A manifesto for taking over
Germany has a founder problem, and it is not a shortage of founders.
Succession doesn't mean continuing to run someone else's company. It means using an existing base to build your own company, ready for future generations.
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114,000
KfW counts around 114,000 small and mid-sized firms a year planning to close rather than hand over, to 2029. For the first time, closure planners slightly outnumber those looking for a successor. That is not a market. That is a waste.
The manifesto
Taking over is founding.
We only count the founders who start from zero. Every year, good companies with real customers, real people and real cash flow close their doors. Not because they failed. Because nobody took them over.
A Succession Founder takes over an owner-led company and builds it. The company already exists. The work doesn't. You inherit a balance sheet, a reputation and a team that is watching you. Then you decide what this company becomes next.
Succession doesn't mean continuing to run someone else's company. It means using an existing base to build your own, ready for future generations.
What we are against
The caretaker myth.
“Nachfolger” sounds like someone who keeps the lights on and doesn't touch the furniture. That image keeps ambitious people away and keeps owners waiting for a saint.
Broken succession exchanges.
Listings full of firms whose owners already gave up, priced on hope, browsed by buyers who never call. The best companies are never on them.
Handovers that fail quietly.
The owner who starts too late. The family path nobody wanted. The buyer who priced a spreadsheet instead of a business. Each ends the same way: a good firm, closed.
What we believe
- 1Taking over is founding. Same risk, same ownership, same right to change everything.
- 2A company that works deserves a next chapter, not a liquidation.
- 3Owners are not sellers. They are people deciding what happens to their life's work and their staff. Treat them that way.
- 4Succession is an operating project, not a last-year scramble. Start years early.
- 5Price the business you can actually run, not the one in the sales deck.
- 6Respect what was built. Then change what needs changing.
- 7Discretion is not a nice-to-have. It is the entry ticket.
- 8Germany does not need fewer startups. It needs more people who take over.
Call yourself a Succession Founder. Then let's go build.
— Vincent Hendricks, third-generation owner, Hendricks Group
For buyers
01
Succession Founders
You want to build something, but not from zero. You'd rather take over a company with customers, people and cash flow, and make it yours. Find peers who've done it, deals worth your time, and owners who are ready to talk.
Join as a buyer →For owners
02
Owners
You built something that matters, and you want to know what happens to it and your people after you. Start early, quietly and on your terms. Nothing here is public, and nothing is shared without your say.
Take the confidential check →For Steuerberater, banks, chambers
03
Advisors
You sit with owners years before any listing exists. Help them find a successor who builds rather than liquidates, and bring them into a circle that treats discretion as the rule.
Join as an advisor →For owners · confidential
How ready is your company for what comes after you?
Eight questions, two minutes. You get a readiness score and an honest note on what to work on first.
Discretion first. No name, no company name required. Your answers are never published, never sold and never shown to buyers. Leave an email only if you want a private conversation with Vincent.
Who's behind this
Vincent Hendricks
Third-generation owner, Hendricks Group, Neuss
In 1972, my grandfather Eduard founded Hendricks Internationale Spedition in Neuss. Two years later came the first Hendricks truck. Over five decades, that one-truck start grew into a logistics and automotive services group: customs, warehousing, transport, fulfillment, and wheel assembly for carmakers.
I didn't grow up planning to take over. I went into corporate and climbed the ladder like you're supposed to. Somewhere on the way up, I realized the thing I was looking for was already there: a family business with real customers, real people and fifty years of trust. Not something to inherit and keep tidy. Something I could make my own.
I took over at 27.
Here's what I learned: succession doesn't mean continuing to run someone else's company. It means using an existing base to build your own company, ready for future generations.
Succession Founder is where I write about that, and where people who take over companies, and the owners who hand them over, find each other.
The Succession Founder Circle
Get in early.
A closed circle for buyers, owners and advisors: dinners, deal flow and people who have done it. Invitations go out in waves.