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Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

nytimes.com

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Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#121

Post by briandear »

jedisct1 wrote: post #25
benwilber0 wrote: post #7

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?

Get a French accountant to do it for you. It costs virtually nothing, and they will take care of all the paperwork for you.

Costs virtually nothing? I had to pay an accountant almost €1500 just to set up an SAS for a small bed and breakfast business. And it took months.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#122

Post by briandear »

pwaai wrote: post #26

I actually looked into this with the local France Business startup organization. At the time, I was young (30, I am now 31) and started learning French with hopes of trying out a alternative to Anglo culture. But reality hits hard. I don't know how I would be able to adjust from living in a multicultural and laws where minorities are protected and enforced to a republic where it is not. Once you are in France, you ar…

Be lucky you don’t have an Algerian sounding name.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#123

Post by [deleted] »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #36
benwilber0 wrote: post #7

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?

speaking from italy here, but I think the experience can relate. even before getting your idea down you'll have to handle a monstrous bureaucracy. incorporating is easy given enough money but you'll need some expert to handle all the paperwork for getting your tax exemptions properly. also handling vat moss requires some specialized knowledge, which as a specialized programmer one is likely missing. hiring is quite c…

[deleted]

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#124

Post by maeln »

jdminhbg wrote: post #102
lurena wrote: post #78

I'll go ahead and be 'that guy' and say it: I don't want my country to become a startup nation. I don't want management methods and labor laws to be reformed, or modernized, or to mimic those in the US. I don't want corporation-friendly tax rates to be enacted. I don't want regulations to be lifted. There are, give or take, 65 million people in France. (Incidentally, this number is also, give or take, the amount of A…

> There are, give or take, 65 million people in France. (Incidentally, this number is also, give or take, the amount of Americans who live in the most abject poverty seen in the developed world.) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States 65 Millions is a bit exaggerated but not too far from the truth.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#125

Post by zaarn »

benwilber0 wrote: post #7

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?

In germany it has gotten a lot easier over the years.

There is the so called small entrepeneur, which costs about 25€ (depending on which commune you live in) and require relatively little paper work (taxes are a simple Profit-Costs calculation). You're also liable for stuff which some people don't like.

There is also the entrepeneur association with limited liability (also called "UG (haftungsbeschränkt)", you can't omit the word in the parens). It requires a base capital of usually 1000€ but atleast 1€. Atleast 25% of all yearly profits must be held back and added to the base capital until you reach 25k€ after which you can in future years spend the 25% otherwise, increase the base capital or convert to a regular LLC (GmbH).

Both are largely simply a case of "walk into your local people record office (Meldeamt) and deposit whatever money necessary" until you can do business. (And of course filing taxes)

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#126

Post by AmericanChopper »

jackvalentine wrote: post #115
AmericanChopper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment sounds a lot like hyperbole to me. People have a seat at the table, that’s how democracy works. People also have an incredible amount of entitlements and protection in the labor market. The labor laws in the west are generally quite good, most of the reasonable criticism you could direct at them comes down to enforcement. If you have a problem with them, then participate in your democracy. In economies w…

> In economies where minimum entitlements are sufficient to protect workers from exploitation, unions serve no useful purpose at all They serve the purpose of making sure workers get their legal entitlements. For example, Unions right in Australia are tackling the problem of underpayment of legally mandated wages “wage theft” and have succeeded in getting a state government to adopt as policy the treatment of deliber…

>most of the reasonable criticism you could direct at them comes down to enforcement

Sounds like you agree with me. In a democracy, unions are just about the least efficient way you could possibly address inadequate enforcement of labor laws. If all you want is a workers lobby group, then why do you think the best way to achieve that is with organisations that exploit people with collective bargaining agreements, and enforce a tyranny where nobody can be fired? Want to know why it’s so impossible to fire a corrupt cop? Unions. Want to know why incompetent teachers can last a whole career defrauding our children? Unions.

There’s no rational connection between wanting to better enforce labor laws that are already on the books and wanting unions. Democracies offer many far superior ways to address such issues.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#127

Post by geezerjay »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #103
geezerjay wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unions are not necessary at all in any country that has decent and enforced labor laws. You clealy have no idea about what you're saying. For your comment to make any sense you need to believe that any worker acting exclusively by himself has the resources to enforce those laws agains any company and suffer no repercussion during the process. This idea is utterly absurd. Meanwhile, unions do offer specialized legal…

>you need to believe that any worker acting exclusively by himself has the resources to enforce those laws Yes because that’s how laws work, it’s up to the individual to enforce them... Literally no laws work this way.

> Yes because that’s how laws work

Again, you clearly have no idea about what you're talking about. It's quite obvious that a law means nothing if you have no way to enforce it or if there are serious repercussions if you try. The moment a lone employee acting alone creates a problem for his immediate supervisors or higher ups, he singles himself out as a target. In jurisdictions that follow an at-will employment doctrine, where any employee can be immediately fired without any justification, then any employee that raises any problem to the company's managers can be fired just for being a nuisance.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#128

Post by fermigier »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13
benwilber0 wrote: post #7

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…

1. No need for a lawyer to draft the bylaws, you can copy-paste from various resources.

2. The newspaper ad thing still exists, is a reminiscence of the past but only adds 100 euros or something to the overall cost.

3. "Into this account you must deposit no less than €4,000." = probably if your company's capital is $4000. You can start with 1 euro of capital if you wish (but that's probably not the greatest idea).

4. Overall, the easiest way is to first find a good accountant, and let them deal with the administrative side of things for ~1000 euros or less. If you do everything by yourself, you're probably good with 250-300 euros of expenses.

See https://www.service-public.fr/professionnels-entreprises/vos...

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#129

Post by briandear »

desu_ wrote: post #80
zenovision wrote: post #17

I doubt that France will be able to do this - they have many disadvantages comparing to USA: - 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...

As a French, it saddens me a bit to say that but you also missed one point: culture. My background includes some grad school experience at a top French university and then at a top US university. One big difference, which became even more obvious to me after I crossed the Atlantic, is that there is (almost) no hustle culture in France. Make fun of the stupid apps and the copycats but so many undergrads at my American…

In short: it’s indefinite pessimism vs the definite and indefinite optimism of the US. See Peter Thiel’s book Zero to One for more details of this theory.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#130

Post by briandear »

jedisct1 wrote: post #34
zenovision wrote: post #17

I doubt that France will be able to do this - they have many disadvantages comparing to USA: - 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...

Bureaucracy... not so much. Things have been drastically simplified.

Until you deal with a bank.

Simplified is very relative. Also, while there might be slightly less paper, attitudes are the same.

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