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Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

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Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#21

Post by mseebach »

zeemonkee wrote: post #20
mseebach wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting started as an EU foreigner in UK: - HMRC - Council tax - NI number - Local doctor - Voter registration Never mind that even doing all that, most companies still don't think you exist because you don't appear on credit checks. Granted, most of these can be done via mail (someone should really introduce the British public service to the interwebs one of these days), the bureaucracy in Berlin is hardly uniquely…

All good points - from a foreigner's perspective in either country. I think the key here is not web/non-web but the government in question having an intelligent, joined-up registration system. In the case of Finland, once I'd registered with the tax office my address and other details should have been registered in the system. KELA would be notified - along with all my income details - and the magistrate and police w…

You can also spend too much time optimising a relatively rare use case. Each of those steps require that you fill out a form and mail it off. The exception is registering for an NI number where you actually have to book and show up for an interview. That's it. You'll be prompted to do each when necessary, there's no benefit/penalty for doing each too early/too late.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#22

Post by zeemonkee »

mseebach wrote: post #21
zeemonkee wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good points - from a foreigner's perspective in either country. I think the key here is not web/non-web but the government in question having an intelligent, joined-up registration system. In the case of Finland, once I'd registered with the tax office my address and other details should have been registered in the system. KELA would be notified - along with all my income details - and the magistrate and police w…

You can also spend too much time optimising a relatively rare use case. Each of those steps require that you fill out a form and mail it off. The exception is registering for an NI number where you actually have to book and show up for an interview. That's it. You'll be prompted to do each when necessary, there's no benefit/penalty for doing each too early/too late.

In contrast to Finland, where each of the cases above require me turning up in person. Had I just needed to mail off a form, it wouldn't be so much an issue.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#23

Post by akg »

I'm not sure about Berlin, but I am visiting Paris for a few months and I found that it is just riddled with bureaucracy.

For example, there was an article recently about why there are so many 49-employee people companies in France: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3953145

I would imagine things like this get in the way of actually developing product and providing value to your customers.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#25

Post by drats »

Even Parisians often flee Paris because of red tape and taxes, so if you add a foreign accent, or poor to no French, into the mix you are likely going to be going at a snail's pace. Berlin is cheaper, friendlier to business, friendlier to English and just friendlier in general on the street. The cheapness translates as a factor for employees (their home), and the international orientation of the city allows you to draw on a much broader potential labour force as tons more people from around Europe would consider a move to Berlin than to Paris.

I'd be fairly surprised if there was even a single metric on which Paris beats Berlin for anything business related, so unless you have a product specific to the French market or have a significant other in Paris who can't move it's Berlin every time. Even if you have a product specific to the French market it's probably be best to be outside France unless you need to be there in person to stroke the egos of bureaucrats who might regulate you out of existence.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#26

Post by _delirium »

mseebach wrote: post #17
masklinn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simple tasks like open a bank account are a troublesome for even EU citizens Could you give some details of that?

So, there are EU regulations in place that are supposed to make money laundering harder. This raises the bar everywhere. I suppose he's not referring directly to a bank account, but to our lovely home grown credit-masking-as-debit-card "Dankort" without which you might as well not have a bank account. Since they are in fact credit cards, banks are reluctant handing these out to people they might never see again.

I'm a foreigner with a bank account and no Dankort, and I haven't really found it a huge hassle. While it's hard to get a Dankort, it's easy to get a Visa Elektron, which most places accept without fees (unlike foreign credit/debit cards). And the only things I've found really necessary about a Danish bank account are: 1) having an account to designate as a NemKonto; and 2) being able to use the betalingsservice through netbanking, e.g. to pay my rent, utilities, and TV license fee. For smaller things, I haven't found just using cash to be problematic, even if most Danes don't pay in cash.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#28

Post by mseebach »

_delirium wrote: post #26
mseebach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, there are EU regulations in place that are supposed to make money laundering harder. This raises the bar everywhere. I suppose he's not referring directly to a bank account, but to our lovely home grown credit-masking-as-debit-card "Dankort" without which you might as well not have a bank account. Since they are in fact credit cards, banks are reluctant handing these out to people they might never see again.

I'm a foreigner with a bank account and no Dankort, and I haven't really found it a huge hassle. While it's hard to get a Dankort, it's easy to get a Visa Elektron, which most places accept without fees (unlike foreign credit/debit cards). And the only things I've found really necessary about a Danish bank account are: 1) having an account to designate as a NemKonto; and 2) being able to use the betalingsservice thro…

Fair enough. I'm happy Electron is gaining ground. Not too many years ago, an Electron basically limited you to withdraw cash (for a fee) from other bank's ATMs and pay in a few places - not including most supermarkets.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#30

Post by andreasklinger »

As someone living in London i can see Berlin to become the seedstage city of Europe fairly quickly. This might result into becoming the startup hub #1 on the long run. But for now London holds the crown with an better uplink to the US and in general to international media and investors. Your thoughts on this?

Could berlin be the Seedstage City of Europe ? Basically the Garage of this continent.

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