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Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

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Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#91

Post by patio11 »

basugasubaku wrote: post #55
patio11 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the big things we did at the tech incubator is tell people how easy it is to start a company -- there isn't a significantly higher paperwork burden or capital requirement these days than there is for a US LLC. (That did not used to be true.) The problem is that this has not hit the mainstream in terms of cultural acceptance yet. I knew this and I was absolutely amazed by the amount of time it took to get my he…

How does one get a visa to be in Japan if they intend to start a company there? It would appear to be difficult to get a visa if you are not already profitable, correct?

Talk to me privately for specifics. Short version: getting a visa is hard, renewing one is easy if you are as profitable as your previous employment. The easy paths go through native megacorps.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#92

Post by borism »

known wrote: post #86
reitzensteinm wrote: post #47

Starting a company in New Zealand was pleasantly surprising. First you sign up for an account at http://companies.govt.nz , then you use the web app (which worked fine with Opera) to fill in the details about your new company. Consent forms are emailed to you, which you fill out, scan in and upload. A few hours later, after being reviewed by a human, your company is formed and your certificate of incoproration is ema…

Wondering why remaining nations fail to emulate NZ.

They're not so remote from everywhere so they don't need to?

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#93

Post by mahmud »

borism wrote: post #75
mahmud wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain? The "S" in PIIGS? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_%28economics%29

Italy? The "I" in PIIGS?

It doesn't follow from what's written that either of us, the parent and me, advocated for Italy's presence in the G8. So ..

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#94

Post by lemming »

lemming wrote: post #82
auxbuss wrote: post #17

Well, that put numbers around my recent decision to return from Spain to the UK. I love Spain to bits, but doing business there, legally, is utterly impossible even when fluent in the language. It's very easy to do business there illegally and cheap, if that's your thing.

It's not impossible, but it is a gigantic pain in the ass. We contracted a law

I'm not sure why I can't seem to edit my previous comment, or what happened to it.

We contracted a law firm specialising in foreigners running companies here in Spain. They're really good, but the amount of running around I have to do is still huge and some things really are impossible (e.g. getting a foreign contract talking about monetary amounts notarised). I would certainly never incorporate here by choice.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#95

Post by kirvyteo »

hga wrote: post #88
kirvyteo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you bother about chewing gum and having cannabis if you are looking for a place to start or run a business? Doesn't factors like low corruption, safety or market size matters more?

"Disneyland with the death penalty" may be a unique selling proposition but I well believe it when metamemetics says it's bad at "attracting young international people looking to do startups". There's a lot more than that, e.g. you have to be careful about what you write and perhaps say about the government.

That is being paranoid. I don't understand the downvoting. Is US a "Disneyland with guns" then? How many people have been killed by guns versus death penalty in Singapore? (Before you downvote me again, hear me out)

I live here. I see lots of curses in facebook and websites about the government and I mean really really mean curses, personal attacks and so on. I complain lots about the government. And to clarify, there is a line which you don't cross, which is the religious line and accusing the govt of corruption without proof. It is rather simple.

I don't really see how young people doing startups care about that? Just respect your neighbours and their religion, is it hard to do? If you have proof that someone is corrupted, just report it. (Btw, some govt guy just got charged for a huge corruption case.) Having a death penalty doesn't mean the whole country is one brainwashed crazed population looking to execute anyone. In fact there are so many foreigners here at any startup event that the locals are beginning to seem like the minority.

Yes, this small place(market) has lots of problems and it is definitely not disneyland. But to say it is a bad place just because of death penalty or lack of freedom to insult other religion is just ridiculous. Just look beyond political nonsense and journalistic opinions.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#96

Post by noss »

eru wrote: post #57
lionhearted wrote: post #21

Not sure how accurate this list is. Thailand, for instance, requires all businesses to have at least 51% Thai ownership, and I've heard Thai courts are fairly heavily biased towards locals over foreigners. Foreigners can skirt around this a little bit by having 10+ Thai silent partners in different parts of the country that don't know each other who collect a dividend or payment each year without active involvement,…

Those table rankings do have some influence. Germany cleaned up its act partly because of them. E.g. you used to need 10.000 Euro in capital for a limited liability company (a German invention of the 19th century be the way), but they reduced that requirement to 1 Euro plus the need to re-invest a certain part of profits until you reach 10.000 Euro.

Sweden had a similar amount, but it was only lowered to about 5000€.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#97

Post by jsolson »

apotheon wrote: post #49
jsolson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I set up a Georgia LLC in the course of an afternoon. State registration, federal EIN, bank account. Income for the LLC is treated as personal income for me (it's a single member LLC that's disregarded by the IRS), so even taxes aren't that complicated. Perhaps I'm doing something very wrong or very illegal, but nothing I've read seems to suggest that. What did you find to be so much more painful?

In my area, it takes no fewer than three different licenses just to set up a consultancy that doesn't even sell products (pure service oriented business) -- and that doesn't address any of the issues aside from licensure (tax ID, ensuring your business name is not a trademark infringement, et cetera). The worst thing about it, though, is not the complexity of it. The worst thing about it is that, because one has to c…

I agree that there is a difference. On the other hand, once you have the business legally established (the easy part), you can conduct business as that entity. You might piss off the government and the liable for fees/penalties, but you're not going to invalidate the actions of the business by doing that.

Perhaps I'm just being naïve, but I figure if the rules are difficult for me to find it's also fairly unlikely that I'll get caught for not following them. Or, I suppose, I feel like by the time it becomes a serious risk I'll have grown to the point where lawyers become a necessity anyway.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#98

Post by jlees »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #72
jlees wrote: post #56

Really surprised that the UK ranks 16th on 'Starting a Business' and the US ranks 8th. From what I know, it takes a lot longer, costs more, and tends to involve actual lawyers to open a business in the US. In the UK, I did it all online for £25.

Where do you "know" this from? Starting a business is dead simple in the US. Create a Delaware class-C corporation, or one in the state you live in if you prefer (in my case, in the state of Washington, it was just a few online forms and a nominal fee).

Belated reply, my knowledge for the US side is from threads on HN, which have greatly exaggerated the process if it's true that you can do it all online in a few minutes.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#99

Post by apotheon »

loewenskind wrote: post #70
apotheon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy and Germany have their (recent) roots in fascism. France has its in . . . well. I'm not going to go there. Note that the UK produced Adam Smith and, to a nontrivial degree, the US, and Canada. The culture and early government of the US in particular was notably influenced by the ideas of Adam Smith as well. What Smith called "economic individualism" is pretty much the foundation of a strong economy, and to the…

The common connection between companies that don't do so well is corruption, not previous government choices. As far as following Adam Smith's works, the economy the US has is a caricature of Smith's ideas (e.g. Smith was anti-monopoly).

1. Do you think that the form of a government does not affect its tendency toward corruption?

2. Note that I was talking about Smith's influence on early US government. The nation has obviously strayed from that quite a lot since then -- and has economically gone downhill quite a lot, as well.

Re: Countries ranked by ease of starting a business

#100

Post by apotheon »

jsolson wrote: post #97
apotheon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my area, it takes no fewer than three different licenses just to set up a consultancy that doesn't even sell products (pure service oriented business) -- and that doesn't address any of the issues aside from licensure (tax ID, ensuring your business name is not a trademark infringement, et cetera). The worst thing about it, though, is not the complexity of it. The worst thing about it is that, because one has to c…

I agree that there is a difference. On the other hand, once you have the business legally established (the easy part), you can conduct business as that entity. You might piss off the government and the liable for fees/penalties, but you're not going to invalidate the actions of the business by doing that. Perhaps I'm just being naïve, but I figure if the rules are difficult for me to find it's also fairly unlikely th…

One can conduct business in violation of the law anywhere. When it's done intelligently, we call the result "black marketeering". When it's done stupidly, we call the result "jail time".
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