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Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

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Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#51

Post by diegoholiveira »

rbanffy wrote: post #38
diegoholiveira wrote: post #23

I'm a Brazilian who use to work at some startups here. I have a strong feeling that we didn't produce more and better companies because of two things: 1) Public Universities here hates private money and do business, entrepreneur classes are rare and most of the teachers never did create a company (to teach here you must be an academic, a successful entrepreneur can't give classes about it). If you suggest to your tea…

> entrepreneur classes are rare It's not optimal, but it's pretty common in management courses. I wish I had more of that in Engineering (even though we hated it at the time). > Open a company in Brazil is crazy Crazy? Try shutting one down to see what's crazy. > Labour protection here is insane too I have to disagree with you on that one. As an entrepreneur, you have responsibilities towards your employees. Far too…

I didn't say that an entrepreneur should not have any kind of responsibility for the employees. What I said it's that we have too many responsibilities. For example:

- We have 13º salary, with may be easy for a large company to pay, but it's expensive for a small company;

- We have FGTS, that is like a saving account paid by the company in the name of employee;

- It's very complicated to hire someone with a non-conventional work contract.

And so on. I'm not saying that we should remove labor rights, what I'm saying it's that we need to find a balance that is good to everyone: employee, small companies, large companies and so on.

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#52

Post by diegoholiveira »

dataker wrote: post #41

I'm Brazilian and I tried building a company there after two successful products both in the EU and US. Brazil simply doesn't have the culture that's necessary to foster a startup ecosystem. Chile is in a much better position to be that sort of local leader, but still only relatively. And it's not something you can change by prosecuting corrupt politicians - it goes all the way back to our colonial heritage, and the…

> If you're Brazilian and talented, either as an engineer or entrepreneur, get out. Look for jobs remotely, incorporate a company in another country, find a market fit in a healthy economy that selects based on the productivity, efficiency and quality of your work.

Sadly, this is very true.

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#53

Post by zorked »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #51
rbanffy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> entrepreneur classes are rare It's not optimal, but it's pretty common in management courses. I wish I had more of that in Engineering (even though we hated it at the time). > Open a company in Brazil is crazy Crazy? Try shutting one down to see what's crazy. > Labour protection here is insane too I have to disagree with you on that one. As an entrepreneur, you have responsibilities towards your employees. Far too…

I didn't say that an entrepreneur should not have any kind of responsibility for the employees. What I said it's that we have too many responsibilities. For example: - We have 13º salary, with may be easy for a large company to pay, but it's expensive for a small company; - We have FGTS, that is like a saving account paid by the company in the name of employee; - It's very complicated to hire someone with a non-conve…

The 13th salary exists in other countries too (example: Switzerland). It's a dumb thing to complain about because you have to be able to pay an employee's yearly salary in a year. It's not a surprise. It comes every December.

FGTS also has its equivalents in several forms of unemployment insurance. It's a bad thing only in how the insurance is mismanaged by the government, not because it exists at all. I guess countries that do not have unemployment insurance are rare and extremely poor?

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#54

Post by diegoholiveira »

zorked wrote: post #53
diegoholiveira wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that an entrepreneur should not have any kind of responsibility for the employees. What I said it's that we have too many responsibilities. For example: - We have 13º salary, with may be easy for a large company to pay, but it's expensive for a small company; - We have FGTS, that is like a saving account paid by the company in the name of employee; - It's very complicated to hire someone with a non-conve…

The 13th salary exists in other countries too (example: Switzerland). It's a dumb thing to complain about because you have to be able to pay an employee's yearly salary in a year. It's not a surprise. It comes every December. FGTS also has its equivalents in several forms of unemployment insurance. It's a bad thing only in how the insurance is mismanaged by the government, not because it exists at all. I guess countr…

The point is that this is expensive to small companies, startups are small, with a budget that may not allow this kind of cost. To large companies, pay those things are fine.

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#55

Post by rescbr »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #49
chrisbennet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”Labour protection here is insane too. It's not cheap for small and medium companies. And there is a thing that makes it even more complicated for startups: legally, the owner of the company is in charge of the labor debts even when the company is broken. So, if your company broke, you can't close it until you pay all the labor debts, and if you don't pay, you can lose your home or other assets that belong to you, no…

But I'm not talking about wages. I'm talking about other rigths that an employee has, for example: if you bankrupt and need to fire you employees, you'll be forced to pay a fine of 40% of the FGTS (FGTS it's like a saving account the company is obligated to pay in name of they employees).

Speaking as a fellow Brazilian: so account for it beforehand, in the same way you should account for 13th salaries and other "hidden" worker rights, which are liabilities in the accounting sense.

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#56

Post by diegoholiveira »

zorked wrote: post #53
diegoholiveira wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say that an entrepreneur should not have any kind of responsibility for the employees. What I said it's that we have too many responsibilities. For example: - We have 13º salary, with may be easy for a large company to pay, but it's expensive for a small company; - We have FGTS, that is like a saving account paid by the company in the name of employee; - It's very complicated to hire someone with a non-conve…

The 13th salary exists in other countries too (example: Switzerland). It's a dumb thing to complain about because you have to be able to pay an employee's yearly salary in a year. It's not a surprise. It comes every December. FGTS also has its equivalents in several forms of unemployment insurance. It's a bad thing only in how the insurance is mismanaged by the government, not because it exists at all. I guess countr…

I just found a report that claims that the cost of a employee to the company 22% over the wage, while in Brazil is 71%.

http://www.uhy.com/wp-content/uploads/UHY-study-on-employmen...

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#57

Post by [deleted] »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #56
zorked wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 13th salary exists in other countries too (example: Switzerland). It's a dumb thing to complain about because you have to be able to pay an employee's yearly salary in a year. It's not a surprise. It comes every December. FGTS also has its equivalents in several forms of unemployment insurance. It's a bad thing only in how the insurance is mismanaged by the government, not because it exists at all. I guess countr…

I just found a report that claims that the cost of a employee to the company 22% over the wage, while in Brazil is 71%. http://www.uhy.com/wp-content/uploads/UHY-study-on-employmen...

[deleted]

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#58

Post by zorked »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #56
zorked wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 13th salary exists in other countries too (example: Switzerland). It's a dumb thing to complain about because you have to be able to pay an employee's yearly salary in a year. It's not a surprise. It comes every December. FGTS also has its equivalents in several forms of unemployment insurance. It's a bad thing only in how the insurance is mismanaged by the government, not because it exists at all. I guess countr…

I just found a report that claims that the cost of a employee to the company 22% over the wage, while in Brazil is 71%. http://www.uhy.com/wp-content/uploads/UHY-study-on-employmen...

I posted something but don't have the time to double-check the math. I suggest you do your own calculations. In particular do not count income (13th salary, food tickets, travel reimbursements, etc.) as though it was taxes.

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#59

Post by kikoreis »

dataker wrote: post #41

I'm Brazilian and I tried building a company there after two successful products both in the EU and US. Brazil simply doesn't have the culture that's necessary to foster a startup ecosystem. Chile is in a much better position to be that sort of local leader, but still only relatively. And it's not something you can change by prosecuting corrupt politicians - it goes all the way back to our colonial heritage, and the…

Since I can't downvote, I just wanted to note I find your comment really offensive. Is the current zeigeist is to devalue anything remotely Brazilian? My experience is the absolute opposite of yours. I've built companies here that worked with very little prior experience. I've worked with lost of spectacular leaders, made really good money, and seen many things technology and business-wise improve dramatically over time.

It's hard to have a constructive debate about specifics on this thread because your post is essentially a list of negative generalities. But to take your first point, why would you say we don't have a startup ecosystem? I see dozens of startups around me that are bustling, hiring, taking financing, failing, pivoting, growing. Just in my small city we have Arquivei & Monitora who are success stories, and many that have gone through at least one funding round. A new startup center, ONOVOLAB, was set up here this year. There are other examples nationwide. Gosh, Google just opened its own accelerator here after witnessing the success of others' existing programs. It can't be as bleak as you are painting.

Re: Brazil: A look into Latin America’s largest startup ecosystem (2017)

#60

Post by kikoreis »

rescbr wrote: post #55
diegoholiveira wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I'm not talking about wages. I'm talking about other rigths that an employee has, for example: if you bankrupt and need to fire you employees, you'll be forced to pay a fine of 40% of the FGTS (FGTS it's like a saving account the company is obligated to pay in name of they employees).

Speaking as a fellow Brazilian: so account for it beforehand, in the same way you should account for 13th salaries and other "hidden" worker rights, which are liabilities in the accounting sense.

Yeah, that's how we have always hired, and I don't see a big problem with CLT (the Brazilian employment law), perhaps with the exception of how vacation time and union membership is handled.

It's bizarre that the threads on this post seem to straddle "founders are only in it to make money off the back of their employees" and "worker's rights and compensation are onerous" simultaneously.

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