Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
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Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#2[deleted]
Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#3I think it is beyond just the culture. While it is true that they don't foster entrepreneurism in Europe, there is also the educational system and government interference that plays a big part.
Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#4> the panel decried Europe’s lack of hunger
A somewhat inadvertent turn of phrase that may well be telling you more than expected about the situation in Europe.
Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#5This is a classic example of "if only more people would be like us, the world would be better!". Sure enough, the experts are all entrepreneurs and investors.
Well, in this particular case, they may very well be right. But things like this really bother me: "traditional engineering-driven approach to business, with its emphasis on perfection, longevity, pride in ingenuity and culture of deep-thinking put the country at a competitive disadvantage in the fast-moving new economy". Really ? That's all he had to say about what made Germany an economic powerhouse on par only with Japan ? Oh, what we need then are more social media experts, I'm sure, to drive value creation through synergistic customer discovery. I'm pretty sure he's beating on a strawman here.
Also, the last piece of candy: 'The so called “poor countries,” such as Brazil, have this hunger. They are going to catch up on us.'
And how is that a bad thing ? Good for them.
Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#6. Making money, he said, was not seen as a good thing to do. “The culture is changing, but it will take time.”
There's your marketing problem. If being an entrepreneur was only about making money, I wouldn't want my culture to encourage it either. They should focus less on materialism and more on making a difference and creating jobs.
Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#7The biggest problem is that we dont have "easy money" in europe and there is no real tech hub like the valley around here.
Investors want to know upfront how you plan to make money and phrases like "we will figure this out later" wont help you if you need to raise money.
If this sort of thinking changes maybe we will see more billion dollar companies in europe.
Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#8"Germany’s approach, which Mr. Davidson said typically starts with acquiring a deep understanding of the problem before making the decision to act was exactly the opposite of the culture he saw both in his home country of Israel and in America."
They should appreciate different approaches instead of calling them a "problem". It's ridiculous to tell the Germans to become more like America or Israel. The German strategy has its problems and so does America's.
Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#9Why does everything need to be just like Silicon Valley? Everything being like Wall Street certainly didn't help either.
I especially laughed at the line that perfectionism and proper engineering are bad for startups. This explains a lot. (Yes, when it comes to selling stuff that doesn't work and you don't need in the first place, Europe has a lot to learn. Every service-based industry does better in the US.)
Meanwhile, the amount of companies founded per year is on a steady rise, so there is a entrepreneurial movement, it's just different. Not saying that either approach is perfect, don't get me wrong. It's just that I don't get those "Europe is worse because it doesn't have companies like Facebook" articles.
Neither Europe nor the US has lots sweat shops with Asian conditions, are we both now hopelessly behind this and should mend our ways?
Re: Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle
#10Absolutely spot on. It's not lack of funds or the absence of a proper ecosystem, it's a huge cultural gap.
The whole school system is fundamentally broken. Since elementary school to the very last stages of university education I've been told to study, work hard and eventually, with time, gain access to some big and famous corporate in a responsability position, get a lifelong contract, settle down and enjoy life. That should have been my professional life goal.
Entrpreunership isn't even remotely considered. It's like it was 'none of my business', as companies were somehow a father-son 'inheritance'. Add to that a very entrpreunership-adverse legislation (for an LLC equivalent in Italy you need a 20K deposit upfront and you'll be paying, at the end of the day, more than 50% of your profits in taxes) and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Also, the public opinion seems to have no or little interest in the matter, and the situation looks dreadfully stagnant.
Fortunately, there are sparks of cultural changes lately, especially with the younger folks, but it's a change that won't happen overnight for sure.