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Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

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Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#31

Post by inglor_cz »

StreamBright wrote: post #16
lrem wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "European startup ecosystem", it's basically "European societies". Imagine how well would SV work if being involved in a bankrupt company (co-founder, major investor, C-suite) made banks refuse to talk to you again for 10-20 years. I believe that was the case in France. You wouldn't even be able to open a checking account, never mention any credit again.

Exactly. If you live in a safe and secured society why would you want to do something risky like creating a startup. One of the biggest success for the EU startup scene was just copying what is done in California, avoiding the risk of trying out new ideas. On the top of that, regulation in the EU is much worse than in the US. This does not help either.

People in European societies still feel need for some thrill. I think the problem is a bit different. Language and cultural barriers are still meaningful. I am a Czech and I know shit about selling to Romanians or Portuguese customers; even if I was able to pay for professional translation of my products AND customer support in 20-25 languages, my cultural ignorance would be still a significant hurdle.

USA and Anglosphere in general is HUGE. China is HUGE. The closest thing to that in the EU is DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), about 100 million rich people speaking the same language.

But precisely Germany is a fairly technologically conservative country with median age close to 46, where people are much less keen on new technology than in, say, Estonia; ironically, the fact that older systems work reliably reduces the drive to adopt new ones.

And smaller markets like Estonian or Danish one will not provide you with as much growth opportunity.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#32

Post by mytailorisrich »

pjc50 wrote: post #7

Payflow: https://www.payflow.es/ (surprisingly, no english version) This is a fantastic innovation if it takes off and if the charges aren't prohibitive; it has the potential to obliterate predatory payday lending. In a world of free instant automatic electronic payments, there's no good reason to delay salary payments until the end of the month.

> In a world of free instant automatic electronic payments, there's no good reason to delay salary payments until the end of the month.

Salaries are usually paid in arrear simply because employers want you to deliver the work first then get paid. When you call a plumber do you prefer to pay upfront or only after he has fixed the leak?

Then, of course the number of payments adds accounting overhead for everyone, so monthly in arrear seems like a good compromise.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#34

Post by cblconfederate »

dmitriid wrote: post #9
antupis wrote: post #4

This is basically failure in European startup ecosystem that companies needs to go SF, but good for Y Combinator and SF that they can attract best talent.

No. European "companies" look to the US and see that you can lose billions of unlimited investor money for years with no repercussions and no negative consequences for the founders. Now "successful" European startups want in on the money. YC's "most successful startups" routinely lose hundreds of millions of dollars every year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27485360

there is also a lot of money thrown in businesses in the form of EU subsidies. YC gives a miniscule amount of money ($125K), i believe european entrepreneurs can (and do) milk naive US VCs for a lot more than what YC offers.

The YC data is clear about one thing: if you remove the need to travel to the US , a lot more europeans flock to YC. We 've become a terribly sclerotic continent and it's very visible now. I believe things will get a lot better after we hit rock bottom.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#35

Post by thaumasiotes »

pjc50 wrote: post #18
thaumasiotes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it has the potential to obliterate predatory payday lending Say you earn about $200 over expenses in a given month. Your car suffers a problem that requires $1000 to repair. This is 5 months of income, but you probably want to repair the car at the beginning of the 5 month period rather than the end. How much of a difference will it make if your paycheck arrives daily rather than semimonthly?

Payday lending is usually considered to be for amounts that are less than one month's income.

And? Your monthly income is $200 over expenses.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#37

Post by awelkie »

lrem wrote: post #5
antupis wrote: post #4

This is basically failure in European startup ecosystem that companies needs to go SF, but good for Y Combinator and SF that they can attract best talent.

It's not "European startup ecosystem", it's basically "European societies". Imagine how well would SV work if being involved in a bankrupt company (co-founder, major investor, C-suite) made banks refuse to talk to you again for 10-20 years. I believe that was the case in France. You wouldn't even be able to open a checking account, never mention any credit again.

There was an article on this in The Economist recently. Apparently what you're describing is no longer the case.

https://www.economist.com/business/2021/08/14/one-way-to-mak...

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#38

Post by A_non_e-moose »

StreamBright wrote: post #16
lrem wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "European startup ecosystem", it's basically "European societies". Imagine how well would SV work if being involved in a bankrupt company (co-founder, major investor, C-suite) made banks refuse to talk to you again for 10-20 years. I believe that was the case in France. You wouldn't even be able to open a checking account, never mention any credit again.

Exactly. If you live in a safe and secured society why would you want to do something risky like creating a startup. One of the biggest success for the EU startup scene was just copying what is done in California, avoiding the risk of trying out new ideas. On the top of that, regulation in the EU is much worse than in the US. This does not help either.

Yep that same scary regulation that is intended to hinder businesses from selling me food with hydrogenated fats, overloaded with sugar or salt, that same regulation that forces auto manufacturers to not create exclusive overpriced repair consortiums for basic parts, and that generally makes life a bit less corporately tyrannical.

Shareholder value is only nice if you're a significant shareholder, and it is disproportionately nice to those shareholders at the cost of others, when lobbying overtakes regulation.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#40

Post by bserge »

inglor_cz wrote: post #31
StreamBright wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If you live in a safe and secured society why would you want to do something risky like creating a startup. One of the biggest success for the EU startup scene was just copying what is done in California, avoiding the risk of trying out new ideas. On the top of that, regulation in the EU is much worse than in the US. This does not help either.

People in European societies still feel need for some thrill. I think the problem is a bit different. Language and cultural barriers are still meaningful. I am a Czech and I know shit about selling to Romanians or Portuguese customers; even if I was able to pay for professional translation of my products AND customer support in 20-25 languages, my cultural ignorance would be still a significant hurdle. USA and Anglos…

If you're selling a technical solution, why would you even touch cultural differences? I bet you'd be successful if you could afford the extra costs of translation/marketing.
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