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How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

christianpetroske.com

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Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#101

Post by BiteCode_dev »

bouzouk wrote: post #17
Uberphallus wrote: post #3

Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organization…

Living in Paris for a very long time and having started a few businesses (current one: a challenger bank with 20+ employees), I don’t relate to anything you are saying. Yes there are high taxes, (not half of the salary, for a software engineer it is very often around 30%) but they basically cover a lot of employee services that you would need to pay extra for in the US (health coverage, retirement,...). Most startup…

> Aren’t you just repeating some stereotypes you heard elsewhere? If France were as hostile as you pictured it, how would it have such a dense startup ecosystem and even (God forbids!) some very successful ones?

Where are they? Cause as a French, I've been living on the startup scene for 10 years, and I don't see those anywhere. There are successful companies, but startup?

I hear about a 1000 more US ones than french ones, while I'm literally living next to an incubator.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#102

Post by smnrchrds »

French Talent Passport has streams for employees as well as founders. Does anyone know what happens if you use the employee stream and then lose your job, e.g. because the company who hired you has gone under? Do you have to leave France immediately, or is there a grace period for you to find another job?

Also, does France have similar to Permanent Residency in other countries? How long do you need to live in France before you can obtain a status that allows you to stay, live, and switch employers in France and does not depend on keeping your job?

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#103

Post by ohgodplsno »

belzebalex wrote: post #95
ohgodplsno wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ariane is being eaten alive by SpaceX, and the bureaucrats won't move fast enough. They can't even agree on Ariane 6 Arianespace and SpaceX are not even playing in the same court. Ariane 6 is made for heavy payloads, SpaceX can barely lift medium weight satellites. Yann LeCun? He was literally already studying in Toronto in the 80s, he didn't flee France for Facebook. As for startups, yes, we do. Are they unicorns?…

Seems like you know more about the legal code than I do. Maybe am I wrong on the root causes. France's leadership in technology is still poor though: all the consumer hardware we use comes from Asia with software coming from the US (I'm sure you can find exceptions to that, and I'm genuinely curious about it), and that's a big problem. The only two french apps I use are the RATP's app and BlaBlaCar once every year. Y…

>Seems like you know more about the legal code than I do.

Unfortunately, legal battles with employers tend to cause that :)

> France's leadership in technology is still poor though

This is the root cause. It's not that France is bad technology wise. It's not that France lacks entrepreneurs. It's not that there's rules and laws. We literally have some of the best engineers in the world. Ask SF companies how happy they are to receive french employees. The level of someone coming out of an engineering school in France is much higher than most of the US.

It's that we have a mix of large companies capturing everything (hello Capgemini) and leaders that have no interest in technology (and helping said large comapnies capture everything).

The good news is, you can just wait for those decision makers to die off and we'll be good. By the time you come out of a DUT/Licence or engineering school if you're heading this way, many will be gone. And more will be gone with time.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#104

Post by larrysalibra »

ldng wrote: post #11
Uberphallus wrote: post #3

Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organization…

Yet hundreds of companies are created every year. You just illustrate the tipical French mentality ingrained by media all year long. A comment full of cliché. If France is so bad, move out. You'll learn a thing or two in the process. Beginning with the grass is not always greener elsewhere.

> If France is so bad, move out. You'll learn a thing or two in the process. Beginning with the grass is not always greener elsewhere.

They do move out! I'm in Hong Kong and we're lucky to have 10s of thousands of French people that were frustrated with the business environment in France and moved to Hong Kong. They start businesses from restaurants to crypto currency exchanges. It's really great having them (and other immigrants around).

I encourage France to continue whatever policies they have that encourage their best and brightest to head for places that treat them better.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#105

Post by ekabod »

belzebalex wrote: post #9
Uberphallus wrote: post #3

Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organization…

Yeah, as a French I can only completely agree. The amount of paperwork is just absurd. For instance, when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company. That's just plain racket, and that kind of things is everywhere. France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations. The fun part i…

not 200 euros. It is around 80 euros.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#106

Post by keyrat »

belzebalex wrote: post #9
Uberphallus wrote: post #3

Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organization…

Yeah, as a French I can only completely agree. The amount of paperwork is just absurd. For instance, when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company. That's just plain racket, and that kind of things is everywhere. France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations. The fun part i…

I don't know about how the rest of things compare but to put it into perspective for you, in Florida in the USA, you need to pay $400/year to keep your company official. And Florida is considered a relatively easy place to do business.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#107

Post by literallycancer »

Qiu_Zhanxuan wrote: post #27
nix23 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> €157,806+: 45% That's the problem you see?

reality check, 120k€/year already puts you in the top 1% of income earner in France. Past this point you should be satisfied with how much you've already earned and maybe starts caring more about the impact your job/company should have...

The price of new dwellings in Paris is 12863 EUR per square meter. How can you be satisfied with what you have earned when you still have to take a 20 year mortgage to get a decent home?

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#108

Post by ttwy2020 »

smnrchrds wrote: post #102

French Talent Passport has streams for employees as well as founders. Does anyone know what happens if you use the employee stream and then lose your job, e.g. because the company who hired you has gone under? Do you have to leave France immediately, or is there a grace period for you to find another job? Also, does France have similar to Permanent Residency in other countries? How long do you need to live in France…

I have the Talent Passport as an employee, and my first company went under. I was lucky to find another job before quitting, but generally, there is no obligation to "leave France immediately".

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#109

Post by krstf13 »

user5994461 wrote: post #78
bouzouk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Paris for a very long time and having started a few businesses (current one: a challenger bank with 20+ employees), I don’t relate to anything you are saying. Yes there are high taxes, (not half of the salary, for a software engineer it is very often around 30%) but they basically cover a lot of employee services that you would need to pay extra for in the US (health coverage, retirement,...). Most startup…

Here's the taxes on French salaries for reference. - The company has 60k budget. - 25% goes to employer tax (charges patronales). 45k left. That's commonly called the gross salary (salaire brut). - 25% goes to employee tax (charges sociales). 34k left. Commonly called the net salary (salaire net) - Employee pays income tax at the end of the year. The rate is progressive and highly variable depending on personal situa…

This is grossly inaccurate. What you're calling taxes, are fees that allow employee to get several benefits. Practically speaking, these are delayed salary.

They include social security, unemployment benefits, retirement benefits, training ...

When your employee is sick, they can stay at home without losing their pay, and without your company paying for it. They can seek medical treatment without risking bankruptcy.

If you have to lower you activity because business is bad, you can put in place part time unemployment, and your employees won't lose money in the process...

Also, the fees paid by the employer are often subsidised through eg tax credits, reimbursements (up to a certain amount)... So that these numbers are not only inaccurate but also totally meaningless.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#110

Post by yodsanklai »

belzebalex wrote: post #9
Uberphallus wrote: post #3

Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organization…

Yeah, as a French I can only completely agree. The amount of paperwork is just absurd. For instance, when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company. That's just plain racket, and that kind of things is everywhere. France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations. The fun part i…

Your message is full of cliches.

> when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company.

Irrelevant, it's a ridiculous amount compared to other costs involved in starting a company.

> just check out the ENS's Nobel prize / admissions ratio

This doesn't tell anything about the French education system.

> Most of the brilliant French minds go to work in other countries where it's possible to create and operate a company.

A lot of brillant minds don't have any interest in creating a company. Besides, the world is a big place with many opportunities. Nowadays it's easy to travel and work abroad. A lot of people, brillant or not, leave their country out of curiosity.

As any places, France has good and bad things. Usually, we understand what we miss after living a few years abroad.

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