Should You Start A Side Hustle in Germany?

Time for another episode of The Germany Expat Business Show Mailbag!

This time I’m sharing a question from Nutan Jaeger.

Nutan is a trained architect turned writer who moved to Munich with her German husband. She was laid off from her job and has worked as a freelancer in Germany before but always stayed under the mini-job level and making enough to cover taxes and insurance.

Her biggest challenge is figuring out how to start.

Should she exploring business ideas as side hustles and see what takes off? OR Should she create a business right away?

She also asked about working remotely from Germany for clients in the U.S.

It’s so fascinating to hear everyone’s stories.

My advice to Nutan would be to start something as a side-hustle rather than a full on business. For a few reasons.

Listen in to this shorty solo episode to find out more!

You can find this episode and all episodes as well as show notes for each at https://thegermanylist.de/the-germany-expat-business-show-podcast/

Starting or running a business in Germany as a foreigner? Already running an online business in Germany as an expat? Wanting to grow your German-based business? Working as a freelancer in Germany? You'll love my guide with over 30 resources for expat business owners in Germany.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hi, I'm Eleanor Meyerhofer, a native Californian designer and digital strategist. In October of 1999, a few years after graduating from design school, I flew from San Francisco to Munich with a fistful of Deutschmarks, a dial-up connection and an extremely vague plan. 20 plus years later, after a 10-year stint at a global agency, freelancing and launching two online businesses, I'm still here. Now I'm talking to other expat business owners to share knowledge, stories and inspiration for other non-Germans running businesses in Germany. Hello, it is time for another episode of the Germany expat business show Mailbag. So this time I am sharing a question from Newton Yeager. Newton is a fellow American and she is also a trained architect turnwriter, and she moved to Munich with her German husband. She was laid off from her job and has worked as a freelancer in Germany before, but always stayed under the mini job level, making just enough to cover taxes and insurance and hopefully have a little extra money left over. Her biggest challenge is figuring out how to start, and she asks if she should explore business ideas as side hustles and see what takes off, or should she create a business right away. It is so fascinating to hear everyone's stories. So here's my advice to Newton, and that would be to start something as a side hustle rather than a full on business, and I would give this advice for a few reasons, the first one being just to see if you like doing it. You'll get a feel for what it would take to get it off the ground and see if you can make a living from it. But I think sometimes we all think like some hobby or passion would make a great business, and then we actually try and turn it into a business and find out we hate it. Or trying to make something we enjoy, a business takes all the fun out of it. So that's one reason not to just go full force into it and I am not an immigration or relocation expert so I can't speak to those issues directly. But you could find tons of resources in my free guide listing all kinds of service providers and tools link in the show notes. But starting with a side hustle, you know, depending if you've got all your visa stuff squared away and all of that might help you avoid a lot of bureaucracy and setup effort here in Germany or in the US before you have a solid idea of what exactly it is you want to do. And a side hustle is just a perfect way to do some low stakes experimentation. If you need to, you can slowly build an audience and again see if your idea has any promise.

Speaker 1: 2:53

And actually, since our exchange, newton actually ended up getting a full time job. And I can remember when I started my printable business here in Germany, I was still a full time employee at my agency job and it was really, really helpful to be able to save a portion of my salary while planning to quit, rather than leap without a net. Even if you have a partner with a full time job and a salary, like I did, it's really stressful going from making money and having a regular paycheck to suddenly having to earn everything from your new business venture and it puts a lot of pressure on it. And I think I had it going for like six months or a year and I quit when I was regularly making 1200 to 2000 euros a month and that was revenue profit. So there was a lot of learning later on, but still it was making some money when I quit.

Speaker 1: 3:52

And just one last point about avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy when I started said side hustle, my printable business, I was super intimidated by the German system because, of course. So I had the idea that I was going to start an LLC in the US and like run the business out of there anyways totally stupid idea. It was very complicated. That's not like it's without paperwork, and then my US taxes got really complicated, so total waste of time. If anybody's thinking about doing that, I don't recommend it.

Speaker 1: 4:30

So yeah, for me in the end it was better to bloom or as planted I, actually my brother-in-law, who's a story abroad, or help me. So that's cheating, I know, but still it was just good to just go in headfirst and deal with the German system and get that all set up and you know German taxes and all that as an ongoing struggle. But at least I'm in it and you'll. If you're going to stay here, you might as well just get used to it. If you are going to go back to your home country, then maybe that's not the best approach, so you have to weigh that.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Anyways, hope that's helpful. And again, if anybody wants more resources on how to get set up as a freelancer or start a side hustle here in Germany, you'll find a ton of good stuff in my guide 35 amazing helpful resources for expat startups and business owners in Germany. That's it for now. See you next time. Bye, thanks for listening. You can find this episode and all other episodes of the Germany expat business show at my website at wwwellinormeihovercom slash podcast. Wwwellinormeihovercom slash podcast.