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A guide to freelancing in Finland

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Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#111

Post by lawlorino »

euro_expat wrote: post #93
lawlorino wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they won't be cooking up the next iPhone anytime soon. It's funny you say this since Nokia, who are a Finnish company, were the globally dominant mobile phone company for years before the iPhone due to their innovations e.g. doing camera phones well. The 3310 is one of the best selling mobile phones ever. Yes they ultimately fell from that position, but to suggest Europe is some desert of mediocrity seems fooli…

I think you misunderstand. I mean an innovation on par with the iPhone, where it basically changed how people live their lives. I'm quite sure Europeans can make a phone, the problem is they can't hit an innovative home run to save their lives.

I misunderstand your vague handwavey definition then. What is the data or metric that you're basing your opinion off exactly? 7 of the top 10 best selling mobile devices of all time are made by Nokia [0]. How is that not changing how people live their lives?

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_...

Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#112

Post by sam_hosseini »

irrationalactor wrote: post #106
hopia wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to start a Finnish company? For targeting purely Finnish clientele?

From the guide it sounded like you need a Finnish limited liability company to be able to service domestic Finnish clients. Or would Finnish companies be able to pay an on-site freelancer with an American LLC just as easily?

I think Finnish clients can work with an American LLC. I'm not 100% sure, but I can't seem to even imagine why not.

Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#113

Post by dzhiurgis »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #45
climate_realist wrote: post #36

I think people here who look at Finland and Europe in general and see these social programs to help you get ahead are rather blinded by the reality that they only exist for Europeans. As a US citizen who lived in Europe for 5 years, I can assure you that it's a 100% closed game. If you are not from the EU, you can only work for a European. It makes no difference if you have a great idea, or even your own funding, you…

I am also an American who lived in Finland, Austria, and Denmark for, cumulatively, over 5 years. I now own and run a small but successful bootstrapped American SaaS. What bothered me is that in all the above countries, they try to encourage entrepreneurship through rigged government programs. These programs offer grants and other benefits to 'the right kind of startups' - usually ones that are fashionable because th…

> With these countries, it's not important that your startup is actually making money

Wow. I always thought that's a SF VC thing. If anything EU businesses focus much much earlier on profitability. That's the reason why they are much more risk averse and rarely (if ever) create some really ludicrous startups.

Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#114

Post by cakeplease »

climate_realist wrote: post #36

I think people here who look at Finland and Europe in general and see these social programs to help you get ahead are rather blinded by the reality that they only exist for Europeans. As a US citizen who lived in Europe for 5 years, I can assure you that it's a 100% closed game. If you are not from the EU, you can only work for a European. It makes no difference if you have a great idea, or even your own funding, you…

I am confused by this comment. Finland and other EU countries offer startup visas and the requirements for them require minimal capital. Recruiting outside of EU is also relatively easy since there is no artificial cap and no significant salary requirements like with H1B. It's a cakewalk compared to the monsterity that is the US visa system.

Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#115

Post by metakermit »

xondono wrote: post #17

It would be amazing to have a collection of guides like this sorted by country!

Yes, definitely. I started doing something similar (though much more narrow in scope) while I was freelancing in Austria:

https://punkrockdev.com/accounting-austria

Ideally, we would have crowd-sourced instructions and spreadsheets with taxes, pension calculations etc. – like a Wikipedia for entrepreneurs.

Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#116

Post by hopia »

irrationalactor wrote: post #106
hopia wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to start a Finnish company? For targeting purely Finnish clientele?

From the guide it sounded like you need a Finnish limited liability company to be able to service domestic Finnish clients. Or would Finnish companies be able to pay an on-site freelancer with an American LLC just as easily?

I don't see why not. In fact, it would be "cheaper" for them because they do not need to pay the value added tax to your non-EU company. Sure they'd get that eventually back from the tax office if they were paying just another Finnish company, but it would still take a bit of time.

Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#117

Post by dang »

euro_expat wrote: post #93
lawlorino wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they won't be cooking up the next iPhone anytime soon. It's funny you say this since Nokia, who are a Finnish company, were the globally dominant mobile phone company for years before the iPhone due to their innovations e.g. doing camera phones well. The 3310 is one of the best selling mobile phones ever. Yes they ultimately fell from that position, but to suggest Europe is some desert of mediocrity seems fooli…

I think you misunderstand. I mean an innovation on par with the iPhone, where it basically changed how people live their lives. I'm quite sure Europeans can make a phone, the problem is they can't hit an innovative home run to save their lives.

Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

HN is a community and we want it to remain one. For that, users need some identity for others to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

You needn't use your real name, of course.

Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#118

Post by reaperducer »

fsloth wrote: post #60
yoran wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I think that a problem in the EU is the wide abundance of government subsidies. The intentions are good but in fact it messes up the mechanism of natural selection in startups. Companies that haven't managed to raise money from private investors because they shouldn't really be funded (for various reasons e.g. their business model isn't viable, not a good team, or have exterior obligations and aren't fully c…

"Companies that haven't managed to raise money from private investors" This comment is a bit off topic for Finland. It does not have large capital markets looking for a good investment. It's a capital poor country. Which is a good thing to know, if you come here looking for startup funding. The reason you don't find strong local seed funding is not because government blocks them. The reason is there is no capital for…

Startups don't need large capital markets.

The vast majority of new businesses in the United States don't get VC funding. They get small investments from friends, families, local banks, etc...

Re: A guide to freelancing in Finland

#120

Post by reaperducer »

inapis wrote: post #85
throwaway13337 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am also an American who lived in Finland, Austria, and Denmark for, cumulatively, over 5 years. I now own and run a small but successful bootstrapped American SaaS. What bothered me is that in all the above countries, they try to encourage entrepreneurship through rigged government programs. These programs offer grants and other benefits to 'the right kind of startups' - usually ones that are fashionable because th…

> These programs offer grants and other benefits to 'the right kind of startups' - usually ones that are fashionable because the subject is currently hyped - ai, climate change, etc. > I imagine there's a lot of 'who you know' going on, too. Isn't this pretty much everywhere? US/India/China? And it's probably not limited to just government programs but even Angels/VCs/press are prone to hype? The current product I'm…

Isn't this pretty much everywhere?

No. In the United States, the majority of businesses get funding because the founders have a good business plan. It's sometimes easier if you know the right people, but only if you seek capital from those types of people.

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