The Long Road to Founding Our GmbH: What Went Wrong
And what went well and what I learned, of course.
Hey, it’s Mats again!
Starting KfzPortal24.de was an exhilarating experience, but let me tell you—founding the GmbH behind it was a lesson in patience and persistence. If you’ve ever heard that things move slowly in the world of bureaucracy, trust me: they move even slower when you’re eager to launch your product.
The Legal Hurdles
The biggest challenge we faced was simply getting everything signed and on the road. When we built our prototype, it took just two weeks—super fast, right? We were ready to go live almost immediately. But the GmbH? That was a whole different story. The first draft of our founding contract alone took three weeks to get done, and then we had to wait another two weeks just for the notary appointment.
Delays and More Delays
After we finally signed the founding contract with the notary, we hit another roadblock. The person in charge of setting up the company within the local office was on holiday for three weeks, and unfortunately, no one else in the office was allowed to take over our case. We called multiple times, but it didn’t matter—we just had to wait. This delay stretched the entire founding process into months. And once that was done, we had to wait even more months to get our tax numbers sorted out.
This all meant we had to push back our product launch, which was frustrating. But there was a silver lining—by the time we finally launched, we had a well-rounded product rather than just a slapped-together MVP. So, in the end, the delay might have worked in our favor.
Naming Challenges
As if the timing issues weren’t enough, we also ran into problems with the name. Originally, we wanted to call it KfzPortal24 GmbH, clean and simple. But that wasn’t unique enough for the registry. We ended up adding “H&B” (the first letters of our last names) to make it H&B kfzPortal24 GmbH. And here’s a fun fact—the name “kfzPortal24” is written in this slightly odd style because our notary had a typo in the contract and said it would be too much work to change. So, we just rolled with it! After months now, we are happy with the writing. It's unique and something special.
Lessons Learned
Looking back, there’s a lot I wish I had known before we started this process. First off, if you’re planning to launch a company, don’t wait until the last minute to set up your legal structure. It’s better to move fast and open a shell company early on if you know you’re going to need it. And when it comes to naming—put more thought into it than we did. We’ll probably end up changing ours in the near future.
The timing issues were the most stressful part of this journey. We were so sure that our groundbreaking ideas would get picked up by competitors before we could even launch. But you know what? That didn’t happen. Even months after our public launch, those ideas are still uniquely ours. So, if you’re a founder reading this—don’t let fear hold you back. Just go ahead and do it. Don’t wait.
Thanks for sticking with me through this tale of bureaucratic woes. If nothing else, I hope this gives you a little insight into the less glamorous side of starting a company. But no matter the challenges, it’s all worth it in the end.
Until next time,
Mats
