About

What’s this?

Actually, an experiment: a blog. Blogs seem to be mainstream nowadays, but I need to be dragged screaming and kicking into the 21st century. Therefore, my own blog is something I need to get used to.

Blogs have had a bad reputation due to some, let’s say, superflous specimen (who is interested in your breakfast?). But this has changed, and I myself am now a reader of some blogs which are interesting (although not all the time). I have some profound stuff in mind with this blog. Which brings us to its title:
What’s Irgendwas mit computern?

Irgendwas mit Computern is German and means Something with computers. When I decided to leave the University of Cologne and found a startup (and therefore enter the real world), my friends kept asking me what I was planning on doing. My answer was Irgendwas mit Computern. After some time one of those inquirers (obviously slightly disappointed with the answer) suggested that I should name my company this way. I won’t do it, as I have a glorious name in mind (but it’s not protected yet and therefore I won’t tell it), but I decided to get the domain name nonetheless and publish my blog there. My personal home page stays at http://da.nieltiggemann.de/, where you can find more information regarding me.

Founding a startup in Germany

At the moment, I am founding a startup in Cologne, Germany. Most of the hot new startup action seems to take place in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley (for the computer field, at least), but I am convinced that it is possible to be successful in Germany, too. And I want to use this blog for reporting my experiences. This can be interesting for two reasons:

• Others in Germany can learn from me (at least I can serve as a bad example when everything goes wrong)
• We can compare experiences from different countries. In the US, there is Y Combinator, which funds startups in their early phases. In Germany, there is no such thing (at least not that I am aware of), but there is the Existenzgründungszuschuss (a profoundly German word, Mark Twain would be delighted), which can fund a startup. Incidentally, I will be using this. Comparing different countries would show different strengths and weaknesses and could be very inspiring.

So, that’s it what this is for. A blog to report my experiences in founding a startup in Germany. I will try to keep it up to date, but deep in my heart I am still a lazy person, so no promises. And maybe I post some other stuff here (mainly technical, I hope; but all blogs seem to carry at least some useless stuff).