2026-09-03
First 90 days: program, community, or grant
Pick one primary bet for the first 90 days. Choose a community if you still cannot name the customer. Choose a program if you have a customer and need a structured week plus introductions. Choose a grant if you can name the milestone the cash buys and you can stand the paperwork. Haus currently lists 310 programs and 318 communities, and almost every program is marked equity-free. Free still costs calendar, and stacking all three in month one is how teams get busy and stay pre-revenue.
Community when the customer is still unclear
If you would be embarrassed to say the customer out loud, you do not need a cohort yet. You need a room with cadence. Student clubs, Impact Hubs, and city Stammtische exist so you can test the sentence on other founders. A program application written from fantasy customers will waste the weeks you spend on it. The communities directory is the index for those rooms.
The practical test is whether you would bring a half-baked problem to the next meeting. If the only community you found is a LinkedIn group, you have not started. Look for a weekday, a room, and people who return when they do not have a company yet. That is enough infrastructure for the first 90 days. You can always apply to a batch once the sentence holds.
A program when the week needs a spine
Join an accelerator or incubator when you can already show a stranger a demo, a hospital contact, or a logistics pain. SpinLab in Leipzig is explicit: no equity, no fees, and up to €50,000 if accepted. TechQuartier sells free programs that exist to put you in front of corporates. STARTUP AUTOBAHN is two cycles a year built around corporate pilots. Those are different machines, and you should read the page. If the official site has gone advisory, as Accelerator Frankfurt has, do not apply to a batch that may no longer exist.
Time is the fee even at 0 percent. A 12-month medtech track that wants €21,400 of your own capital, medical:forge’s published number, is a program, and a Monday-night bootcamp is also a program. A logo on a deck without those hours is decoration. Check the open applications hub for a live window, then decide whether the weeks buy a prototype, a first hire, or a reference you can leave with.
A grant when the cash has a job
EXIST is federal science-to-business money. The official first step is always the Gründungsnetzwerk at a university or research institute. exist Women is the early on-ramp for women in those institutions: up to ten months of qualification, €2,000 in Sachmittel, and an optional three-month stipend from €1,000 to €3,000 depending on status, plus €150 per child. You apply through the Hochschule. Haus lists one program typed as Grant: IFB Inno Founder in Hamburg, with a €2,500 monthly flat per person, 18 months max, €75,000 per team or €45,000 for a solo founder, and a Hamburg-area innovative model. That city product is written for a Hamburg-area company.
Apply when expected value beats expected weeks. If you cannot name the milestone, a prototype, a first hire, or an MDR file, the application is probably early. SMILE and dresden|exists exist specifically to help you file EXIST and Sachsen instruments. Use the office hours. Almost every Haus program is still equity-free, including these grant-shaped rooms, and the paperwork is the real cost.