When I first moved to Germany, I expected challenges—language barriers, bureaucracy, adjusting to a new culture. What I didn’t expect was the mountain of paper that would slowly take over my life.
Over the last six years, I’ve accumulated hundreds, maybe thousands, of documents: letters, invoices, official notices, and forms I wasn’t allowed to throw away. Think of the internet invoices you need to keep for next year’s tax return, electricity bills, the phone contract with the all-important PUK number, or the Zusatzblatt, that blue-green sheet that must always accompany your residence permit.
Every expat and immigrant I’ve talked to shares the same frustration:
Why do we have to carry and store so many physical documents?
Moving apartments becomes a logistical operation because of binders full of paperwork we’re afraid to lose.
My coping mechanism: A Cannon scanner to the rescue
At some point, as a coping mechanism, I bought a scanner.
If an official office requested a document, I had a routine:
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Go to my paper archive.
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Dig through piles of documents to find the right one.
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Rush to the scanner.
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Scan.
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Email.
It wasn’t elegant, but it worked barely..
The process was slow, painful, and left me constantly asking the same question:
Why isn’t there a better way to manage all this?
The realization
One day it clicked. I’d spent years complaining about paperwork with others, wishing things would magically improve. But change doesn’t appear out of nowhere.
If something can be better… why not be the person to make it better?
Complaints weren’t solving anything. Action could.
Searching for a solution and building one
That moment sparked the idea for DigitalKeep—a simple way to finally take control of documents instead of being buried by them.
A place where you can:
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Scan documents quickly
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Store them safely where you want
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Organize them logically
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Share them easily
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And most importantly… keep them wherever you choose
Whether that’s your iCloud, Google Drive, or just your phone’s local storage, your documents stay exactly where you want them.
What comes next
Right now, we’re sharing early ideas and prototypes, gathering feedback, and talking to people who face the same daily frustrations. The goal is simple:
Build something that genuinely solves the problem we’ve all been living with.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by paperwork in Germany (or anywhere, really), I’d love to hear your experiences and what your ideal solution would look like.
Sign up for beta here to co-build this with us.
Together, maybe we can finally put an end to drowning in paper.