Why I quit my permanent job after eight months, how a Google search and an intermediary led me to my first client, an insurer in Hanover, and why after two years of freelancing nothing but a GmbH would do.
The question I get asked most often is not how to roll out AI. It is this: How did you land your first client, and why did you found a GmbH? So today is about something personal, about starting out on my own and the road to sifamo GmbH. Whether it was as well thought out from the start as it looks today, I will get to in a moment.
My path from a permanent job through freelancing to a GmbH, July 2026.
Permanent employment: Eight months, then I was done
This was about ten years ago. You may know the feeling: at the office at half past eight in the morning, finish at five, go home, and the only thought is that it all starts again tomorrow. At the end of the month you look back and realise how much of your life you have invested in an employer without really getting anywhere. I felt trapped. No holiday when I wanted it, everything tied to the weekend, and the weekend was only ever for whatever had been left undone during the week.
At some point it had built up so much that I thought my head would explode. By my standards I lasted a long time, eight or nine months. In my head the decision had already been made during the probation period. The only question was: What comes next?
Expertise instead of a product: Why I became a service provider
One thing was clear: I was staying in IT. I love building software, that detective mindset of working out how to write good code. My own product? Everyone does that, most of them fail, and I was a nobody with no capital, no investors, no angels. So I remembered something my parents had told me again and again: Knowledge is the most important thing. Build your expertise and the money will chase you, instead of you chasing the money.
I went deep into programming languages and, at least as importantly, worked on how I speak. Being self-employed means you have to be able to express yourself and sell. Developers think in zeros and ones: I am good, so hire me. That is not how it works. I read a lot, stood in front of the mirror and practised rhetoric so I could talk to clients as an equal. That is what built my confidence.
The first client: Google, a post and an intermediary
The fear is usually far bigger than it needs to be in the end. Risk, what could happen, what if it does not work out? At some point I blocked all of that out. Thinking about risk is a brake, and I decided to release every brake in my life and simply start.
Google: I literally searched for “Java developer projects” and ended up on Reddit, LinkedIn, Xing and the usual project platforms.
Posting and network: I posted everywhere that I was available as a freelancer and wrote to every contact I had. What is the worst that can happen, apart from a no?
Keeping at it: At first there was plenty of encouragement but no work. You cannot buy anything with “great, keep going”. So I kept posting, kept writing, until someone said: I know someone who knows someone.
That someone became the intermediary to my very first client, an insurer in Hanover. At 26 or 27 I had to sell myself there as an expert. I prepared for days, found out everything about the client, what they were working on, what was on their mind, and played that knowledge back in the conversation, with the rhetoric I had trained myself in. In 2017 my first project as a freelancer began. The hardest step was not technical. It was getting over the hurdle of saying: You are starting now, and you are not letting anyone put obstacles in your way anymore. At school we learn nothing about self-employment, only about risk. The education system could do with an update there.
Why freelancing was over after two years
After two years I noticed: It is stagnating. As a freelancer you have a certain capacity, you fill it, and that is it. My revenue was always the same. But I wanted much more. I wanted to build something, give people work and create an atmosphere where people enjoy themselves and can be who they are. In my permanent job I sat there in a shirt and tie, and every small joke was met with “that was unnecessary”. You can work hard and diligently and still keep the atmosphere pleasant. The proof sits in our offices today. What came of it, I tell in my conversation with our CTO Ayman (German), who arrived in Kiel with a backpack in 2019.
GmbH, UG, GbR: Why it ended up being a GmbH
Back then I watched every YouTube video on legal forms: GmbH, GmbH and Co. KG, UG, even GbR. Then I called my tax advisor, a friend since school who still advises me strictly and with discipline to this day. A good friend is not someone who tells you tricks, but someone who tells you how to do it cleanly and safely, and tells you plainly when you are wrong. My tip for everyone: If your tax advisor is bad, get rid of them. If the tax office keeps causing you problems, the problem is not the tax office.
His advice: The easy route would be a sole proprietorship or a GbR. But you are going to grow, and which large corporation gives a contract to a sole proprietor? A UG would be possible, but why start so small after two years of freelancing? I asked clients who they award contracts to. The answer was always: at least a GmbH. The GmbH and Co. KG with its tax advantages, so that the money reaches the shareholders faster, was not my goal. I did not want money in my own pocket quickly. I wanted to grow and build the best IT company Germany has ever seen.
So: a GmbH using the standard model articles, the cheapest option, everything by the template, myself registered as shareholder, go. Better to approach the big players as a GmbH right away than to go after small clients with a UG and get a headache over every invoice. It was exactly the right decision. How I then won the big clients is a story of its own for a video of its own. My only tip until then: Start. Think it through, but start. Do not waste your vision, your talent and your intelligence on thinking about everything that could go wrong. Think about what could work and how to make it happen. Where are you right now, permanent job, freelancing or already a GmbH? Tell me on LinkedIn or below the video on my YouTube channel.
Frequently asked questions
How do you find your first client as a freelancer?
Make it visible that you are available, on every platform and in your own network, and keep at it until a connection comes up. My first client came through an intermediary that a contact knew. What mattered then was the preparation for the conversation.
Why a GmbH instead of a UG or a sole proprietorship?
Because large companies generally only award contracts to limited liability companies. If you want to work with corporations, banks or insurers, you need at least a GmbH. With the standard model articles, founding one is cheap and straightforward.
When is the right time to move from freelancing to a GmbH?
When revenue stagnates because your own capacity is the limit, and you want to hire people and win larger clients. For me that was after two years.
Why I quit my permanent job after eight months, how a Google search and an intermediary led me to my first client, an insurer in Hanover, and why after two years of freelancing nothing but a GmbH would do.
The question I get asked most often is not how to roll out AI. It is this: How did you land your first client, and why did you found a GmbH? So today is about something personal, about starting out on my own and the road to sifamo GmbH. Whether it was as well thought out from the start as it looks today, I will get to in a moment.
Permanent employment: Eight months, then I was done
This was about ten years ago. You may know the feeling: at the office at half past eight in the morning, finish at five, go home, and the only thought is that it all starts again tomorrow. At the end of the month you look back and realise how much of your life you have invested in an employer without really getting anywhere. I felt trapped. No holiday when I wanted it, everything tied to the weekend, and the weekend was only ever for whatever had been left undone during the week.
At some point it had built up so much that I thought my head would explode. By my standards I lasted a long time, eight or nine months. In my head the decision had already been made during the probation period. The only question was: What comes next?
Expertise instead of a product: Why I became a service provider
One thing was clear: I was staying in IT. I love building software, that detective mindset of working out how to write good code. My own product? Everyone does that, most of them fail, and I was a nobody with no capital, no investors, no angels. So I remembered something my parents had told me again and again: Knowledge is the most important thing. Build your expertise and the money will chase you, instead of you chasing the money.
I went deep into programming languages and, at least as importantly, worked on how I speak. Being self-employed means you have to be able to express yourself and sell. Developers think in zeros and ones: I am good, so hire me. That is not how it works. I read a lot, stood in front of the mirror and practised rhetoric so I could talk to clients as an equal. That is what built my confidence.
The first client: Google, a post and an intermediary
The fear is usually far bigger than it needs to be in the end. Risk, what could happen, what if it does not work out? At some point I blocked all of that out. Thinking about risk is a brake, and I decided to release every brake in my life and simply start.
That someone became the intermediary to my very first client, an insurer in Hanover. At 26 or 27 I had to sell myself there as an expert. I prepared for days, found out everything about the client, what they were working on, what was on their mind, and played that knowledge back in the conversation, with the rhetoric I had trained myself in. In 2017 my first project as a freelancer began. The hardest step was not technical. It was getting over the hurdle of saying: You are starting now, and you are not letting anyone put obstacles in your way anymore. At school we learn nothing about self-employment, only about risk. The education system could do with an update there.
Why freelancing was over after two years
After two years I noticed: It is stagnating. As a freelancer you have a certain capacity, you fill it, and that is it. My revenue was always the same. But I wanted much more. I wanted to build something, give people work and create an atmosphere where people enjoy themselves and can be who they are. In my permanent job I sat there in a shirt and tie, and every small joke was met with “that was unnecessary”. You can work hard and diligently and still keep the atmosphere pleasant. The proof sits in our offices today. What came of it, I tell in my conversation with our CTO Ayman (German), who arrived in Kiel with a backpack in 2019.
GmbH, UG, GbR: Why it ended up being a GmbH
Back then I watched every YouTube video on legal forms: GmbH, GmbH and Co. KG, UG, even GbR. Then I called my tax advisor, a friend since school who still advises me strictly and with discipline to this day. A good friend is not someone who tells you tricks, but someone who tells you how to do it cleanly and safely, and tells you plainly when you are wrong. My tip for everyone: If your tax advisor is bad, get rid of them. If the tax office keeps causing you problems, the problem is not the tax office.
His advice: The easy route would be a sole proprietorship or a GbR. But you are going to grow, and which large corporation gives a contract to a sole proprietor? A UG would be possible, but why start so small after two years of freelancing? I asked clients who they award contracts to. The answer was always: at least a GmbH. The GmbH and Co. KG with its tax advantages, so that the money reaches the shareholders faster, was not my goal. I did not want money in my own pocket quickly. I wanted to grow and build the best IT company Germany has ever seen.
So: a GmbH using the standard model articles, the cheapest option, everything by the template, myself registered as shareholder, go. Better to approach the big players as a GmbH right away than to go after small clients with a UG and get a headache over every invoice. It was exactly the right decision. How I then won the big clients is a story of its own for a video of its own. My only tip until then: Start. Think it through, but start. Do not waste your vision, your talent and your intelligence on thinking about everything that could go wrong. Think about what could work and how to make it happen. Where are you right now, permanent job, freelancing or already a GmbH? Tell me on LinkedIn or below the video on my YouTube channel.
Frequently asked questions
How do you find your first client as a freelancer?
Make it visible that you are available, on every platform and in your own network, and keep at it until a connection comes up. My first client came through an intermediary that a contact knew. What mattered then was the preparation for the conversation.
Why a GmbH instead of a UG or a sole proprietorship?
Because large companies generally only award contracts to limited liability companies. If you want to work with corporations, banks or insurers, you need at least a GmbH. With the standard model articles, founding one is cheap and straightforward.
When is the right time to move from freelancing to a GmbH?
When revenue stagnates because your own capacity is the limit, and you want to hire people and win larger clients. For me that was after two years.
Related: Umair Zaffar as AI Expert
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