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I am done. I give up

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Re: I am done. I give up

#371

Post by dkga »

jliptzin wrote: post #280
xvector wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos would not have kept Amazon in the US if it adopted Nordic welfare levels of taxation. The fact of the matter is that the EU has a staggeringly low output when it comes to tech innovation compared to the US. Their policies and regulations shape this.

I looked up taxation in Norway, it looks very similar to ours. Personal marginal tax rates cap at 48% and corporate taxes are 23%. What am I missing? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Norway

It has nothing to do with taxation - or else the Arab Gulf or Cayman Islands would be entrepreneurial hubs, not California or the Toronto area. It’s all about the price of quality labour. It’s about access to long-term risk capital (aka venture funds) + high quality labour at affordable prices. As in, entrepreneurs having cash to fund projects and being able to actually hire people that will help build them. Try hiring a hundred software engineers in Norway: your hourly cost would probably blow up. The low-tax destinations are the place billionaires go to park their wealth, not create it (for example, outside of Tech Nordic billionaires move to Switzerland after they get rich)

Re: I am done. I give up

#372

Post by simondanerd »

rahoulb wrote: post #297
fsloth wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a big UK startup? Nordic countries have the safety net countered with a mentality that is borderline entrepreneur-hostile and the law of Jante on top of that so safety nets may be the few pro-entrepreneurship things they have. Finland of the lot is also capital poor so no huge investor funds or such.

Off the top of my head; UK startups that have grown and been successful (although many have now been bought out - which I guess is the exit plan for many founders anyway) Just Eat, Deliveroo and The Hut Group; Monzo, Starling and Revolut, from another era, there's ARM. I'm sure there's fintech ones (not a sector I know much about) and the guy who sits near me in the office, who has an AI-healthcare startup, says the…

Not to mention the Raspberry Pi foundation...

Re: I am done. I give up

#373

Post by brightball »

kubb wrote: post #133
jurmous wrote: post #10

A big fact of the entrepreneur world is that it is hugely based on luck. Luck of finding the right idea, the right market, the right timing, the right connections, the right customers, the right employees, the right financing. The basic fact is that most startups and most entrepreneurial dreams fail or get consumed by another for their talent/clients. And as an entrepreneur you fight against all odds. Most will fail…

One of the privileges people don't often think about is being able to afford to fail. If you don't risk destitution after your startup fails, you can try and fail many times, learn and try again. It's like continuously rolling two dice, and you only need to get double sixes once, and after that it's private jets until you die. One of the many reasons the rich get richer and the poor, well you know how it goes.

When my wife started her business, we lived on my income for 5 years while she continually reinvested in growing it.

It was hard but worth it.

Re: I am done. I give up

#374

Post by Zanfa »

_448 wrote: post #119
jurmous wrote: post #10

A big fact of the entrepreneur world is that it is hugely based on luck. Luck of finding the right idea, the right market, the right timing, the right connections, the right customers, the right employees, the right financing. The basic fact is that most startups and most entrepreneurial dreams fail or get consumed by another for their talent/clients. And as an entrepreneur you fight against all odds. Most will fail…

> A big fact of the entrepreneur world is that it is hugely based on luck. Luck of finding the right idea, the right market, the right timing, the right connections, the right customers, the right employees, the right financing. This is not true! I have seen successful business built from scratch by people who had no connections, no money and no privileged background (and no VC money). And I will say this for sure, i…

At the end of the day, you as a person are a combination of luck. Your intelligence, hard-working personality, physical and mental health that allows you to even try. Things that you might have some effect on, but are mostly a lottery.

Re: I am done. I give up

#375

Post by bumby »

safety1st wrote: post #284
kubb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the privileges people don't often think about is being able to afford to fail. If you don't risk destitution after your startup fails, you can try and fail many times, learn and try again. It's like continuously rolling two dice, and you only need to get double sixes once, and after that it's private jets until you die. One of the many reasons the rich get richer and the poor, well you know how it goes.

Sure, the rich have more advantages than the poor. Always been that way and always will. In our culture there is an immense preoccupation with the unfairness of this but the reality is that if you don't come from wealth and privilege, you need a different playbook. Dwelling on the inequity neuters you. If you want to win you need to figure out what the playbook is and then do the right things. I found a playbook that…

>* move to a country …*

I understand and agree with your overall point, but the fact that this an option underpins a certain amount of privilege.

Re: I am done. I give up

#377

Post by uffndnjfncnc »

rpadovani wrote: post #354
IronIvan wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. Lived a very frugal early retirement lifestyle in Austria because it was practically impossible to build wealth (high taxes, comparatively very low tech salaries, little entrepreneurial support/incentives). Moving to the US I was able to 5-6x my income (from what I could have realistically made) , while reducing my tax burden by 15 percentage points, and so I've been happily living a workaholics' lifesty…

> (work for almost 2 decades as an engineer just so you can afford the average one family home - what a joke!) I really don't understand this take. Why so many engineers feel entitled to have more than the average working Joe? If you are employed, our work is not risky, doesn't consume all your energy or your time, and so on. I fully understand the _economics_ behind our salaries, but I am more than happy to give 45%…

The average Joe in American can earn many times more than an engineer in the EU

Re: I am done. I give up

#378

Post by draw_down »

wikfwikf wrote: post #361
saalweachter wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an engineer at a successful startup. We grew, we went bankrupt, we laid off most the company, the founders kicked in enough to keep us going and we restructured to give the remaining people larger shares. We became profitable and finally sold to another company. My payday was about $70k, which was a nice bonus, I was happy to get it. I moved on to big tech. The company withered away, the company that bought it…

It seems insane to me that the happy path involves you getting $70k. Working in finance, I would expect that amount as a bonus in any year where I perform well and the business isn't unprofitable. When I've spoken to people about the finance/big tech/startup trade-offs, we've often talked about the upside from startup success (outside of the Google or Instagram case) being around an order of magnitude bigger than tha…

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Re: I am done. I give up

#380

Post by risyachka »

>> I tried everything - building an audience

How many years have you spent every day doing it? If you haven't done it for multiple years with pushing content every single day - then this is not audience building and not worth even starting.

>> making sure my product actually solved a problem

If you are not sure if solves a problem - you never start building it. To create a startup (and make sure it solves a problem) you need a spreadsheet and stripe checkout page or landing page. If this is not enough - then your idea doesn't solve any real problem.

Another criteria is if you show anyone a product that costs $100/month and clearly saves them $1000/month - everyone will give you $100 right on the spot. And if it doesn't clearly bring a ton of value - again, solving not a real problem.

The reality is that many (especially engineers) love engineering way more than building startup (building startup involves literally zero engineering on founder part, except from a very very basic MPV)

Also, indie hackers are not startup founders. They are mostly engineers trying to monetize their hobby. In this case you can do literally whatever for 5 years and you can get to 3-5k/month with it.

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