Founders, what has to change?

An open call for founders on what’s slowing startups down in Germany – and how to fix it.

Have you thought about scaling your company somewhere else? Or are you here to stay, despite rules and regulations slowing you down? It is time to hear you out and initiate change. 

You lost months on a visa before your first international hire even started. You waited on an approval while your competitors shipped. You wanted a first big customer — a public agency, a bank, a hospital — but procurement kept them out of reach. You needed data you couldn’t get to. None of this is bad luck, and it isn’t on you.

What’s slowing startups down here is rarely the technology, and almost never the individual. It’s the structures behind it, and the gaps between them. Both can be named. And redesigned. That’s what we’re collecting until 10 October 2026, not for a report, but to force a conversation.

Two questions. Five minutes.

1. The barrier. What were you trying to achieve, and where did it break down? Describe one case — what you set out to do, what got in the way, and what it cost you. And even if it sounds small in hindsight: a single pebble can jam the whole machine. That’s exactly what we want to hear.

2. The redesign. Zoom out: if you could scrap or change one rule that slows founders down in Germany — any rule — which would it be?

Write your answers below in the short form. You don’t need a solution. We’ll worry about that. But if you’ve got one, we’ll take it.

What happens next

Your answers feed straight into an Ideathon at Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society. Here, founders sit down with people from public administration, business and academia to redesign exactly these barriers. Your account goes on the record as concrete evidence, and we may invite some contributors to join our discussion. This call is part of Forum. Venturing Futures. at HIIG. We bring entrepreneurial thinking and public structures together, grounded in our research, to find out what blocks the path from idea to application – and how to redesign it.

The rules won’t change on their own. Start by naming what’s broken – the form’s right below.

We will treat your submission confidentially. You may leave your contact details so that we can get in touch with you for follow-up questions or to invite you to participate. Your information will be used exclusively for research purposes and anonymised for analysis. All data will, of course, be handled in accordance with the GDPR.

Short form

You can write your answers in German or English (select your language via the flag icon in the top right of the form below).