How to Become Self-Employed in Germany: The 3 Real Steps Nobody Tells You — From Your Business Idea to Company Founding

Most articles about self-employment skip over entirely what I notice as a passionate entrepreneur and coach: the emotional weight that comes with it — especially for international and multitalented women navigating this in Germany. Uncertainty. Not knowing whether your idea is good enough, whether the timing is right, or whether you're even allowed to think this big. Uncertainty isn't a sign that something is wrong with your plan — it's simply what the beginning of any real path looks like. The problem is when uncertainty gets mistaken for a stop sign instead of a normal part of the process. Feeling undervalued. Many of the women I coach have spent years in environments where their qualifications weren't fully recognised, their international background was treated as a complication rather than an asset, or their many talents were squeezed into one narrow job description. That experience leaves a mark. It makes you doubt whether your skills are actually worth building a business around — even when, objectively, they clearly are. Complex life situations and unfamiliar systems. Many women navigating self-employment are doing so alongside realities that rarely make it into articles on the topic: interrupted career biographies through migration, caring for sick family members, single parenthood, illness, or neurodivergence. For expats, there is an additional layer: building a business inside a system that wasn't designed with you in mind — visa considerations, Finanzamt registration, health insurance as a Selbständige, German-language paperwork. None of these three things are personal failures. They're simply what happens when ambitious, talented women try to build something real in a context that wasn't designed to make that path obvious. Naming them clearly is often the first step toward moving through them.

I grew up in Switzerland — a country of mountains — and I've been running long distances for more than twenty years. When it comes to the question of which direction to take in business, I always come back to the same image: imagine standing at the base of a mountain. Several peaks rise in front of you, and you're trying to decide which one to climb. Most people jump straight to that question and push themselves to decide fast. But what I've learned both as an entrepreneur and as a long-distance runner is this: what matters most isn't which peak you pick first. It's whether you've built the physical and mental foundation that would actually let you climb anything at all. In entrepreneurship, just as in sport, that foundation rests on three things: your strengths, your values, and a reflective practice that lets both come into focus. Only once that foundation is solid does it make sense to choose which specific path up the mountain feels right. Being an entrepreneur is a lifestyle, much like being an athlete. And self-employment — whether part-time or full-time — becomes less about choosing one narrow lane and more about finally letting your different talents work together instead of competing with each other. That shift can bring enormous mental peace — and, over time, financial peace too. Here are the three steps where every journey in my programme begins. None of them require a finished business plan, a perfect idea, or knowing exactly where you're headed yet. All they require is honesty — with yourself.

Most highly skilled and multitalented women I work with have never been asked this question directly: if anything were possible, which of your strengths do you actually want to use for your clients, every single day? Not which skill looks good on a CV. Not which one your last job needed. The one, two or three strengths that, when you use them, make you forget to check the time. For multitalented women especially, self-employment is a chance to stop choosing between your talents and start designing a business where several of them can shine together. That's part of what makes it genuinely different from employment — your business can be built around your strengths, instead of asking you to shrink into one job title. I speak from experience. I'm a multilingual career and business coach, recruiter, and business trainer — and a passionate runner. Everything I've built is grounded in being highly qualified, multitalented, and yes, someone who was once told — and still hears from time to time — that she has too many talents. Back then, those comments hurt. Today? I couldn't care less. I've found my place in the world of entrepreneurship, career development, and sport, and I've learned to use my strengths intentionally and strategically. At Sina Camacho Coaching and Training, I have been accompanying women for five years now — in individual and group settings, in German, Spanish, English and French. In that time, I have worked with several hundred women across more than 500 coaching hours. Your so-called "too many" talents? They might be exactly the thing that makes your business distinct.

My inner fire — the thing that gets me out of bed early, that kept me going through every uncertain stretch of building my business — is this: I want to support highly skilled, multitalented, and international women in finding their place in the job market and in entrepreneurship. To help them stand out with their unique talents. To help them build financially independent lives. That's a why. Not a job title. Not a service description. A reason that doesn't go away when things get hard. And underneath a why, there are always values. Values are a bit like an iceberg — most of what's actually there sits beneath the surface, invisible in everyday conversation. But in entrepreneurship, this hidden part of the iceberg is everything. What values do you want your business, your service, or your product to carry? After years of coaching women through the early stages of founding a business, I can tell you this is the most underestimated step in the entire process. Your why is what carries you through the inevitable desert phase — that stretch where clients aren't coming the way you expected, where the market shifts, where something you built stops working. Without your values clearly connected to your business, that phase becomes nearly impossible to get through. A few guiding questions that help my clients get started: - Which values were violated in past jobs or environments, and what did that conflict feel like? - When you feel strong emotions — anger, frustration, or equally strong joy and satisfaction — what value was at the centre of that moment?

Now that you know strengths and values are the starting point, you might be thinking: this all sounds philosophical — I need something practical. Here it is. But first, a word about what this step is not. It's not a productivity exercise. It's not something you squeeze into a lunch break between meetings. It's an act of slowing down deliberately — and if you've been running on empty for a while, that slowdown might feel uncomfortable at first. That's completely normal. Stay with it. Block out time — even 20 minutes is enough to start. Make it cosy: a good cup of tea or coffee, a quiet corner of a café, or a bench somewhere in nature. Then take these two questions and write your answers by hand: - What are the strengths I want to bring to my clients? - What are my values, and what is my why? Write in full sentences. Don't filter. Don't edit yourself. There's no right answer to land on — only an honest one. Handwriting matters more than it might seem. I learned during my coach training that writing by hand activates different areas of the brain than typing does — it's a more creative, more truthful process. In a world where we've nearly stopped writing by hand altogether, this small act of slowing down can surface things that a screen simply won't. The quality of everything that follows in your business — every offer you design, every client you attract, every decision you make — is shaped by how honestly you answered these questions at the start.

I want to be specific about what's actually on the other side of this work, because clarity can sound abstract until you've felt the absence of it. Clarity — not the kind that arrives in one dramatic moment, but the steady, accumulating kind. Knowing which of your talents you actually want to build a business around, and why, instead of carrying five vague directions in your head at once. Confidence — not fearlessness, but the quieter version: trusting that your international background, your varied skill set, and the path that brought you to Germany aren't obstacles to explain away. They're exactly what makes your business distinct. A professional life on your own terms — whether that means full self-employment, a freelance practice alongside employment, or a hybrid path. Advancement here doesn't mean climbing someone else's ladder faster. It means building something shaped around your strengths instead of squeezed into someone else's structure. Tailored support, not generic advice — Germany's self-employment landscape isn't one-size-fits-all, and neither is your background. What works for a German-born founder with an established local network often doesn't translate directly for an expat navigating the same system from scratch.

I don't teach this as theory. I spent a long time testing different business ideas before finding my true calling, and I've been working as a Career & Business Coach with international and multitalented women in Germany for several years now — through one-on-one coaching, group workshops, and my full guidance entrepreneurship programme. I've watched the same pattern repeat itself again and again: clients arrive convinced they need a finished plan, or excited about a business idea someone pitched to them online, or certain they need to move fast and make money quickly. They leave understanding that the real starting point is much closer to what we covered above. This isn't separate from my own story. I've changed careers, lived and worked across countries, and built my own business from the ground up — including the uncertain stretches where I had no idea if it would work. That combination of lived experience and structured coaching practice shapes every step of the programme I've created — including the three you just read.