live in Berlin, take the 2 hours and go to Hamburg or Leipzig before doing anything that needs a working bureaucracy.
[ed.: a tiny office in Leipzig is pretty cheap too, but you'd need to ensure mail doesn't pile up there unchecked.]
Unfortunately I'm not joking about this entire thing. Berlin's underfunded, overstressed bureaucracy is to be avoided like the plague.
[ed.2: to be clear, it'll still not be great. Just less bad.]
But also, yes, this is one of the reasons you can hire lawyer's offices to do this, they know how to spin it such that they're regarded as administrating the company in their location (which is arguably true at that point).
And just to note, there's the concept of "field offices" (Betriebsstätte) which would need to be set up. That does still involve Berlin bureaucracy, but only for a Gewerbeanmeldung.
(Really: ask a lawyer. I hope nobody is taking legal advice from a HN thread.)
Again this is very straightforward and routine in the UK: https://paramountformations.com/product-category/off-the-she... ; a similar experience to buying a domain and spinning up a website on it. In organizations like investment banks they will have shells ready to go in the way you would have kubernetes pods.
So, the story is really that it takes a couple of weeks for a freshly founded company to be ready to invoice customers outside of Germany, which I agree, is a sad state.
That. It's possible to go even simpler if no limited liability is needed.
Just Gewerbeanmeldung costs maybe 30€ and takes less than a month normally. Large cities even have online forms for this.
Also the reporting duties are much simplified. ChatGPT and some accounting software are very helpful. Although a tax consultant and probably a liability insurance are recommended to avoid bad surprises.
And of course, lawyers being lawyers, answered you need to wear both a belt and suspenders. This is the answer you'd expect from a lawyer. It is your responsibility as a founder to do the risk assessment. The fact that almost no one wears both a belt and suspenders might have been a hint.
They studied AI and are building an AI company. I doubt the idea for the business structure come from a lawyer, to be honest. Especially such an overcomplicated setup with so many real-world issues that they're running into right now.