Although there are many start-ups in Berlin it's pretty tough to navigate all the laws and regulations and more often than not it involves money. So when you try to start a garage business you will discover obstacle after obstacle. It is pretty hard to "just try" a business idea because with all the crap you have to do and pay it HAS to work. I still after 5 years discover some regulations that I completely missed and I always hope that there's no big one hiding behind the bushes. There is a saying in Germany: if you own a business you got one foot in prison.
> There is a saying in Germany: if you own a business you got one foot in prison.
So true. On the other hand, it is said (not a proverb, but a tendency in the feeling) that if you start a business, you have to become very rich faster than prosecution finds you out.
The main exception is if the internship is required for finishing or beginning a degree course or done while a degree course (but read the text of the law yourself for the remaining exceptions).
This was criticized a lot when the law adopted, since there can be good reasons to do an internship even after finishing university even if it is paid really badly (say, as a reference).
Related: Do you know of any good sources to look up rules and regulations like this? Looking at single owner, bootstrapped stuff? (German language is ok too)
Some sort of collection of relevant rules and regulations, or even an article outlining the process of setting up a small business (SaaS, small scale, if it's relevant) in Germany.
For the UK there's pretty good guides online, and gov.uk has some useful information for Britain. But I know (assume?) the process is quite different in Germany.
Subscribe to the Onlinehändler News and maybe Trusted Shops newsletters. They send a lot of spam but also the latest verdicts in law regarding online shops. This is for when your business is already running. Better than nothing.
Mostly its small things, one major one that took me by surprise but is now long fixed was:
If you sell physical goods and you put it in a box or wrapper, which you do because shipping, you need to have a membership with one of many private recycling firms that are part of one of the overarching systems (green dot, resy etc.). You never send anything to this company, this company never does anything directly for you. They only ask you once a year to tell them how many tons of cardboard, plastic, and metal you used to package your goods. Then you pay them according to that amount. If you are below a certain amount you pay a minimum fee.*
New regulations and changes are also a major pain:
One of the newer things is that you can't use google analytics on your webshop. If you want to use it it can only be anonymized, you need to state some legal BS in your terms and conditions and you need to make a direct contract with google in order for it to be legal...
The button that finally seals the deal has to have a specific text on which the lawyers are still fighting which of the options actually is legal to use.
For each of those you could receive a legal notice from anyone that is remotely competing (read: any other business) with a heap of legal fees attached that could put you out of business.
* Fun Fact: There's already a recycling surcharge on all the boxes you buy. The customer also pays for the recycling of his waste.
