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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

#71

Post by StreamBright »

RobertoG wrote: post #24
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.

It seems to me that this article is saying exactly the opposite of what you say. The article is about how Europeans, that live in that "safe and secured society", are creating more startups than before. >>"On the top of that, regulation in the EU is much worse than in the US. This does not help either. " If you check those start-ups you can see that most of them are joining Y-combinator but they stay in Europe. So, a…

>> "safe and secured society"

What is the distribution of Eastern vs Western Europeans in the sample?

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

#72

Post by cblconfederate »

dmitriid wrote: post #53
cblconfederate wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 beli…

> there is also a lot of money thrown in businesses in the form of EU subsidies. Show me any subsidy in the EU that supports a business losing 500 million dollars a year for 10 years. > We 've become a terribly sclerotic continent No. The US has become reckless with money, and the concept of a successful business has been entirely substituted by "but this unbelievably unprofitable company with no chance of ever earni…

> that supports a business losing 500 million dollars a year for 10 years.

That assumes that those startups get investment from outside YC , which is not what i m talking about. Also, the EU just approved a giant stimulus package which will be used to support a lot of failing companies, just take a look at the air carrier subsidies around the continent.

It's true that US is subsidizing unsustainable businesses, probably in the hopes that something good will come out of them regardless. But that doesnt change the fact europe is repelling entrepreneurs.

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

#73

Post by mytailorisrich »

antupis wrote: post #51
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.

I think it is set of different problems Southern Europe and France are almost hostile to entrepreneurship and startups. Nordics, Baltic and Benelux countries mostly nail culture and regulatory frameworks but small markets slows down starting and scaling business. Personally I don't know what is problem with Germany probably something to do with how German is organised around manufacturing.

In my experience the UK has a very simple and friendly system and, I believe, London has grown into an European centre for startups and funding. France makes things overly-complicated and costly for the sake of it, not just for entrepreneurs but for everyone, this is very puzzling (and I was born there!).

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

#74

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mathverse wrote: post #42

The term "european" is meaningless.It's all just bunch of countries working under some framework. As a european there's no shared success if one european company succeeds.And because of that there's no synergic effects that would help "european" companies to grow and improve.

There is some though; there are little to no restrictions for one country to use a service in another european country, or traveling to visit it. No currency conversion needed either.

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

#75

Post by StreamBright »

CrLf wrote: post #20
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.

"If you live in a safe and secured society why would you want to do something risky like creating a startup." Isn't that just another way of saying "quality of life"?

Depends what you are looking for. If you are in your 20s / 30s you might want to have higher salary and less social safety. Later in your life this changes. Many Europeans (including myself) went to work in California for higher wages and less taxation. Some of us wanted to have family and moved back. Quality of life is subjective above a certain threshold.

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

#76

Post by magicalhippo »

biztos wrote: post #22
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.

Interesting, I didn't know payday lending was a thing in Spain. Delaying salary payments serves two purposes: first, to benefit the employer by keeping your money in their account longer; and second, at least culturally, to force you into a budget cycle "for your own good." People accept these things culturally but there's no reason they should have to. When I moved to Germany from the US I was a little shocked to di…

I get paid middle of month, which is a nice compromise from the "work delivered" vs "paying up front" perspective.

Given that I have a rather fixed income, I don't see why I'd need any higher frequency than that. It wouldn't change anything.

If I had a highly variable income I could see weekly making sense, though it would be a bit of a mess in months with a lot of red days.

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

#77

Post by piva00 »

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.

The difference isn't having a huge market with a more-or-less homogeneous culture on consumption and language, it is that Europe is a safe and secured society, completely different than fucking California.

Not sure what is your point here, you brush off a lot of the real nuances of the problem to throw an overgeneralising jab onto 27 different cultures...

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

#78

Post by cblconfederate »

rapsey wrote: post #43
cblconfederate wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 beli…

> there is also a lot of money thrown in businesses in the form of EU subsidies. And that money is mostly a complete waste. EU money comes with so many strings and baggage that you are either big enough and have the resources to deal with it (and thus you don't actually need it), or you are small and make it your entire business model to live off EU funds and not produce anything of value ever.

> with so many strings

I have found the strings to be bureaucratic, not material, which has turned many small european businesses to paperwork factories.

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

#79

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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.

While I agree that it's a good innovation, it's fighting the symptoms of low wages and high cost; people living paycheck to paycheck. Wages should go up and cost of living should go down; people should be entitled to having financial reserves, to not be afraid of not making it to payday.

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

#80

Post by Cthulhu_ »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #6

Do they mostly move to the United States then?

If they want to do business in the US, they often do; the US market is very protective and isolationist like that, for some reason. An EU company doing business with an US based company is a lot easier.
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