Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am talking about less taxes, less beaurocracy, less stupid artificial hindrances.
I would go to Estonia.
Why?
Startup in Europe?
11–20 of 21 posts
Re: Startup in Europe?
#12Does Switzerland count? Pro: stable economy, access to capital, beautiful. Con: expensive
I don't know. "beautiful" doesn't count for sure :).
Re: Startup in Europe?
#13It would be great to have a google maps of location of hacker news members world wide, so that we could engage in local communities
Re: Startup in Europe?
#14What about this: 1) get a high-paying job in a European country 2) after 6 months, start doing a lousy job & get yourself fired. 3) Leach on generous social security until your startup takes off. 4) ... 5) Profit!
I've heard in France, you don't even need to do a lousy job. You just need to ask to be "voluntarily fired", and you can receive benefits. If you have a startup, you can receive those benefits indefinitely.
Some companies would agree to fire you on your demand, but it not very legal, so bigger one might not do it. You'll have to get good relation with your management to do it.
You can received unemployement help for 2 years, given that you worked enough before (it is roughly 70% of your salary, but decreasing over time ). You can also ask a part of that money up front, but that will cut your right.
There is also an interesting "autoentrepreneur" status that is nice if you want to boostrap something that allow you to be registered as a company but ask you minimal accounting, simplify registration and only tax you if you earn anything. It's important because company are taxed more than in the US.
Salaries are lower too (it's not very easy to accumulate 6mo/1year of cash in advance ), few peoples speak english, so you really need to speak french to start something in France.
Re: Startup in Europe?
#15Here's a great spreadsheet comparing a lot of countries around the word:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/Simulator_2010.xls
It's from the World Bank, comparing how easy it is to do business in different countries. Last time I checked, US was 4th, the UK was 5th, and Ireland (where I live) was 7th.
If you want to consider Ireland, it's got a very 'pro-business' attitude, strong US connections, well-educated, English-speaking workforce, political stability, little bureaucracy, many grants and supports available from state agencies to promote entrepreneurship, and a very low corporate tax rate of just 12.5% (there's further tax breaks available if you are doing R&D). However, it's expensive here.
As regards taxes, Accenture moved their Global HQ here from the Bahamas because of tax advantages, and many multinationals have their European HQ here also (Microsoft, IBM, Google, Apple, Pfizer & most of the Big Pharmas). Also, from what you have said, I'm guessing you are Eastern European - well there are many of your countrymen here, so you won't feel totally homesick ;-)
Despite all that, I'm actually considering travelling to Silicon Valley in September to scope it out, and to try to determine if I would like working in a startup (i.e. if I would be suited to doing my own startup at some point). My work contract expires then, and I've taken on board some good advice from a successful American entrepreneur who strongly recommended it.
So I'm in a somewhat similar position to you. I'm seriously considering moving to Silicon Valley to at least give it a shot, the odds of success are much higher for all the reasons mentioned in pg essays and the articles on 'moving to Silicon Valley' that appear from time to time here on HN.
Re: Startup in Europe?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would go to Estonia.
Why?
Low taxes, little bureaucracy, good programmers, good startup culture (skype, for example, was programmed there), business-friendly place, good ties with Finland and Sweden, wifi everywhere, widespread use of the web.
The thing that impressed me most, however, was when I read that they are a nation of only 1.4 million people, so they have to go after every opportunity they have in order to make things more efficient. The Government's goal is actually to make the public sector so efficient that they can fire state employees and "free up resources", i.e. workers, for the private sector. Of course, this policy must have created some problems in the last 2 yeas, but overall the impression is that they are a country on the right path. Finally, the three Baltic Republics - I have visited Estonia and Latvia, but not Lithuania - are countries that share many traits with Scandinavian countries and that look up to Scandinavian countries. I personally expect them to do very very well.
Re: Startup in Europe?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
Low taxes, little bureaucracy, good programmers, good startup culture (skype, for example, was programmed there), business-friendly place, good ties with Finland and Sweden, wifi everywhere, widespread use of the web. The thing that impressed me most, however, was when I read that they are a nation of only 1.4 million people, so they have to go after every opportunity they have in order to make things more efficient.…
Thanks, I'll certainly investigate further
Re: Startup in Europe?
#18Here's a great spreadsheet comparing a lot of countries around the word: http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/Simulator_2010.xls It's from the World Bank, comparing how easy it is to do business in different countries. Last time I checked, US was 4th, the UK was 5th, and Ireland (where I live) was 7th. If you want to consider Ireland, it's got a very 'pro-business' attitude, strong US connections, well-educated, En…
Thanks!
An English speaking country is certainly a good idea (as I am most comfortable with English, not counting my native Bulgarian).
And you are right :), I have friends working in Ireland, so it won't be a problem to come there and stay at their place while working on initiating a company.
I agree with all you said about Silicon Valley. But we are already a nice team here. We have several "hobby" projects (which all failed back then) behind. And now we are going to do it "for real". Of course, we may be moving somewhere else in the future, especially if we come to the need to hire more people. But for now we are just going to live cheap in Bulgaria and work :).
Re: Startup in Europe?
#19Here's a great spreadsheet comparing a lot of countries around the word: http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/Simulator_2010.xls It's from the World Bank, comparing how easy it is to do business in different countries. Last time I checked, US was 4th, the UK was 5th, and Ireland (where I live) was 7th. If you want to consider Ireland, it's got a very 'pro-business' attitude, strong US connections, well-educated, En…
Thanks! An English speaking country is certainly a good idea (as I am most comfortable with English, not counting my native Bulgarian). And you are right :), I have friends working in Ireland, so it won't be a problem to come there and stay at their place while working on initiating a company. I agree with all you said about Silicon Valley. But we are already a nice team here. We have several "hobby" projects (which…
You're welcome. The very best of luck to you!
Re: Startup in Europe?
#20For western Europe I would also suggest Luxembourg. Living there is also quite expensive ( but you may live in one of the neighbouring countries)...
European HQ of Ebay,Skype,Paypal,Amazon,ITunes are all located in Luxembourg for IP, tax, regulatory (e-commerce) reasons.It's also easier to find motivated multilingual people.