11–20 of 324 posts
Taxes on small to medium businesses are downright confiscatory.
Most French people still see business owners as exploiters of their workers.
what does "startup nation" even mean?
Edit: Downvotes!? Israel has the most startups per capita of any nation. Look it up, not doing homework for you.
I don't know much about the startup landscape in France (or anywhere in the EU), but I've always heard that it is difficult to incorporate a small company and hire employees due to large regulatory/bureaucracy hurdles. The "move fast, break things" pattern of setting up a Delaware LLC and getting an angel seed in a matter of days/weeks really just doesn't work. Can anyone comment on this? Is this way off base?
First, you must pay a lawyer or formation agent to write and register your by-laws. Next, you must seek an introduction to a bank manager. With that secured, you get to draft a book report of a business plan. This is tedious and pointless. Once completed, the bank manager reviews it. (They will also ask for lots of personal documents, each requiring expensive notarization.) If they approve, you get a business bank account. Into this account you must deposit no less than €4,000. Unfortunately, these funds are frozen until you get your extrait Kbis. That won't happen for at least two weeks.
Now you have to buy an ad in a French newspaper. These are expensive. After a week or two, papers will arrive in the mail. You take these to the Commercial Court, where a bunch of agencies on different floors will stamp them. With those stamped papers in hand, your €4,000 will be unfrozen. (Usually. On the next business day.) Finally, you have to appoint a French accountant. They continually monitor your business and continually charge you fees. Now you can business!
Meanwhile, in Delaware, 24 hours and a few hundred dollars buys you an LLC. A bank account, set up online or in person, can get you going the next day.
Considering the Silicon Valley mantra of “hire slow, fire fast”, it will be interesting to see how things evolve in France. Will they relax their labor laws/customs, or will they find a different way for startups to grow?
1: https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-13/france-employers-reso...
Hiring and firing people in France is particularly hard. Most companies do not scale beyond 10 employees as after this threshold the regulatory burden increases dramatically. Taxes on small to medium businesses are downright confiscatory. Most French people still see business owners as exploiters of their workers.
In French culture the “boss” is traditionally considered as an asshole.
While I’m not saying there aren’t bad bosses out there, this kind of hostile culture towards management doesn’t really help anything.
Taxes are awful as well, and filing them is a pain, even for a sole trader.
what does "startup nation" even mean?
- high taxes
- a lot of buerocracy
- language burden to attract high qualified foreign employees
- lower salaries
- fragmented political system in the EU
- much lower population in France comparing to USA and if you want to cover the entire EU, you have to support many different languages, currencies, etc...
I understand why a small percentage of startups could benefit from being in San Francisco and similar and want to enjoy the ecosystem, hire people, etc. However, I have no idea why any early-stage startup would go to France and last 3 months, while with the same money they could go to Poland and enjoy the same level of support from the government, availability of highly-skilled tech people, and twice-4 times the buyi…
I have thought about setting up an office in Krakow. I've been impressed with every software developer I've worked with from Poland. But settling there has some serious political risks.
Poland seems to have the best of both worlds, with an independent currency, but otherwise inside the EU. It is worrisome that the Poles feel the desire to destroy this.
what does "startup nation" even mean?
I don't know much about the startup landscape in France (or anywhere in the EU), but I've always heard that it is difficult to incorporate a small company and hire employees due to large regulatory/bureaucracy hurdles. The "move fast, break things" pattern of setting up a Delaware LLC and getting an angel seed in a matter of days/weeks really just doesn't work. Can anyone comment on this? Is this way off base?
Recently helped a friend launch a French subsidiary. It is a pain. First, you must pay a lawyer or formation agent to write and register your by-laws. Next, you must seek an introduction to a bank manager. With that secured, you get to draft a book report of a business plan. This is tedious and pointless. Once completed, the bank manager reviews it. (They will also ask for lots of personal documents, each requiring e…
Basically, taxes are always delayed and to calculate the exact amount that you owe to the diverse government agencies, it takes an army of accountants.
Even sometimes the accountants do not know what is going on as the tax laws are always changing, sometimes at the last minutes. Meanwhile, you have sold your asset, your money is stuck in escrow for more than 6 months, you have no revenue and no money. Welcome to France!
Source: my parents sold their business in October last year and just got their money a week ago.