If everyone was a unicorn, wouldn't that by definition mean they weren't unicorns??
That's why there are decacorns, because of unicorn-flation.
A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
191–200 of 363 posts
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably you'd want to see that such initiatives are increasing the number of sustainable businesses created, per capita. Is that the case? --- EDIT: Some quick searching indicates that the startup rate (per capita) in Germany is about 1.1%, while the USA is 1.5%. Not a huge difference, but the USA doesn't have any of those initiatives afaik. Just wondering what actually moves the needle and how to better create a…
> Some quick searching indicates that the startup rate (per capita) in Germany is about 1.1%, while the USA is 1.5%. Not a huge difference, but the USA doesn't have any of those initiatives afaik. I believe there's differences between east and west Germany, so if you look at the west specifically, the gamp might get a little bit smaller. Beyond that, Germany doesn't have as much of a startup culture as the USA, which…
Or maybe having a social safety net has the opposite effect you think it does, in that anyone starting a business without one is going to try that much harder to make sure their business doesn't fail, as otherwise their life is ruined. Someone with a safety net might be happy to give up after some minimum of effort because they know they'll be fine. Necessity is an incredibly strong motivator for people.
Not necessarily saying that relying on the specter of ruination would be the right choice (if the above was true), but I don't think you can reduce it to such simplistic levers.
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Every company was once a startup. I disagree. Would you consider your neighborhood restaurant a "startup". Startup for many people implies "high growth".
> Would you consider your neighborhood restaurant a "startup". Of course, they started at one point, didn't they?
My 8-year child will be excited to know their lemonade stand is a "startup".
I'll have to put that on their college application form as an achievement.
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#194> so if you're aiming for a $10M outcome, they won't be interested
VCs won't be interested if you're aiming for a $100M outcome because what you aim for is generally loftier than what you hit. If you're aiming for $100M you might sell for $25M or $50M, which is generally uninteresting to VCs.
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you read enough comments about AI or LLMs on here you will realize the people of Hacker News do live in a different world from reality.
I've been on here long enough to see it with every tech hype cycle in the past ~20 years. Self driving cars, VR, bitcoin, then generically 'crypto', web3, now AI/LLMs, probably a lot I'm missing right now... It's funny how the optimist control the narrative in the beginning then the pessimist start chiming in around the time the hype starts to vaporize. The AI/LLM cynicism is rising right now it seems.
I guess I have a different view on this... I feel like you left out that the past 20 years has also seen enormous success in this industry, even to a historically unprecedented degree.
You listed a number of things that have been super hyped flashes in the pan that never really panned out (or in the case of self driving cars, have taken way longer to pan out than people expected), but you didn't list the things that were super hyped and then became big successful sectors.
I remember when I thought "web 2.0" was overhyped, but now it's just the water we all swim in. I remember when that went from blogs to being social media, and I thought that was way overhyped too, but it turns out it was a big deal. The cloud was overhyped, "big data" was overhyped, SaaS was overhyped.
And it's true that all of these were overhyped! But they also turned into real business sectors.
It's certainly difficult to predict which hype-y things are going to mature into sustainably large markets, and which are going to fade into obscurity, but a model of "things that are hyped are doomed" is not predictive.
My own prediction is that AI tools are both overhyped and also very promising. I have no illusions that this prediction could be totally wrong. And even if it's right, I'm even more uncertain what the successful business models are going to be after the dust settles. We'll see!
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least some years ago, browsing HN's comment section felt like it was a different world, separated from reality. I think some people need this kind of grounding reminders every once in a while.
Russ (VC): Why would you go after revenue? Richard (CEO): Because... to make money? Russ: No. If you show revenue, people will ask how much, and it will never be enough. The company that was the hundred x-er, the thousand x-er, becomes the two x dog. But if you have no revenue, you can say you're pre-revenue ... you're a potential pure play. It's not about how much you earn, it's about what you're worth, and who's wo…
One of the best shows of all time, both extremely sarcastic but so on-point at the same time. We laugh because we know it's true
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#197I do like the idea in general and feel there's a lot of room for improvement between the (VC / bootstrapping) extremes. However, the middle path from the article presumes the existence of VCs willing to join you on that path. The article waves this away with: > angel investors are generally more open to a 2-3x ROI For a $1M round you'd need to find 10-20 such angels (assuming $50k-$100k average check size) willing to…
> This will probably mean you have some revenue and some sense of where PMF might lay or some kind of brand/pedigree.
> Do not underestimate the value of YC brand and being able to present on Demo Day gives you
Except to get into YC you also need to have very good traction and a plan to 10x that quickly
The two exceptions to that I’ve seen are: 1) you’ve had a good exit before, 2) you graduated from Stanford, Yale, Harvard, or similar
So for people with neither of the above, finding 10-20 angels might actually be more doable than getting into YC. Although, once you’ve done that, YC is a lot more likely to take you in
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are already services that do that, e.g. firma.de[0] But in general, not really. I also just founded a GmbH in Germany, and the paperwork really isn't that crazy, and for the more complicated parts you'll generally will want to have a tax advisor you are going to have a long-term relationship with (rather than a one-off founding service). I considered using a founding service, but ultimately, most of the "hard p…
Having gone through the process of incorporation myself, I agree with everything you said: Yes, there is some paperwork you'll have to take care of and a bit of a learning curve to everything but not outrageously so. It can all be done within ~2 weeks (including roundtrip times for mail). Yes, that's still a lot more than it'll take you in e.g. Estonia (where you can do everything online in a few minutes from what I'…
This is my general opinion with regards to bureaucracy in Germany. All the data is most likely already there and all the technical challenges have been solved in the meantime. Why do I have to do the runaround from office to office, when they are physically connected by a piece if wire (aka the internet).
There is a reason why we have so much bureaucracy in Germany (1. because we like it) and second because it is supposed to provide trust, trust that every company I deal with is legit, trust that the system knows who is participating. Without trust nobody would make business or business would be very hard, because you would have to price in the risk of not having trust.
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also connected to so much bureaucracy that you almost need to hire someone for that alone, because you wont have as much time for your actual business. Founding a company in Germany is so much unnecessary paperwork its crazy. Single handedly the only reason I will never try it in my home country.
I agree that the process is unnecessarily complex, but I also think hiring someone for that would be the wise choice in most places anyway. And even in Germany hiring someone for that would probably amount to paying 500-1000€ for the whole registration of the company instead of doing everything yourself and only paying the 100-200€ notary fees. It's not as bad as you might think. > I will never try it in my home coun…
It's so easy (relative to this) to just go grab a SAFE. No strings, no bureaucracy. You can structure your endeavor however you want. And you can sometimes do it with just a conversation.
Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn
#200Here's a model that exists in Germany, which I like: You can present a business plan to the state's investment bank and apply for several financial aides, including: * 1.5 years of universal basic income for you plus up to 2 other people. It's a tiny amount of money, but the point is to free you up to invest your actual time an money into the business. You do not have to pay this back. * up to 20k EUR in "consulting…
Can non-German citizens apply (citizen of another EU-country, though)? I am planning to move to another EU country and Germany is one strong contender, and this would make it even better.