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The State of European Tech 2016

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Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#41

Post by matt4077 »

matt_o wrote: post #40
kuschku wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there were actual problems preventing people from creating companies. Such as the 10'000€ minimum assets that were required for an Ltd. in Germany until a few years ago. (The problem was basically: How do you handle a company going bankrupt? The legislators said that any company should always have enough assets to cover its liabilities. Obviously not compatible with the snowball-scheme based startup scene).

It's actually 25000 euros. This was somewhat fixed with the introduction of the mini-GmbH (GmbH - something like Ltd.), but a mini-GmbH comes with some extra strings attached, so it's still very far from a UK Ltd. or a US LLC in terms of ease of setting up. This is indeed an obstacle to creating a company, but there are quite a few more, all having to do with just plain ol' bureaucracy (handling monthly tax reporting…

There have always been options to start without capital requirements, usually at the price of personal liability. The idea is that you need a bit of "skin in the game" to protect vendors.

If you're in something like software and have no immediate plans for employees or large investments you can get the bureaucracy done in 30 min. It's literally a one-page form with address, name, purpose.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#42

Post by freekh »

Yeah, so this is a pr stunt. However there are many really good startup scenes here in Europe in my experience. Stockholm is one of them: "everything" in the heart and kids departments taken care of. Lots of ambition and talent. Comparatively low vagues so less burn. Lacking VCs, but the startups that have made it invest a lot here (time and money and mentoring). Compared to the craze in sf, i would say this is the perfect place to start a small and successful business. In particular in the b2b domain. So, if you can live with being well off and not insanely rich, and looking to move out of the us - you should give Stockholm a chance.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#44

Post by passiveincomelg »

lispm wrote: post #34
cyberpunk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an avg of 10k a month, then add 6% on that if you're on flat rate vat scheme. Take off 20% if you don't have a ninja accountant and with the (now sadly, over) dividend rules and such you're still looking at a pretty healthy 8-9k take home a month.. Even in london where a 2 bed 30 mins from the center is about 2k/month that's not exactly hard living is it?

As I said 500gbp/day is not much. I see a lot of IT people earning this is Germany, especially in the Devops field. With something like that you would get an average qualified person hired in, say, Munich.

That is my impression as well. My rate is currently around 445gbp/day for backend development in Berlin and it is far from being at the high end (according to a yearly survey run by gulp.de). My total monthly expenses including rent, health insurance, etc. are below 2k gbp. I do pay higher taxes though.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#45

Post by passiveincomelg »

falsedan wrote: post #33
cyberpunk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in NL a few years ago and the corp culture there was good generally. I'll never acknowledge frikandellen as fit for human consumption however.. I'm not sure about the money argument still though -- a joke? How much more money do you think your avg dev is getting paid in the US vs what we get here in Europe? A regular employee/salaried dev is looking at at least 90k euro/year in nl, which is a very very comfo…

What company in NL pays 90k for new grads?

or senior devs

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#46

Post by cplanas »

tormeh wrote: post #9
wrong_variable wrote: post #7

(cough cringe PR cough) You could create similar optimistic charts for US, China, India, etc. The EU ( 550 million ) tech industry is dwarfed by the US ( 350 million ) Looking from a higher abstract plane, EU produces the least new entrepreneurs and innovative companies compared to the beast that is US and Asia. The EU also has the most unstable political and financial system globally with entire countries on the ver…

I agree with the broad strokes of your comment, but I have some nitpicks. I think it's culture that's holding the European tech sector back. Investors in Europe are generally very risk-averse and anything that's less than 100 years old isn't really taken seriously. It's fascinating to see how the more neophile countries pull ahead of the rest; how much financial conservatism holds the economy back. When Germans inves…

> Many countries (Italy, Spain) don't have functioning stock markets at all.

Is there some kind of irony in this comment that I am not getting? I mean, both countries have fully functioning stock markets. The main index for the Spanish stock market is IBEX35 and the Italian is the FTSE MIB.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#47

Post by matt4077 »

cyberpunk wrote: post #25
jfaucett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. I live in Europe, am a part of the tech scene, and am sitting in the contitental craziness you speak of in Germany. This report is largely nonsense. It talks about "top research institutions" are in Europe, neglecting the #1,#2,#4,#5, and #6 in the world are in the USA. [1] Honestly, I have no idea why an investor would want to try to tackle this nightmare of 30+ target markets, especially when you…

Hmm. I'd really like to hear more about how you see things if you've got the time.. I'm about to exit london for .de simply because of quality of life concerns; the 1000ft view I'm holding though is I'm pretty sure I'll be able to build a crew there which will have fun working on difficult problems, and hopefully even find a reasonable amount of 'stuff' to do (surely with internet access and some good staff picks tha…

Berlin is a pretty excellent place if you're after a compromise b/w QoL and business. The tech scene is 50%+ expats and the mixture does wonders for company culture. It's also quite easy to connect with people and do freelancing, and I know many people fluidly joining and leaving different teams – doing freelancing for some, joining for equity at others, and sometimes groups form for exciting ad-hoc collaborations without an immediate profit motive.

Berlin doesn't have an much of an industrial base, though. It was an enclave during the 40 years where most of the large manufacturing companies grew and it was impossible to do so from here. Siemens, for example, moved to Munich after 1945. So it may depend on the industry you're targeting. For some (mobility, politics, web, environment) Berlin has gotten more attractive in the last years, with companies sometimes opening offices to connect with the tech scene.

Large companies are obviously more conservative, but the differences are minor compared to their international peers. Bureaucracy tends to be much less of a hassle as people make it out to be.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#48

Post by cplanas »

cyberpunk wrote: post #29
exceptione wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not what you are asking for, but as I repeatedly hear is that The Netherlands is closer to the UK with regards to the business practice. Less strict, less formal, no hierarchies. But VC isn't big in The Netherlands as well. Salaries are still a joke compared to the US.

I worked in NL a few years ago and the corp culture there was good generally. I'll never acknowledge frikandellen as fit for human consumption however.. I'm not sure about the money argument still though -- a joke? How much more money do you think your avg dev is getting paid in the US vs what we get here in Europe? A regular employee/salaried dev is looking at at least 90k euro/year in nl, which is a very very comfo…

> A regular employee/salaried dev is looking at at least 90k euro/year in nl

According Payscale, the average salary for a developer in Netherlands is 41k Euro/Year (http://www.payscale.com/research/NL/Job=Software_Engineer/Sa...), and in Amsterdam, the capital, 53k (http://www.payscale.com/research/NL/Job=Senior_Software_Engi...).

In Copenhagen and Barcelona (the two Euro cities where I have worked) 90k is totally off the market.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#49

Post by shiz »

passiveincomelg wrote: post #44
lispm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said 500gbp/day is not much. I see a lot of IT people earning this is Germany, especially in the Devops field. With something like that you would get an average qualified person hired in, say, Munich.

That is my impression as well. My rate is currently around 445gbp/day for backend development in Berlin and it is far from being at the high end (according to a yearly survey run by gulp.de). My total monthly expenses including rent, health insurance, etc. are below 2k gbp. I do pay higher taxes though.

TIL I basically work for free. But then again, I hardly do any work, so it seems to even out in the end.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#50

Post by passiveincomelg »

cyberpunk wrote: post #25
jfaucett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. I live in Europe, am a part of the tech scene, and am sitting in the contitental craziness you speak of in Germany. This report is largely nonsense. It talks about "top research institutions" are in Europe, neglecting the #1,#2,#4,#5, and #6 in the world are in the USA. [1] Honestly, I have no idea why an investor would want to try to tackle this nightmare of 30+ target markets, especially when you…

Hmm. I'd really like to hear more about how you see things if you've got the time.. I'm about to exit london for .de simply because of quality of life concerns; the 1000ft view I'm holding though is I'm pretty sure I'll be able to build a crew there which will have fun working on difficult problems, and hopefully even find a reasonable amount of 'stuff' to do (surely with internet access and some good staff picks tha…

I'm curious what this wild side is like. "letting your teams do whatever the hell they want as long as you're delivering" sounds like working remotely from a beach is common. Yet almost all job postings I see from companies in London are on site. Or does it mean I can leave work after six hours on very productive days?
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