In short and in plain language
Many people start a business next to their job. They have little time. So their website should need little care.
A small site is enough at the start. It shows what you offer. It says who you are. And it says how to reach you.
Say when people can reach you. For example: callbacks from 6 pm. You do not need to show a phone number. A form and an email address are often enough.
Your legal notice needs your address. Often this is your home. It does not need to be on the other parts of the site.
Read your work contract. Do not show anything from your employer on the site.
Picture a graphic designer who works full time at an agency during the day and takes on her own projects in the evening: logos for local clubs, flyers for the farm shop in the next village. The first inquiry comes through a recommendation, the second through a platform profile, and the third goes nowhere because the prospect calls at 11 a.m. and nobody picks up. That is what self-employment on the side looks like in many cases, and it has become the most common route into self-employment: 70 percent of all business start-ups in 2025 were side businesses, a share not reached before (KfW). That adds up to around 483,000 start-ups run alongside another occupation (KfW). Anyone who starts this way is short on two things: time and availability. This article shows what a first website for a side business looks like when it has to get by on a few hours a month, how to state after-hours contact times so that inquiries still arrive, what the legal notice requires when your home is your business address, and which points to clear with your employer beforehand.
Key takeaways
- In 2025, 70 percent of all business start-ups in Germany were side businesses, around 483,000 out of 690,000 (KfW). Anyone starting next to a job needs a website that brings in inquiries without ongoing upkeep.
- Side-business founders worked an average of 16 hours a week on their business in 2025, and half of them 10 hours or less (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). A one-page site with your offer, an about section and contact details works without a blog or news section.
- A phone number does not have to be on the website, but a second fast channel in addition to the email address does, such as a contact form (EuGH, C-298/07). Callback times such as “weekdays from 6 pm” make after-hours availability predictable.
- The legal notice states the address where you are established (§ 5 DDG), which for side businesses is often your home. In the Google Business Profile, a service area replaces the address if you do not receive customers at home.
- 59 percent of side-business founders keep their job (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). Check your employment contract, show no clients or material from your employer, and do not update the site during working hours.
- If your total turnover was no more than €25,000 in the previous year and stays at or below €100,000 in the current year, you can use the small business scheme (§ 19 UStG) and add the matching note below your prices.
Why the side business became the most common way to start
The figures come from the KfW-Gründungsmonitor, a representative population survey for which 50,000 people answered by phone or online in 2025 (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). The definition is broad: full-time and side businesses, freelance and commercial, new businesses and takeovers. In total, KfW counts around 690,000 founders for 2025, up from 585,000 the year before (KfW). Almost all of the growth comes from side businesses: around 483,000 side-business start-ups after 382,000 in 2024, while full-time start-ups barely moved at around 206,000 (KfW).
Why do so many people start a business next to their job? The dominant motive for side businesses is higher or additional income; the share naming it as the most important reason rose from 32 to 40 percent (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). Most do not give up their job for it: 59 percent of side-business founders start out hybrid, meaning they keep their employment after founding (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). That sets the frame for everything else. During the day, the founder is tied up in the main job, the own business runs in the evenings and on weekends, and the website has to fit exactly that rhythm.
Trade notifications point the same way, with a narrower definition: the Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Bonn counts 349,115 commercial side-business start-ups for 2025, excluding the liberal professions, 8.4 percent more than the year before (IfM Bonn). The IfM notes under-recording in some federal states at the end of 2024 and the start of 2025, so the year-on-year comparison should be read with caution. A side business is not the same as a side job: around 4.68 million employees had a side job in addition to their main job in 2025 (IAB). A side job is usually a second employment, whereas a side business is your own business, and it first has to find its customers.
That is exactly where the difficulty lies. Asked about their most important problem, side-business founders most often name winning customers at 22 percent, just ahead of red tape at 21 percent (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). Across all start-ups, 57 percent report difficulties winning customers (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). A website does not solve that on its own. But it makes sure that a recommendation, a business card or a search listing leads to something that answers questions before anyone picks up the phone.
Little time: a website that works without upkeep
The Gründungsmonitor measures directly how scarce time is. For side businesses, the average weekly working time spent on self-employment in 2025 was 16 hours, with a median of 10 hours; full-time founders averaged 45 hours (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). So half of all side-business founders work ten hours a week or less on their own business. Of that, an average of 3.6 hours goes to legal and regulatory requirements, with a median of 2 hours (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). What remains belongs to paid work, not to the website.
That leads to the most important requirement for the first website: it has to be finished when it goes live and must not demand weekly work afterward. Anything that needs regular feeding is out for the start: a blog, a news section, embedded social media posts, a chat window that suggests an answer within minutes. Each of these features looks good in the first month and seems abandoned by the sixth, when the latest entry is half a year old. A site with a few fixed contents, by contrast, hardly ages.
| Building block | Effort after launch | For a side business |
|---|---|---|
| Blog or news section | New posts at regular intervals, otherwise the site looks deserted | Leave it out at the start, add it later when there is time |
| Chat window | Real-time answers, including during working hours at the main job | Leave it out and use a form with a stated reply time instead |
| Embedded social media posts | Only works with regular posting and loads content from third parties | A link to the profile is enough |
| Online booking | Set the time slots once, then bookings run without phone calls | Useful when appointments are the business, with evening slots |
| Offer, about me, contact | Changes only for new services or different contact times | The core of the first website |
Online booking is the exception: it takes time once during setup and saves phone calls afterward. If you offer services with fixed appointments, such as tutoring, photo shoots or consultations, you release exactly the evening slots that are feasible next to your main job. The article on online booking shows what that looks like. Small changes such as a new service or different callback times can be handled by website maintenance if you like, instead of costing you an evening.
A date instead of “current”
A small website instead of just a profile page
Many side businesses start with a profile on a platform or a social network. That is quick to set up but does not belong to you: the operator decides on design, reach and rules, and anyone looking for you there sees your offer among others. At the same time, business is becoming more digital: 46 percent of side-business start-ups had a digital offer in 2025 that customers can only use with digital technology, compared with 41 percent of full-time start-ups (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). The article Own website, not just social media explains why your own address carries more weight next to a profile.
A small website is enough for the start, often a single one-page site with three sections. It answers the three questions a prospect asks before writing to you: What do you offer, who is behind it, and when can I reach you? The legal notice and privacy policy sit on their own small pages and are linked from everywhere. You do not need more than that to come across as professional, and you should not have less.
Your offer
What you offer, for whom and where: on site in the local area or online. Two to four services in plain language, plus examples of your work as far as you are allowed to show them.
About me
Background, qualifications and how you work. You are free to say that you work on the side: it explains your contact times and comes across as honest rather than small.
Contact
Callback times, a short form and your email address. Add one sentence on when you usually reply, plus the links to the legal notice and privacy policy.
Whether a one-page site is enough or separate pages make sense depends on the number of services and the goal of the site; the trade-offs are covered in One page or several pages. For most side businesses the answer is clear at the start, because there is one service and one goal: the inquiry. The Webstart starter website is built exactly that way: a one-page site at a fixed price, optimized for mobile, with a contact form and a set-up Google Business Profile.
Reachable after hours: state your contact times clearly
The conflict is obvious: customers call during the day, and during the day you are at your main job. Legally, the legal notice must contain details that allow fast electronic contact and direct communication, including the email address (§ 5 DDG). A phone number is not strictly part of it. In 2008, on a referral from Germany's Federal Court of Justice, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that this information does not necessarily have to include a phone number; an electronic inquiry form answered by email can also be sufficient (EuGH, C-298/07). If someone without network access explicitly asks for another channel after contacting you electronically, they have to be given one.
For side businesses, that is good news. You do not have to put your private cell phone number on the website for it to meet the requirements. What prospects still need is a reliable expectation: When will you get back to them? A sentence with fixed times comes across as more professional than a number where only the voicemail answers during the day, and it filters out the inquiries that need an answer within the hour and would not be the right fit for you anyway.
- State callback times, for example “callbacks weekdays from 6 pm, Saturday mornings”, and only list times you can actually keep next to your main job.
- Phrase a reply time as a rule: “I usually answer inquiries the following evening.” No promise you cannot keep in a busy week.
- Limit the contact form to name, contact channel and message, plus an optional field for the preferred callback window.
- Use a separate phone number for the business if you want to be reachable by phone, and record the voicemail greeting with the same callback times.
- Set up an email address at your own domain, separate from your private and your work mailbox.
Be careful with shortcuts through your employer: inquiries for your own business do not belong on the company phone or in the company mailbox, not even as a forward. An address at your own domain keeps the two worlds cleanly apart and stays in place if something changes at your main job. How few fields a form needs to get filled in is described in Contact form: more inquiries with fewer fields.
One sentence that sets expectations
Legal notice with your home address: what is required
The legal notice requires the name and the address where you are established (§ 5 DDG). If you run a side business from a desk at home, that is as a rule exactly where you are established, and your home address therefore appears publicly on the website. Corporations are the exception for side businesses: only 15 percent of side-business start-ups in 2025 took that legal form, compared with 34 percent of full-time start-ups (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). A sole proprietorship lists the owner's legal name in the legal notice, a corporation additionally its legal form and authorized representative, but the address is required in every case.
Leaving it out is not an option, because a legal notice without an address is incomplete. A post office box usually does not replace the address either, since it is not a place where you are established. A business address outside your home only works if you are actually established there and can receive mail there. The full list of mandatory details is in the article Imprint requirements: mandatory details for your website, and how the legal notice follows from your business registration documents is shown in Business registered, website missing.
What you can control is where else the address appears. It has to be in the legal notice, but not on the home page, in the contact section or in the footer of every page. The Google Business Profile follows its own rule from the provider: if you do not serve customers at your business address, you should remove the address from the profile and specify a service area instead (Google Business Profile Help). For a bike service that picks up bicycles from customers, or a tutor who visits families at home, that is the right setup; the page on the Google Business Profile explains how to set it up.
- State the address in the legal notice, not as an eye-catcher in the contact section or on the home page.
- In the Google Business Profile, show a service area instead of the address if you do not receive customers at home.
- Avoid house numbers, doorbell plates and street views in photos of your workspace.
- Add the business name to your mailbox so that letters and parcels reach the address in the legal notice.
Not legal advice
Employer, competition, working hours: points to check before launch
Because the majority of side-business founders stay employed, with 59 percent starting out hybrid (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026), it pays to read your employment contract before publishing. Many contracts include a clause on secondary activities, such as an obligation to report them. For commercial employees, the German Commercial Code states that without the employer's consent they may neither run a commercial business nor do business in the employer's line of trade on their own or someone else's account (§ 60 HGB). Civil servants are subject to their own approval rules under public service law.
The website makes your side business public and therefore visible to your employer as well. That is no reason to hide it, but it is a reason to keep the two activities cleanly apart. The following points are pointers for designing the website and do not replace a review under employment law:
- Do not show clients, projects or logos of your employer as references, not even anonymized if they remain recognizable.
- Do not use documents, templates, images or texts from your main job.
- Do not update the website during working hours or on your employer's devices.
- Do not advertise a service that competes directly with your employer until that has been cleared.
- Only name your position and employer on the about page if that has been agreed.
Talking openly beforehand often saves discussions later. If you have reported your side business and run it with clearly separate times, devices and addresses, you can link your own website with a clear conscience: on your business card, in your platform profile and in the email signature of your own business, not in your employer's.
Low turnover on the side: the small business scheme
If you start a side business with modest turnover, you can use the small business scheme. It applies if total turnover did not exceed €25,000 in the previous calendar year and does not exceed €100,000 in the current calendar year (§ 19 UStG). For the website, this means that if you list prices, you usually add a note that no VAT is charged under § 19 UStG. Business registered, website missing covers this line in detail, and what has to change in prices and invoices once you exceed the threshold is explained in Small business threshold exceeded.
The start in five steps
- Put your offer into one sentence: what, for whom, where. That sentence becomes the headline of the home page.
- Set contact times that are realistic next to your main job, and set up an email address at your own domain.
- Prepare the legal notice with name, address and email address, plus the privacy policy for the contact form.
- Write three sections: your offer, about me, contact. Choose photos of your own work, none from your main job.
- Publish the website, set up the Google Business Profile to match your location or service area, and add the link to your signature, profile and business card.
How long the website works in this form depends on whether the side business stays a side business. 21 percent of the side-business founders of 2025 planned to switch to full-time self-employment within a year (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). In the long-term average, however, only around 8 percent of a year's side-business start-ups had actually switched one year later (KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026). So the first website should be built for the evening hours, not for a full-time business that may or may not come. If the business does grow, the one-page site becomes a website with several pages; the steps for that are on the packages page.
Webstart builds the first website for a side business so that it gets by without your evenings: you supply your offer, a few sentences about yourself and your contact times, and we turn them into the starter website as a one-page site at a fixed price, create the legal notice and privacy information along with it, and set up the Google Business Profile. If you need help with the wording, you will find it under website copywriting; if you would rather not change anything yourself later, you can hand small adjustments over to website maintenance. The details for the self-employed are on the page Website for the self-employed, and Website for freelancers: an affordable professional start gives an overview of an affordable start.
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