Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

Nobody in Europe is truly poor like they are in America. Most places in the States, one is lucky if one earns $40 to $55 k per year, and that's barely enough to make ends meet (been there, done that, got the T-shirt), especially for young people starting out like I was decades prior. Had to watch every dollar on that kind of a salary with home and car mortgages (like most Americans). If I had $200 - $300 left at the end of the month after paying everything, I considered myself lucky and hoped no unforeseen expense incident would take place. And that's true for most people in IT in the States. My buddy who rubbed elbows with me sitting at lectures at the university and has the same exact degree as me is earning around $55 k after more than 25 years in the industry, and his salary is above average compared to what the rest of the people earn.

The US is a single body with a unified strategy to developing the tech sector?

What are you thinking of here exactly?

I honestly don't know why you got down-voted for this: I can confirm from first hand experience that everything you wrote is a fact. This place often makes no sense whatsoever in what is considered good or bad.

Who cares? Why does this article assume that giant corporations like fb and Google are even desired? For everyone but their founders, they are a cancer to society. Europe's cultural barriers are a net positive, preventing these cancers from growing and spreading. It makes it a better place to live for everyone. It's such an American centric point of view to want big companies, almost always monopolies, to thrive at the expense of everyone else. Europe does tech just fine. Maybe the question is why can't America control its cancerous companies? Now that is an interesting topic.

I'll probably get Uber down voted for this, but this is my experience from the last 2 years in preparing to get a startup of the ground.

Here's some relevant data points:

1) I have contacted over 400 service providers in multiple sectors to provide services to the startup.

* Yes that's not a typo. 400 companies have been emailed, then called. I don't mind picking up the phone and talking to someone.

2) Of the 12 service providers that were selected, only 1 company is from the UK. All others are from the US.

3) All of the EU companies that were contacted, I later found out were either:-

- Lacking in terms of functionality compared to the US competitors.

- Had no roadmaps or no visibility of when they would reach parity with US competitors.

- Were much more expensive than US competitors.

- Many EU companies had no US focus and more focused in EU, ME and Africa.

4) Of the US companies that I selected. I had interacted initially with the EU offices. Being in the UK, their systems always forwarded the contact form to the EU/UK office.

The sales individuals located in the EU office were always SUB PAR!

- They didn't know their product as well as they could have.

- Simply made up bullshit in order to backup their claim that the functionality that I required was not possible. Even though I knew it was.

- As soon as they realised that I was a startup, they were not interested in the sales lead.

- In some circumstances, I knew the industry, regulatory issues and their competitors better than they did.

- One further point. I remember contacting Skrill's London office and then speaking to an Italian woman and her shouting at me with respect to their functionality. She didn't know the product and was telling me that a certain feature was not available. The more I described to her that it was possible. The louder she got. Despite it being on their website.

- I have many emails from UK/EU individuals informing me that they can't do [functionality X] because of regulations/etc. However, other companies were able to do it perfectly fine. Again, this boils down to the employees of the company not knowing their product/industry.

- I won't mention who said this. It's a well known US service provider to SaaS companies. When I was speaking to a UK sales manager. I outlined what the startup was doing. The sales person informed me that there would be NO WAY that I would be able to get my first 100 users. To quote him: "You won't get 100 users". Needless to say, the conversation didn't last long.

5) What's worse than all this? Every single German company that I have spoken to were not startup friendly in the least. In fact, every single German company would tell me that I had no chance of success and that I should go and do something else.

Here's a typical exchange:

Me: Hi, I am interested in your product offering and would like to know if [X functionality] is available and what you pricing is.

Them: What is your current turnover.

Me: I'm a startup.

Them: Please come back to us when you are doing 7 figures a year. Good bye!

6) The difference with US companies.

- Knew the product inside and out. Knew their competitors and could inform me how they were better than [competitor X].

- In many circumstances. Once I had spoken to the initial sales employee or they had read my email and PDF attachment of the startup. I was immediately forwarded to the Sales VP and they wanted my business. Instead of pitching my startup to the service provider. They were pitching their company to me.

- In many circumstances, there was a program to help startups get off the ground. There would always be a requirement to be part of an accelerator or be VC backed. In my case, this was always waived.

- A few times, the sales employee commented that this was obviously a "billion dollar" startup and that they wanted to be part of it. That is, be a partner service provider. The more revenue that I generated, the more they would generate as well!

- In all cases, they were startup friendly. Being a startup with 0 in revenue and 0 sales and months away from launch. No problem in discussing their product with me.

- In some cases, where a service provider could not help. Due to missing functionality or regulatory issue. Would even forward me to a contact in a competitor that could help!

- In a couple of times. Would even offer their own development team to build some tech that I mentioned I was having issues with. For FREE! Gratis! Of course, I always declined, but I thought was very nice of them.

There's probably more positive items, but I can't think of more right now.

The bottom line is. I now only deal with US companies and when I send an email out. I always append the preference to deal with US sales teams.

The outlook and behavior of US companies is vastly different than EU companies:

- More positive outlook.

- More willing to work with startups.

- Acknowledge that, the better the client does, the more revenue they will earn. (yes this point is lost with EU companies)

Disclaimer: I'm a solo technical founder. I'm bootstrapping the company with just $1,000 (on purpose). I am not getting any FFF funding nor any VC funding as well.