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Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

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Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#141

Post by [deleted] »

Grustaf wrote: post #91
quietbritishjim wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SV ... is where startups were invented What exactly do you think "startup" means? To me, the word just means a new small business. Such things have been around for centuries, before the USA even existed never mind SV. That's true even if you take startup to mean specifically those taking large outside capital with a goal to grow large quickly (which I don't think is necessary, a bootstrapped startup is still a star…

If you take it to mean "new small business" then there is no lack of startups in Europe, or Bangladesh for that matter. I'm using the word in the Paul Graham sense, new companies that aim for really fast growth. And yeah, that also sort of existed before SV but I think you actually know what I mean.

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#142

Post by dmitriid »

rapsey wrote: post #122
dmitriid wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it superior? I linked to a description of YC's top companies: they lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year . Aren't successful companies supposed to, you know, earn money and turn a profit? Or is superiority is strictly in the amount of money thrown at unbelievably unprofitable companies?

Quoting the end of you post. > The vast majority is fuelled by litrerally endless investor money with only two modes of operation: corner the market (that is, outlive other competitors who don't have such an unlimited amount of money) or get sold. Yes that is the business model and business is good. As opposed to EU which is a wasteland where nothing grows. Lots of businesses are built to be sold to larger businesses…

> Yes that is the business model and business is good. As opposed to EU which is a wasteland where nothing grows.

Endlessly burning through infinite cash isn't a good business model. And it ultimately results in a significantly worse wasteland than the perceived wasteland of Europe.

Where in Europe you have lots of companies in lots of different markets, in the US you have continuous price dumping that drives away any and all competition (unless that competition has more infinite money), and preys on people.

For example, the explosive growth of gig economy is the direct result of this "good business model". And who woulda thunk it, but predators like Doordash are predictably a "YC Top Company".

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#143

Post by Mvandenbergh »

stevoski wrote: post #88
ToJans wrote: post #82

In my experience (Belgian guy that dabbled a bit with EU VCs for my SaaS) Europe is very risk-adverse, and you either have to give up ridiculous amounts of equity for a little amount (i.e. 50k€ for a 25% to +50% stake) when not established yet, or have a recurring revenue of at least 50k€/month to get reasonable propositions. Also, European culture is slightly different: most people consider a startup failure as some…

> “European culture is slightly different: most people consider a startup failure as something bad that you drag along for the rest of your career.” I hear this over and over, but in my 20 years of living in Europe, I haven’t found this to be the case. Perhaps it is only in some European countries or cultures?

Definitely not true in the UK, definitely not true in The Netherlands.

Not true among my Paris based friends, had dinner with some of the latter which included someone who was on their third startup and a few Sciences Po / X types who have the kinds of jobs you would expect and the latter were extremely interested in the what the former was up to and how the startup ecosystem worked. Definitely not a sense that they thought having tried and failed to start a tech company was somehow a bad mark - and realistically grande école types tend to be very status conscious so would have picked it up if it was there. I can't speak to what older people, people outside of Paris would think of it. I would guess much more conservative.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#144

Post by bserge »

inglor_cz wrote: post #55
bserge wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're selling a technical solution, why would you even touch cultural differences? I bet you'd be successful if you could afford the extra costs of translation/marketing.

Well that is why Linux is successful around the planet. It really does not touch any soft cultural differences. Geeks and their needs are similar everywhere. Something like a food delivery corp. on the other hand must know precisely what to expect from which holidays etc. There is a fairly successful Czech startup called Rohlík that expanded to Hungary, Austria and Germany, but every added country is a challenge. htt…

Takeaway.com is a Dutch company operating in half of Europe including Romania and Poland.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#145

Post by Mvandenbergh »

pembrook wrote: post #124
ToJans wrote: post #82

In my experience (Belgian guy that dabbled a bit with EU VCs for my SaaS) Europe is very risk-adverse, and you either have to give up ridiculous amounts of equity for a little amount (i.e. 50k€ for a 25% to +50% stake) when not established yet, or have a recurring revenue of at least 50k€/month to get reasonable propositions. Also, European culture is slightly different: most people consider a startup failure as some…

Europe’s lack of competitiveness in tech has been true pretty much since the birth of Silicon Valley. It was the same with the PC business back in the 80s and 90s. Here’s an article from the New York Times in 1996, struggling to understand why European PC manufacturers were all failing to expand outside their home markets: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/07/business/why-european-com... 25 years later, the story is th…

The challenge with any argument about SV vs Europe is that SV is so sui generis that it's actually SV vs more or less everywhere else including the rest of the US. Really, including the rest of California. What's the startup ecosystem look like in Fresno?

SV is so atypical that it's almost impossible to draw any kind of conclusions from particular factors and anyway is now probably self sustaining - VCs go there because tech talent goes there and tech talent goes there because VCs do. Very hard for anywhere else to break out in that scenario in the absence of substantial barriers to either talent or money. Barriers to employment are just high enough (not just visas, but leaving friends and family behind etc) to prevent a lot of European developers from moving for the higher salaries but not so high that a lot of top founding talent goes there.

I do wonder if the temporary barriers of Covid might have triggered something, we'll see.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#146

Post by rapsey »

dmitriid wrote: post #142
rapsey wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting the end of you post. > The vast majority is fuelled by litrerally endless investor money with only two modes of operation: corner the market (that is, outlive other competitors who don't have such an unlimited amount of money) or get sold. Yes that is the business model and business is good. As opposed to EU which is a wasteland where nothing grows. Lots of businesses are built to be sold to larger businesses…

> Yes that is the business model and business is good. As opposed to EU which is a wasteland where nothing grows. Endlessly burning through infinite cash isn't a good business model. And it ultimately results in a significantly worse wasteland than the perceived wasteland of Europe. Where in Europe you have lots of companies in lots of different markets, in the US you have continuous price dumping that drives away an…

> Where in Europe you have lots of companies in lots of different markets

In Europe you have lots of companies in lots of limited local markets unable to grow out of them because they have no funding options available to them.

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#147

Post by cuillevel3 »

_qsgk wrote: post #116

I am an American founder that accidentally built a company in Europe. I hired my first person there, and through the path of least resistance, most of our 45 person team is based in Europe. I believe I am playing 'business' on easy mode compared to European founders. As an American founder it's pretty easy for my US company to pay my European team as contractors. European founders have to comply with European employm…

An European founder could do the same, hire only self-employed contractors.

However, e.g. in Germany, that's only possible if the contractors work independently and have more than one customer long-term. I guess someone will notice eventually?

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#148

Post by raverbashing »

pembrook wrote: post #136
tester34 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>failed to create an internationally relevant social media company Those are pros or cons? >Tech salaries in Europe are now just 1/5th of what they are in Silicon Valley. Are SV salaries 5 times higher than in Zurich or London? seriously? or you're talking about peak of peak of peak?

If we’re talking Zurich specifically, the difference would probably only be 2-3X less than FANMAG/ETC. London salaries are high too (not Zurich levels from what I’ve seen), but that market is now separate from the EU. But most places in Europe with tech scenes and outsized VC investment, eg. helsinki, stockholm, berlin, amsterdam, etc you’re talking 5X less salary than in Silicon Valley. Given the tech talent in thos…

> helsinki, stockholm, berlin, amsterdam, etc you’re talking 5X less salary than in Silicon Valley.

Certainly not for the same seniority level (and not considering stocks, which people in those places do get)

Or you're telling me that someone making 60kEUR in Berlin could be transferred to SV and their salary would immediately flip to $300k on the payslip? (no promotions/stock/etc)

Realistically, more like 2x, 2.5x, 3x if we're stretching it for the mentioned cities

> Given the tech talent in those cities, there must be some arbitrage opportunity there.

Absolutely ;) Though on SV salaries you're getting paid for the less PTO, the stretched hours, etc so probably not such a big arbitrage

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#149

Post by eyko »

ToJans wrote: post #132
eyko wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't paint all of Europe with the same brush, and whilst most of Europe may be in the single market, they're not the "same" market. In my experience, there is a high variance amongst European countries (Eurozone or not) in risk-aversion vs risk-tolerance, which seems to be echoed in some studies/observations[1]. I've never really been able to see what the main factors that determine this may be -- I used to thin…

Interesting line of thought; another POV that emerged during a late-night discussion a while ago, was to look at the percentage of people that work in public service in each country. We assumed that, the closer the percentage was to the median, the more risk-averse people would be (assuming the median represents some optimal size for the government). We never validated the idea though; I'm quite curious to see how th…

I used to think so as well, but someone pointed out to me that Germany has a similar % of public sector jobs as the USA, and Spain is not that much higher, and all seem to be shrinking. Belgium on the other hand seems to be stable at 21% (21.5% 2013, 21.1% 2019) so it would seem to fit the hypothesis :-). I still think that it's a contributing factor, but perhaps it's more of a symptom and less of a factor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_se...

Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow

#150

Post by oblio »

gyulai wrote: post #94
oblio wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You wouldn't even be able to open a checking account, never mention any credit again. Is this just hearsay? It seems extreme, even for French levels of bureaucracy.

Not only is it not just hearsay: In some European countries it's even enshrined in law. For example in Austria, the leader of a company ("gewerberechtlicher Geschäftsführer"), including sole traderships, partnerships, and legal entities, cannot be a person who, within the past X years (can't remember what X is) has been in bankruptcy in any country in the world. The authorities check the relevant Austrian register be…

I think you're missing my point.

I understand being banned from > after failing repeatedly. A bit extreme, but ok, it makes sense a bit. But he was saying he was banned from > due to that.

It is extremely unlikely that you won't be able to get a simple checking/deposit account at a commercial bank just because you went bankrupt.

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