Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#51

Post by vertasd » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:11 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #24

logicallee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cultural, Europeans don't believe in making something large from nothing. The idea of a kid with a laptop building an international business, as Zuckerberg was doing, is laughable to them. (And delusional.) They'd probably tell him to go back to school so he can get a real job.

You're just repeating old stereotypes.

Actually he is 100% right. It's a different cultural behaviour in Europe. In the last 15 years I visited most of Europe and major cities of the world and the mentality is definitely different. Americans are more optimistic than Europeans and they see risk differently. Also, take into account the past, the living standards during the course of history.

While americans were chilling in the 80s and 90s, many countries of Europe were facing communism. People had a harsh life, the parents-grandparents had it, so of course they're not gonna have a Peter Thiel mentality when they don't even know how to shut down a PC. Some countries have an avg. salary of 200$. What the hell are you gonna buy with that? And I'm talking 2013 not 1990. So it's not like they're gonna tell their kids "sure son, after I worked at a farm all my life for 200$/month I strongly believe you'll make an 80 bill.$ company out of a damn computer. Let me go grab my savings and good luck!".

Too much to talk about but europeans know what I mean.

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#52

Post by kristiandupont » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:18 PM UTC

There is something that annoys me about comparing the US to Europe here. I feel that the world is going through a process of learning how to create tech companies and that movement springs out of SF and SV. That is where the most innovation is taking place, in terms of technology and business development. The rest of the world, including the rest of the US, is following along and steadily catching up.

Being a member of the HN community for a while now has made me feel much more connected to this than was possible 5 years ago (I'm in Europe). In the co-working space where I work, everybody talks about lean startups, nodejs, go, etc. and a random discussion is basically indistinguishable from my few experiences in SF offices.

Now, when it comes to funding everybody knows that trying to do it locally is ridiculous if you don't have a good specific reason to do so, but this applies to major US cities as well, perhaps with NYC slowly catching up. I think this will change as well, as more and more entrepreneurs have succeeded by the SV model and go into investing themselves. It probably won't even out completely but I think it will become more uniform.

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#53

Post by mbesto » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:26 PM UTC

antr wrote: post #43

mbesto wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi. You're right, no European entrepreneurs talk about these topics, but they are very much implied barriers to entry. What is normally vocalized is the size of their markets - which implies that scaling out to a whole EU launch is much more difficult.

A US SaaS hasn't got tax, legal, culture issues when selling their products in Europe. So how can all of these be issues within the EU?

Have you ever tried to sell something in English to a French company? Have you ever tried to sell something in Russia without "having a connection" to someone? Why does Dropbox have a Irish HQ?[0]

[0]- https://www.dropbox.com/dublin

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#54

Post by RivieraKid » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:46 PM UTC

Dewie wrote: post #45

RivieraKid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is just an idea that occured to me a long time ago in school, it may be completely wrong.

This is the great thing about the pop psychology part of evolutionary psychology. Now everyone can make up any theory that they want relating to genetics, and just support it with their own arguments and/or common sense - no empirical science or investigation needed on their part. And now just say 'genetics' and their argument sounds like it came from some hard-ish science, and was not just conjured up by their own m…

I clearly stated that it's a hypothesis. The biggest assumption, that immigrants are less risk-averse, sounds very plausible to me.

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#55

Post by PakG1 » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:46 PM UTC

Dewie wrote: post #42

PakG1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the example that inspired the thought was drawn from Vienna, it does not mean I cannot extrapolate it to across Europe when I look at the beautiful and ageless cities and traditions that exist throughout Europe. And I put the disclaimer first that I am making conjecture only and nothing more.

You making a conjecture so to speak on flimsy grounds doesn't stop me from pointing out that it's bullshit. I'm sick and tired of being lumped into one big homogeneous pile because I'm from some part of Europe because of, what? You've read a book or two and noticed that quite a few European cities have an old and really nice-looking architecture? Try harder.

I'm sorry if I made you upset, but I'm not looking to insult anybody here. It's a civil conversation. If you disagree with what I said, you can say why without getting antagonistic.

The fact that I used a weaker word like conjecture instead of something stronger should say a lot about what I really think on the matter. I'm used to constructing comments a bit more carefully for serious opinions if you look at my comment history. :) No harm, no foul, I hope.

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#56

Post by raverbashing » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:47 PM UTC

troels wrote: post #38

k-mcgrady wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I's a strategy for getting the business going. Obviously you begin localising once you've got some traction.

No, you need localisation to get traction. People are surprisingly fond of their own language, even if they are almost fluent in English. At least if you're dealing with consumers.

If you do localization, don't think only language will cut it.

Address systems, payment systems, "simply taking credit cards" may not cut it.

But in the end you have to launch targeting one or more countries, whatever comes beyond that is "free".

And of course, you start from day 0 to make your system Unicode compliant.

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#57

Post by wolfgke » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:48 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #9

ThomPete wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is just a short list. a) Different cultures b) Different languages c) Different tax systems d) Different company types e) Different legality All these in combination creates a lot of friction that makes it harder. There are obviously exceptions (ex. skype) but in general it's just very hard to navigate compared to the US.

Most kids are (and have been for a while) taught English in schools. If you create your site with English as the first language you can target most European countries + the US. Regarding company types you set up your business in the country you're based in - you don't need a separate company for every country you operate it. I believe the same applies to tax. You pay it in the country you are based in.

The people's English is usually rather bad if they aren't higher educated (e. g. university degree).

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#58

Post by antr » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:50 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #53

antr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A US SaaS hasn't got tax, legal, culture issues when selling their products in Europe. So how can all of these be issues within the EU?

Have you ever tried to sell something in English to a French company? Have you ever tried to sell something in Russia without "having a connection" to someone? Why does Dropbox have a Irish HQ?[0] [0]- https://www.dropbox.com/dublin

Cherry pick all you want. Dropbox and others grew to millions without having a multiple-language site, European headquarters, "Russian connections", etc. My business currently sells to the world with an English website, one terms of service, one VAT, and one business location in a non-English speaking country. We are not the only ones.

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#59

Post by michaelfeathers » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:50 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #48

How about because "failure is good" is an absurd proposition? Failure in this case typically means people lost money and jobs. It also means customers probably got stung buying into something new and that could make them more hesitant to buy into something new next time, which is harmful to successful innovation. Learning from failures is good, and might help entrepreneurs to develop a more viable proposition if they…

Maybe the way to put it is - "failure is not something to be that scared of."

I didn't like the article. It felt shallow. The real issue is that in the US we have a tendency to not second-guess people's decisions about how to invest their money. Yes, this means that some people will be ripped off, but it also means that they, and the society as a whole can be in rapid learning cycles about what makes a good investment.

It's clear that the US has a very different take on acceptable risk and as a result they more big wins and big losses. Can't have one without the other.

Re: Why haven’t European investors fully accepted the failure is good mentality yet?

#60

Post by michaelfeathers » Sun, Mar 02, 2014, 2:59 PM UTC

H4U wrote: post #16

As a brit we do not fear failiure, its well known that Up to one fifth of the 400000 businesses that start up each year fail within the first 12 months of operation in the UK. investors dont write blank cheques is the main difference. we are blunt and dont flower up potential so monetry failiure is more relative to business size.

But there are regulatory things too. I've heard (don't know how true it is) that if your business fails in the UK you are not allowed to start another for a period of time.

I've heard of similar laws throughout Europe.