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We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

mertbulan.com

31–40 of 244 posts

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#31

I kept waiting for the post to mention the German company who make Things.app (culturedcode.com). It seems like a good example of the ethos.

Dollar for dollar, Things is probably the single best app I’ve ever used. I can’t recommend it enough.

It's a company that seems to care more about craftsmanship than becoming the next big thing.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#32

How can they compete with well capitalized start ups?

Stability, sustainability, EU legislation compliance and taking care of your individual problems. If it goes well, the companies will grow with you and don't outgrow you. I think there is a growing Digital Mittelstand in Germany already. I myself work for such a company. We have some strong VC-backed competition. So far the company, self-financed, fares quite well. I think the author misses a plethora of B2B markets…

I have worked for a couple of those as well.

Super interesting niche products, that were crucial for people's day to day work, sustainable work pace, always shipping interesting features every other week. A lot of focus on quality (the QA:Dev ratio was 1:1 in one of those for example).

A lot different from the "we must rule the world or die" from regular startups outside Germany. Incidentally one of those companies I was in just died, after getting from 50-90 (when I was there) to 900 employees. I'm glad I left before the decline.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollar for dollar, Things is probably the single best app I’ve ever used. I can’t recommend it enough.

It's a company that seems to care more about craftsmanship than becoming the next big thing.

It might also be a successful recipe- you let a startup become the next big thing, then it ruins it as a mega cooperation- and you just cook up the same thing with paid for quality and slowly hover up there fleeing customers. Slow and steady wins the race?

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#35

For start Germany needs better internet connectivity. Getting 1gbps symmetric fiber or 5G coverage is a scifi! Even Romania has better infrastructure!

It's worse than that. Romania is #43 by GDP in the global ranking. There's faster internet compared to Germany in: Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Jordan, Panama, Ecuador, Moldova, etc.

Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/internet-...

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#36
What we need in Europe, is protectionism both against US companies and Chinese companies. They have been funded by both country's heavily deficitary budgets and incentives.

Just fining Meta and Google a few billions every year isn't enough. Need to either tax all that digital pollution they bring over here.

And now they clearly aren't our partners anymore. With China not sharing democratic values and wanting to invade Taiwan, and the US setting up a trade war against us and at the same time siding with our enemy Russia that has just invaded Ukraine...

We need to have our own tech, for everything.

Similar to what US is doing against China, we should have a strong position against both of them. And one that strikes close at heart in the US are the Big Techs.

It's hilarious that we don't let even Fanta be sold with the terrible chemical formula it has here in the EU, like they have in the US.

But when it's about manipulating people's opinions with the US's social networks and communication apps. We are ok with that.

I'm sure anybody nowadays can build similar software than Meta or Google did. Even now more with AI search being so good.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#37
There are a lot of such companies already in Germany. Basically most small/medium sized IT companies in Germany fit that classification. So I don't really see how this is now a new approach. And I'm also not sure what is proposed here to be done now. Invest more into IT infrastructure? That's a goal that many parties claim to do since many years. Many people fully agree with this. However, currently, the main topic in Germany is again immigration. Second topic is economy, but the opinions on how to improve economy widely varies. Many of the more traditional parties want to invest more into car companies.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#38

How can they compete with well capitalized start ups?

The hardest thing is competing with free. Well funded startups can "dump" free products and services into the market to kill competition and capture the market. Large corporations also dump open source into the market to commoditize their compliments or kill competition.

Dumping is illegal in a lot of commodities markets and physical goods industries but it's standard operating practice in software. It's hard to even imagine how different the software world would look if dumping were at least regulated.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#39
post #27

I didn’t find this article credible. It is arguing for small and medium businesses instead of startups, and offers steps to see the vision it paints. But startups are where some of the biggest game changing ideas come from. Large enterprises can sometimes do that too. I feel like the mid sized companies are often stagnant. The product areas it suggests for businesses are very hard to survive in. These other lines sor…

Most people don't want a mass of game changers. They want durabilty and reliabilty.

Durability and reliability on consumer products doesn't make you a lot of money. See consumer Sennheiser headphones. Hence why they divested the business because they weren't making much money compared to the ewaste Bluetooth earbud manufacturers.

Turns out if you make products that last forever, you end up with less sales in the long run putting you out of business when your customer base values the c convenience of cheap modern ewaste versus pricey things that last forever.

Re: We don't need startups, we need Digital-Mittelstand

#40

I didn’t find this article credible. It is arguing for small and medium businesses instead of startups, and offers steps to see the vision it paints. But startups are where some of the biggest game changing ideas come from. Large enterprises can sometimes do that too. I feel like the mid sized companies are often stagnant. The product areas it suggests for businesses are very hard to survive in. These other lines sor…

>> However, if you’ve ever used a product marked “Made in Germany,” you’ll understand what German culture truly values: mastery of a craft and uncompromising quality. What is OP smoking? I have a Bosch oven, Gigaset DECT phone set and a Fujitsu Siemens laptop, all made in Germany and their quality is complete bottom of the barrel crap, totally the opposite of "craftsmanship and uncompromising quality". Chinese compan…

All of those are the opposite of Mittelstand. Those are old German megacorps, trying to do everything.
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