ELSTER für Ausländer — The Self-Filing Founder Workshop

Launch-scoped package, built overnight 2026-07-14. Nothing has been deployed, posted, purchased, or sent.

The idea in one line

€149 live English Zoom workshop where Joshua — an American who genuinely self-files KSt/GewSt/E-Bilanz/Offenlegung for two German UGs with no Steuerberater — walks expat founders through a complete dummy UG filing. Plus a €49 template pack built from his real filing checklists/trackers. Framed strictly as education (not Steuerberatung).

Files

Why this can work

• The pain is real and screamed about weekly on Toytown/r/germany: Steuerberater cost €3–5k/yr and are booked out 6+ months; ELSTER’s corporate forms have zero English docs.
• The credential is unfakeable and already exists: years of accepted self-filed returns for CHUG + MIA, plus the trackers (add-back cheat sheet, Verlustvortrag tables, Offenlegung checklist) as working artifacts.
• Content cost is ~€0 and the templates are a weekend of agent work from existing notes.
• 7 seats = ~$1,130. Total cash at risk: ~€30.

Watch-outs

• StBerG line: everything stays general education on a dummy entity; never per-company advice. Disclaimer is already baked into the landing page and both docs. If a lawyer friend can eyeball the framing for 15 minutes, even better.
• Community self-promo rules differ (r/germany is strict; r/germantaxes and Toytown are friendlier). Post value-first, link per each community’s rules.
• The landing page needs a real Impressum/Datenschutz before going public (German law, and this audience will check). Drafted — impressum.html/datenschutz.html need only the bracketed fills + Joshua’s 60-second review (Morning Action 4).

MORNING ACTIONS (only if Joshua wants to activate)

Each step is human-only. Total: ~60 min to be live. Deploy (step 8) is BLOCKED until steps 1–6 are done — especially the Stripe links: the page must never go public with dead buy buttons.

1. Decide the selling entity + VAT treatment (5 min, blocks Stripe). CHUG or MIA or personal? Then: Regelbesteuerung (keep the inkl. USt. labels in index.html) or Kleinunternehmer §19 UStG (swap both labels for “Gemäß §19 UStG wird keine Umsatzsteuer berechnet.” — comments in the file mark the spots). Set Stripe Tax or fixed gross prices to match. PAngV requires this before a consumer-facing price goes public.
2. Confirm or edit the cohort date (2 min). Provisional Tue, Aug 4, 2026 · 19:00 Berlin (CEST) is pre-filled in 3 places in index.html: hero note, workshop pricing card, og:/twitter: meta descriptions. Change all 3 or leave all 3.
3. Create two Stripe Payment Links (dashboard.stripe.com → Payment Links), under the entity from step 1: - “ELSTER für Ausländer — Live Workshop Seat” — €149, quantity limit 15 - “ELSTER für Ausländer — Template Pack” — €49, post-payment redirect/email → the pack download (zip templates/ to Drive after step 7’s review) Paste the URLs into the TODO(Joshua) hrefs in index.html (2 pricing-card buttons + header CTA + hero CTA).
4. Review + fill the legal pages (5 min). impressum.html and datenschutz.html are drafted; fill the highlighted brackets (street, PLZ, HRB number, VAT line A-or-B) and confirm the entity matches step 1. Footer links are already wired. No StNr anywhere — keep it that way.
5. Verifiability pack (10 min). - Drop a real headshot next to index.html and swap the placeholder src in the teacher block. - Confirm the LinkedIn URL in the teacher block (currently linkedin.com/in/joshuahaynes — TODO comment marks it). - Take ONE screenshot of an ELSTER Übertragungsprotokoll or Bescheid header, black out ALL StNr/amounts/addresses, save as proof-elster.png, and swap it into the proof-block placeholder. Optional but powerful: name one UG + link its Handelsregister entry (public record anyway). - Sanity-check the proof bullets (“multiple filing years… 0 rejected”) and tighten to exact numbers if you like.
6. Create the email-capture form (5 min). tally.so → new form → one email field → paste the form URL into the capture <form action> in index.html (TODO comment marks it; currently a working mailto: fallback). Then add the form provider to datenschutz.html (TODO comment there too).
7. Review template pack v1 (~30 min). Read the 4 docs + CSV in templates/ — built tonight from your real filing patterns, sanitized (no StNr, fictional numbers). Fix anything that smells wrong, zip to Drive for the Stripe redirect. The €49 card says “Instant download after checkout” — true once this is wired.
8. Deploy — copy index.html, free-annual-filing-sequence.html, impressum.html, datenschutz.html, og-image.png (+ headshot/proof images) into .deploy/elster/ on a normal main-branch flow. Verify page + payment links + OG preview (opengraph.xyz) on your phone. Recommended pre-deploy: have agents self-host the two fonts — remote Google Fonts is a known Abmahnung risk for German-audience sites (flagged in datenschutz.html).
9. Post per OUTREACH.md — all copy is final and copy-paste-ready: Toytown + r/germantaxes (Day 2), LinkedIn + 5 warm DMs (Day 3), r/germany value-post + Berlin Slacks + optional German r/Finanzen version (Day 4). Set the workshop link in your Reddit profile bio first.
10. Run the 7-day count per VALIDATION.md. Green light = ≥3 paid seats → tell the agents to build the deck + dummy filing.

What agents build next (post-green-light, no human needed)

• ~~Template pack v1~~ built tonight — see templates/ (v2 polish on green light: PDF layout, branded spreadsheet)
• Self-hosted fonts for the deploy folder (pre-deploy, on request)
• Slide deck + fictional “Beispiel UG” numbers for the live walkthrough
• FAQ file from thread comments, reminder-email copy, workshop follow-up post