The business plan for the viability review.

Who counts as an expert body.

The law asks for the statement of a fachkundige Stellean expert body competent to judge a business plan. The agency’s rules list them: the chambers of commerce (Industrie- und HandelskammerIHK, the chamber of industry and commerce), the chambers of crafts (HandwerkskammerHWK), the professional chambers for regulated professions, trade associations, and banks. The list says “in particular”, so other competent bodies can qualify, but these are the safe choices. For a consulting or freelance business, the IHK is the usual door; for a trade, the HWK.

You pay for the statement yourself; the rules say so explicitly. Chambers often issue it at a modest fee, banks usually only for customers.

The four documents.

The expert body does not judge an idea. It judges a file. The agency’s rules name four pieces that must back the statement, and a complete file is most of the work.

1. The business plan. A description of the venture: what you sell, to whom, how you reach them, who competes, why they choose you, and how you will run it.

2. Your CV, with the qualifications. The reviewer wants to see that you can do what the plan says. Add certificates where the trade requires them.

3. Capital requirement and financing plan. What you need to start and to survive the first months, and where it comes from: savings, the grant, a loan.

4. Revenue and profitability forecast. Monthly for the first year, then yearly: sales, costs, what is left, and from when it covers your living.

The program covers the four in the order they depend on each other. Validation feeds the business model, the model feeds the financial plan, and the financial plan feeds the plan text. Written the other way round, the numbers tend not to hold.

What viable means.

The rules define the test in one sentence: the business must, in perspective, offer a sufficient living for you and the dependants you support. Two consequences follow.

• Full-time, not a side business. The business must end your unemployment, which the rules translate into at least 15 hours a week, and it must be your main occupation: if you spend more hours in other jobs than in the business, it does not qualify.
• Numbers that carry you. The reviewer reads the profitability forecast against your cost of living. A plan that shows a loss for two years and no path to covering you will not get the statement, however good the idea.

The agency, in turn, does not second-guess the expert body. Its rules say the statement is the basis for the decision and its competence is not to be doubted; only with substantiated doubts may the agency involve a second body. In practice this means the statement is the decisive document, and the grant decision then turns on the other requirements and on discretion.

Timing.

1. While on benefit

   Validate and write

   Customer conversations first, then model, numbers and text. Founder coaching through an AVGS can be funded for this.

2. File complete

   Expert body

   Hand in the four documents. Chambers usually answer within a few weeks; some offer a conversation first.

3. 150+ days left

   Apply

   The statement, the plan and the application go to the Arbeitsagentur before you start the business.

4. Decision

   Start

   The agency decides. If approved, phase one of the grant begins on day one of the business.

Count backwards from the 150-day line in your Bescheidthe benefit decision letter. The expert body’s turnaround is the part people forget; ask them for their current timing before you plan the application date. And one rule from the same leaflet: while a Sperrzeita block without benefit runs, the grant is not paid. If you quit your job, read Quit or wait first.

A plan that holds up.

The reviewers see hundreds of plans. The ones that pass share three things: numbers that come from conversations with real customers rather than from a market report; a founder whose CV matches the plan; and a first year that is honest about how slowly revenue starts. Writing those three things down well is what the twelve weeks of the Funded Founder Program are for.