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A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

mattgiustwilliamson.substack.com

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Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#321

Post by mbesto »

jasode wrote: post #105
esperent wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Startups aim to grow quickly Maybe this is a US centric definition. It's definitely not what I mean when I talk about a startup with European or Asian tech founders.

>Maybe this is a US centric definition. It's a common definition for new companies that intend to grow quickly beyond a small/medium size and very often associated with funding from VC. 1st paragraph from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company : >A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model.[1][2] While entrepreneurship inc…

> But there is no Global Language Police that everybody has to obey so if some folks wants to label their new neighborhood coffee house a "startup", nobody will stop them.

This is the trick that VCs/investors use to justify certain behaviors (which I don't care to enumerate here). When you have terms with colloquial meanings and mean different things to different people, the terms are ripe for manipulation. As an example, there are people who still call Uber a "startup". It's very much not a startup in sense of the word, but yet there are still people who refer to it as such.

> That Linkedin blog by Japjot Sethi has bad heuristics and should be removed as a citation.

Which is precisely why the wikipedia article is heavily biased by those who are responsible for maintaining content on the Wikipedia who happened to lean towards the tech circles (yes I'm aware I could submit a petition to Wikipedia to change it). If anything, Wikipedia should create a disambiguation between a Webster's definition and silicon valley's definition.

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#322

Post by nickpsecurity »

gamblor956 wrote: post #256
jpfr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just founded in Germany. The paperwork is … okay. Not much more crazy than tax returns or internal accounting you need to do in any jurisdiction. But yes, running any organization is a lot of work.

In terms of tax craziness (most crazy to least): 1) India. Lots of conflicting laws. Lots of conflicting paperwork. And as a foreign company you'll probably pay more in bribes ("voluntary non-disclosed payments to ensure success") than you would in taxes, because the alternative is that they send the police after your local employees and maybe try to have the local court seize your property. 2) EU. The VATOSS is stra…

"If your only source of income is W2 income, you could finish your tax return in 15 minutes."

Also free on H&R Block now. They can scan your W2's with your phone camera, too, if they can't pull it. Then, direct deposit it into your bank account. It was great.

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#323

Post by ks2048 »

1659447091 wrote: post #318
ks2048 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried founding a business or fundraising in any other non-Germany country, but this is an insane thing to say imo. In the US, people also tell you pay an expensive lawyer to deal with government paperwork.

I may be misunderstanding, is this statement suggesting that the advice to use lawyers in Germany is simply standard op procedure, and not even remotely necessary? As it really isn't necessary in the US, especially with how easy it is to change or update later if it gets to that point. I have incorporated (s-corp), created a couple LLC's and briefly used a sole proprietorship with a DBA filed in my county - this one…

I don't know much about Germany, but the statement was a response to the threads above,

(1) > but I also think hiring someone for [government paperwork] would be the wise choice in most places anyway.

(2) > I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried founding a business or fundraising in any other non-Germany country, but this is an insane thing to say imo.

My point was that it's not an insane thing in the USA (non-German country) to hire someone for government paperwork.

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#324

Post by nickpsecurity »

shafyy wrote: post #210
zwnow wrote: post #77

Earlier 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 have founded multiple companies in Germany and in the US. Sure, in the US you have services like Stripe Atlas that make it a bit easier. But still, I would not say it's much crazier registering a company in Germany compared to the US. Of course, it helps if you have a bit of an idea of legal concepts and accounting, but to be honest, that also makes sense, since you are starting a business. This is not to say that…

Here it is in Mississippi:

https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/how-to-start-an-llc-in-mis...

How does that compare to Germany?

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#325

Post by nradov »

greenavocado wrote: post #129
martin_a wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. Go to your hometown administration, pay 35 Euro and leave 15 minutes later with a "Gewerbeanmeldung" which enables you to start doing business right away.

You are lying by omission. The Gewerbeanmeldung typically registers you as a sole proprietor (Einzelunternehmer) or GbR (partnership). Most tech startups need a limited liability structure like GmbH (similar to LLC) or UG. Those require notarized founding documents, minimum capital requirements (€25,000 for GmbH), and a commercial register entry (Handelsregister) The simple Gewerbeanmeldung structure is problematic f…

It's so stupid to have a minimum capital requirement for incorporating a business. Who could have ever thought that was a good idea?

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#326

Post by nickpsecurity »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #167
mikigraf wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And open up for liability

Is this really true? I'm in the US, and have a corporation in the US. I am shielded from liability through the corporate veil, but I also have a $50/mo $2M/incidence liability umbrella. I honestly have no idea if either are necessary, in 20 years of "doing business" I've never had a single liability needing to be covered by insurance or the veil. I think it's wise to have, just in case, but even in lawsuit happy Amer…

I'll warn you that insurance companies often try not to cover a loss or all of it. They often try to cheat their customers. So, having insurance isnt equal to a structure that makes you personally immune to liability because what the insurance company will do is unknown.

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#327

Post by nradov »

amazingamazing wrote: post #43
muzani wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things do work and created a few unicorns here in Malaysia. The catch is that they're usually very bureaucratic as it's public funds, and the more corruption, the more rules there are. Someone might say, come in from New Zealand to get a grant, then the condition becomes "must be 51% locally owned". A conglomerate creates a sister company to get the grant and then it becomes, "parent company must be less than 3…

> These things do work and created a few unicorns here in Malaysia. Which ones?

Carsome and Aerodyne?

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#328

Post by nradov »

esperent wrote: post #88
marcinzm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups aim to grow quickly. Every single definition highlights that difference versus traditional small businesses. Trying to re-brand small businesses into "startups" for the cool name factor just seems silly to me. If you're making a sustainable small business then call it that. Don't call it a startup. You'll get more customers that way as well and more relevant business contacts. People care about startups beca…

> Startups aim to grow quickly Maybe this is a US centric definition. It's definitely not what I mean when I talk about a startup with European or Asian tech founders.

Then the people you're talking to aren't actually tech founders. They're small business owners, which is fine, but it's a different thing.

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#329

Post by broodbucket »

conductr wrote: post #165
65 wrote: post #145

Earlier 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.

There is a lot of cynicism (I am a cynic) but LLMs are in my opinion already past everything else you mentioned, they're being used by "ordinary" people in their daily lives. Non-tech people are using LLMs (in many cases where they shouldn't, and some where maybe they should) and the rate at which they've become more useful has far surpassed what my very cynical circles of industry friends expected. I still think things are overblown, but "AI" in one form or another is here to stay, for better or for worse (almost certainly worse).

Re: A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

#330

Post by julianeon »

garrickvanburen wrote: post #270

I'm always conflicted about this because it's like saying the sky is blue. Stepping outside of the VC startup bubble, we see small self-funded businesses are the norm. It's the neighborhood businesses all around us. 82% of all US business have https://forstarters.substack.com/p/for-starters-10-the-three... 99.976% of new businesses don’t raise venture capital. https://forstarters.substack.com/p/for-starters-32-start-…

But the percentage we're really interested in is "what percentage of tech based startups are VC vs. bootstrapped." Especially in, say, the Bay Area. I don't know what that figure is, but I'd like to know.
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