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Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

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Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#41
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low salaries are not a good thing for the startups! Here's an article from a French engineer that is currently on the front page of HN: https://web.archive.org/web/20180925150228/https://florentcr... tldr; he moved to SF because salaries are much, much higher than in France, even considering the social benefits that you get in France. Other threads on HN have French engineers saying that they love living in France wh…

They are a benefit... if you pay people above market! That allows you to attract top talent that otherwise would be locked in at Google etc. The whole point of low salaries, for smart companies, is to be the one increasing them! Obviously that makes it a temporary advantage, as salaries start to increase... But all great advantages are temporary. The people you are talking to, who like low salaries because they want…

Good luck getting the top talent that has moved to the US, UK or Switzerland years ago.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#42

A good look at France's startup scene today and what's holding them back from creating the next Uber/Google “We set up in France around the same time as our rivals were starting in the U.S., but quickly they were raising 100 times more from investors and selling across the country,” Sapet said. “Meanwhile we were stuck translating into 20 European languages.” - Christophe Sapet (French entrepreneur)

What's holding France and everybody else back from creating the next Google, is that there is only ever one Google.

Looking at the list of largest tech companies globally, there are perhaps four dozen very large tech companies in the West. Based on their ages, one might get founded in the entire West in a given year on average during the modern transistor era.

Simply put, there aren't going to be 27 Ubers or Googles or Microsofts. There is one of each. So for France (or any given country) to produce these types of companies, they have to beat everyone else racing to produce that outcome. The odds are extraordinarily low, no matter what you do, once you start adding in all the hurdles, as time is of the essence since it's always winner take most.

What countries like France can do, is produce a lot of mid-size tech companies that can take advantage of local and regional opportunties better than large foreign firms. The long-tail opportunties, in other words, that require being down in the minutiae.

As an example, you'll never produce larger global retailers than Walmart or Amazon, no matter what you do, if you're a given country in the EU. That doesn't mean you can't occasionally beat them at their game on your turf however (as retailers routinely do around the globe). It heavily depends on the nature of the tech / segment in question. The reason that works that way, is similar to why Google, Microsoft, Apple, Uber, Intel, Cisco, et al. have done so well as global giants, whereas SAP hasn't been vanquished in the European market by the likes of Oracle and Salesforce. Local relationships are immensely important in some areas of tech. If you're Google, it's the ability to dominate the huge US market, derive immense profit from that base, and rather easily perpetually project outward at claiming pieces of market share all over the planet. That concept only fails if the US economy does, there's nothing France can do to compete with it, unless the EU wants to entirely integrate (they don't and never will, national sovereignty is too important). The real local competitive advantage for a France is in tech where there is friction that provides an advantage based on culture or location. They're not going to produce the next Google, ever, and they shouldn't be aiming for that.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#43
post #15

France has plenty of early stage startups, in fact the increase in size and quality in their ecosystem in just a few years has been very impressive. What’s missing in France right now is an ecosystem of fast-growing mid-stage startups - series B and above. I think that’s caused by a combination of: 1) mindset (thinking globally from say one is easier said than done when nobody around you has done it before) 2) lack o…

Agree with the analysis of funding you provide. Concerning mindset, I think there's an even bigger cultural trait that's holding back French entrepreneurship: a complete absence of a "culture of failure". By and large, French culture is one of fixed mindset. Mistakes/errors/failures reveal one's limitations or flaws, and aren't perceived as an opportunity to learn and grow. This starts very early and is very much bak…

I think the biggest challenge for France in regard to startup is that society is hierarchical. I think many of the other concerns stem from that. Hierarchies makes society about ranking, which kills startup since startups are essentially about climbing the class ladder as a company (from small business to fortune 500). Pretty much all startup "hubs" are either "new world" were there weren't necessarily a lot of established players already and/or relatively egalitarian.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#44
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a benefit... if you pay people above market! That allows you to attract top talent that otherwise would be locked in at Google etc. The whole point of low salaries, for smart companies, is to be the one increasing them! Obviously that makes it a temporary advantage, as salaries start to increase... But all great advantages are temporary. The people you are talking to, who like low salaries because they want…

Good luck getting the top talent that has moved to the US, UK or Switzerland years ago.

There’s top talent graduating all the time though, you don’t necessarily need to go abroad and drag people back.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#45
post #15

France has plenty of early stage startups, in fact the increase in size and quality in their ecosystem in just a few years has been very impressive. What’s missing in France right now is an ecosystem of fast-growing mid-stage startups - series B and above. I think that’s caused by a combination of: 1) mindset (thinking globally from say one is easier said than done when nobody around you has done it before) 2) lack o…

Agree with the analysis of funding you provide. Concerning mindset, I think there's an even bigger cultural trait that's holding back French entrepreneurship: a complete absence of a "culture of failure". By and large, French culture is one of fixed mindset. Mistakes/errors/failures reveal one's limitations or flaws, and aren't perceived as an opportunity to learn and grow. This starts very early and is very much bak…

Sigh, ditto for the Netherlands. It seems lack of culture of failure, and fixed mindset, is all over Europe.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#46
post #15

France has plenty of early stage startups, in fact the increase in size and quality in their ecosystem in just a few years has been very impressive. What’s missing in France right now is an ecosystem of fast-growing mid-stage startups - series B and above. I think that’s caused by a combination of: 1) mindset (thinking globally from say one is easier said than done when nobody around you has done it before) 2) lack o…

Low salaries are not a good thing for the startups! Here's an article from a French engineer that is currently on the front page of HN: https://web.archive.org/web/20180925150228/https://florentcr... tldr; he moved to SF because salaries are much, much higher than in France, even considering the social benefits that you get in France. Other threads on HN have French engineers saying that they love living in France wh…

>I've lived in Paris, Berlin, NYC and California. I'll never understand how European founders can keep saying that 40k euro salaries for engineers is a benefit while they watch so many great engineers leave to American companies.

This. I have tasted the fruit and I'm never going back. The social benefits feel largely like gimmicks compared to the standard of living + social recognition you get working as an engineer in the US or even Canada.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#47
post #8

My opinion : the low salaries of engineers, high taxes and bureaucracy hold back the startup scene. Also, the mentality toward technical positions, in France if you didn't go from engineer to manager by 35 year old people wonder what's wrong with you. https://imgur.com/a/MOlau0V

As a Nordic entrepreneur. None of the reasons sounds right reasons to me. https://econ.arizona.edu/sites/econ/files/econ-wp-10-07.pdf

The real problem for startups is the lack of American style VC funding. European startups need to get profitable much earlier than US startups.

Early funding for startups is OKish. You can grow from 0 to 10-50 million, but after that it's better to sell the business to some big international firm, because you really struggle getting smart money that the ability to take the big risk.

Apple has been very good at buying out European startups. They got bargain prices for sleep monitoring, eye tracking, and computer vision startups in the last year.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#48
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low salaries are not a good thing for the startups! Here's an article from a French engineer that is currently on the front page of HN: https://web.archive.org/web/20180925150228/https://florentcr... tldr; he moved to SF because salaries are much, much higher than in France, even considering the social benefits that you get in France. Other threads on HN have French engineers saying that they love living in France wh…

>I've lived in Paris, Berlin, NYC and California. I'll never understand how European founders can keep saying that 40k euro salaries for engineers is a benefit while they watch so many great engineers leave to American companies. This. I have tasted the fruit and I'm never going back. The social benefits feel largely like gimmicks compared to the standard of living + social recognition you get working as an engineer…

What do you mean by "standard of living" though? I know plenty of Europeans who have access to things even rich Americans barely have access to. Once you want to, or have, kids many benefits that are hard to come by becomes less gimmicky. The main problem in Europe, and in most countries, these days is the housing market. Your position in the housing market has really come to determine your position in society.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#49
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low salaries are not a good thing for the startups! Here's an article from a French engineer that is currently on the front page of HN: https://web.archive.org/web/20180925150228/https://florentcr... tldr; he moved to SF because salaries are much, much higher than in France, even considering the social benefits that you get in France. Other threads on HN have French engineers saying that they love living in France wh…

>I've lived in Paris, Berlin, NYC and California. I'll never understand how European founders can keep saying that 40k euro salaries for engineers is a benefit while they watch so many great engineers leave to American companies. This. I have tasted the fruit and I'm never going back. The social benefits feel largely like gimmicks compared to the standard of living + social recognition you get working as an engineer…

> The social benefits feel largely like gimmicks

Get back to us the first time you have a medical emergency putting you on the hook for 5 or 6 figures (after insurance); at least you're lucky enough to be able to flee the jurisdiction back to a home country.

Re: Startup Nation? Entrepreneurs Still Toil in Macron's France

#50
post #48
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've lived in Paris, Berlin, NYC and California. I'll never understand how European founders can keep saying that 40k euro salaries for engineers is a benefit while they watch so many great engineers leave to American companies. This. I have tasted the fruit and I'm never going back. The social benefits feel largely like gimmicks compared to the standard of living + social recognition you get working as an engineer…

What do you mean by "standard of living" though? I know plenty of Europeans who have access to things even rich Americans barely have access to. Once you want to, or have, kids many benefits that are hard to come by becomes less gimmicky. The main problem in Europe, and in most countries, these days is the housing market. Your position in the housing market has really come to determine your position in society.

What things are you specifically talking about that 'even rich Americans barely have access to'?
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