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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?

#241

Post by jchampem »

dest wrote: post #136
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My experience is not as painful as yours, but I do not know the Delaware process. I incorporated a "SAS" in France with the help of an online accounting service. It cost 500€ in fees, required a few hours of paperwork and the company was ready 2 weeks afterwards (KBis, bank account…). Now I pay 90€ / mo for the accounting service, and 10€ / mo for the (online-only) bank account. That's it. Note that you do business a…

May I ask what is that online accounting service?

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

#242

Post by repsilat »

walshemj wrote: post #207
repsilat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy excluded middle, Batman :-). Most of the US[1] are in "at will" employment states, in which individuals can be fired without cause. This is probably what the grandparent was comparing France's law to. The WARN act probably doesn't bear a great deal on the US's place as a "startup nation"... 1: by area, population or state count, including California but excluding New York

I think your missing the point you can get fired for gross misconduct quickly even in states in the EU with stronger employment laws. If at will makes it so easy why are US employers including startups terrified of firing people - look at all this obsession with not making a bad hire if it was truly easy to fire this would not be the case.

> terrified of firing

They aren't. From experience, startups have no problem firing people for simply not being exceptional.

Startups are worried about wasting time, though -- the cost of a bad hire is taking longer to get someone good to do the job, because it's going to take time to realise they aren't performing, and it's going to take time to do the search again.

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

#243

Post by tajen »

nopless wrote: post #104

I am curious about the real number of founders in this thread? It seems that most of the replies are focused on system criticism… and it's a completely false statement. Creating a startup in France is really easy to do if you do it well. Take an accountant and he will handle almost everything for you, from the creation to the run. Man Power is cheap compare to the USA. The only limitation seems to be the motivation……

Well, I’m a founder... French paperwork is incredibly stupid (beyond any necessary explanation), and, for no employee, I pay my accountant 2800€ to handle said paperwork.

Second, tax deduction and grants... There are full companies whose job is to get grants for others. But if you don’t know the right law or the right grant, you pay the higher tax. I’ve lost at least 150.000€ with that on my first 8 years, although I did have an accountant to advise me on this, which means I struggle on my first employee.

Last, the marxist culture. As long as you earn money, you’re assumed to be an asshole, so you constantly have to remind people how much donations you make and how much you’ve worked to earn the right to earn your own money. It’s quite unhealthy to say the least. For 100k€, I give 63k€ to accountant and various taxes, donate ~1k in money in average (and 1% products) and participate to local education. Yeah, I’m flagged as a selfish guy by outsiders (not interns, my interns love their job, my internships are way above average).

Besides, Macron said there are too many white males in IT, so you’re welcome to leave. Just to set the expectations.

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

#244

Post by [deleted] »

nopless wrote: post #104

I am curious about the real number of founders in this thread? It seems that most of the replies are focused on system criticism… and it's a completely false statement. Creating a startup in France is really easy to do if you do it well. Take an accountant and he will handle almost everything for you, from the creation to the run. Man Power is cheap compare to the USA. The only limitation seems to be the motivation……

[deleted]

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

#245

Post by JPLeRouzic »

kolp wrote: post #135

My experience as an anglophone, non-French entrepreneur living in France is that the regulations and business climate reflect the belief system of the population. There is a fairly widespread acceptance, even among well educated French people, in several of the following beliefs: - Companies are exploitative of their workforce and should be strongly regulated to protect workers; - Excess company profits are a sign of…

I am French, but what you wrote is exactly how I feel the French mindset is. Thanks for writing it.

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

#246

Post by varjag »

richardknop wrote: post #77
jbronn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abuse of the workforce didn't start in 1940 and end in 1979. Some labor innovations you may enjoy: - Weekends (40 hour week) - Minimum wage - No child labor - Workers compensation - Not being massacred by your employer¹ Don't be so glib about the necessity of unions -- the Fair Labor Standards Act was written with blood. ¹ See, e.g. , the Ludlow Massacre, the Thibodaux Massacre, Battle of Blair Mountain.

The 40 hour week is still not guaranteed. Especially in startup environment overtimes are quite common. In US more so than in Europe, you can easily be pulling 50h+ in a startup with all that overtime not paid for. So it's not like we don't need unions anymore.

On the other hand pulling 50h+ on a shoestring budget is exactly how many startups grew into successes we know today. If that's problematic, one shouldn't work at a startup: it's part of risk-reward equation.

But some want the potential (low probability but out-sized) upside at no risk and strain.

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

#247

Post by Pandabob »

systemtest wrote: post #231
noir_lord wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the UK (not France) and I make ~3050EUR a month (pre tax), I take home after tax ~2400EUR. I've been making money from selling code since 1996 and a full time developer over a decade. While my salary would be low in London (I'd be worth at least another 10-15K down there) in the North of England and particularly where I live that gives me an excellent standard of living, rent on a decent sized two bed is US Sa…

I am a contractor in the Netherlands and I believe it is the best possible place for a developer. We have a very high quality of life and a good balance in income and spending. As a contractor you can earn near 20k per month pre-tax (around 7k per month post-tax) and live in a big home that costs you 1k per month in mortgage. That leaves you a lot of money for your spare time, fun activities and early retirement. I'm…

Is this for real? I mean is this common? That's €240k, which is starting to near SF levels of pay. I've got a hard time believing this but will look into it more thoroughly. As a data scientist in Finland, I've been under the impression that the best places for a developer in terms of compensation in Europe are Switzerland, Norway and London (if one gets a good contracting gig there).

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

#248

Post by mayniac »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #66
jbronn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abuse of the workforce didn't start in 1940 and end in 1979. Some labor innovations you may enjoy: - Weekends (40 hour week) - Minimum wage - No child labor - Workers compensation - Not being massacred by your employer¹ Don't be so glib about the necessity of unions -- the Fair Labor Standards Act was written with blood. ¹ See, e.g. , the Ludlow Massacre, the Thibodaux Massacre, Battle of Blair Mountain.

I'm not anti-union per se, but I am familiar with the economics literature, and the 40-hour work week, minimum wage, and lack of child labor are artifacts of economic development. People don't want their kids to have to work, so when societies become wealthy enough that they don't have to, they stop sending their kids to work, and around that time manage to also ban child labor (which has little effect at this point…

>the 40-hour work week, minimum wage, and lack of child labor are artifacts of economic development

The economy hasn't stopped developing however. 80 hour work weeks at the factory have been replaced with 40 hour weeks with 20 hours of unpaid overtime. Child labour has been replaced with unpaid internships. Minimum wage often doesn't match increases in inflation and cost of living, not to mention regional changes in cost of living.

Also productivity has practically doubled in the UK since 1980, yet labour laws have largely stayed the same. It could be time to implement 32 hour weeks, or ban unpaid overtime, or raise the minimum wage. All of these require strong unions IMO.

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

#249

Post by aloisdg »

systemtest wrote: post #199
pilooch wrote: post #41

I run a machine learning company in France. Call it a startup or not, doesn't matter. Most of what I read in the comments here is not exactly true nor relies on statistics (sound like my story is...). For companies acting within the science or innovative space, France is a haven. CIR is a tax return that covers 30% of R&D personnel, JEI is a status that halves the taxes on personnel for 8 years, and nullifies gov tax…

The best thing is that you can get away with paying a good software developer only €2500 per month. You can get four French developers for the price of one American.

Young french developer here (1 year experience). I earn 45k€ (52k$) per year "good software developer only €2500 per month" is a bad joke you should not tell.

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

#250

Post by systemtest »

Pandabob wrote: post #247
systemtest wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a contractor in the Netherlands and I believe it is the best possible place for a developer. We have a very high quality of life and a good balance in income and spending. As a contractor you can earn near 20k per month pre-tax (around 7k per month post-tax) and live in a big home that costs you 1k per month in mortgage. That leaves you a lot of money for your spare time, fun activities and early retirement. I'm…

Is this for real? I mean is this common? That's €240k, which is starting to near SF levels of pay. I've got a hard time believing this but will look into it more thoroughly. As a data scientist in Finland, I've been under the impression that the best places for a developer in terms of compensation in Europe are Switzerland, Norway and London (if one gets a good contracting gig there).

Hourly contractor, so you don't get any of the social safety net, you have to arrange your own pension, no pay on holiday, no sick days, no company car, no company laptop. You have to take care of all that yourself.

A little calculation for your average senior developer in a corporate for-profit environment. On average you can do about 1850 billable hours a year, which means you are taking 7 weeks off for holiday, illness, courses, certifications. At an average rate of 90 euro per hour, that is €166,500 per year. With VAT added you can bill the customer €201,465 per year.

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