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Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

maxkle.in

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Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#91

Post by stefanp »

Dude, seriously... I can't believe it. Talking about freedom, comparing europe and china ... Come on ! Is this a joke ?

Your friend is getting sued, so you move to a country where people are put in jail for their political opinions ?

Don't invent stupid excuses, there's no need to. You're 24 years old and are looking for opportunity, and China, despite being a bloody dictatorship were a billion people work in slave-like conditions, is the new land of opportunity, so you're giving it a try. Good for you.

But cut the ridiculous crap. You sound like a spoiled brat.

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#92

Post by fauigerzigerk »

yardie wrote: post #22

Is it at all possible to change the title from Europe to Germany. Most of his complaints are German specific and don't apply to everywhere in Europe. Bureaucracy: I've heard regularly bad things about the German bundes. I've heard good things about UK, Sweden, Romania, Hungary. Labor: Whether you get it here or there the price of labor is only going up, but in China it's going up faster. Programmers are expensive. I'…

I've heard good things about Ireland as well. I heard bad things about Hungary (nationalist thugs hunting down gipsies and foreigners). Never heard of the "German bundes" though.

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#93

Post by mattm »

chrischen wrote: post #83
mattm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed with the cost of living. No matter where you go in the world, if you want to live an American lifestyle - car, big house/apartment, western products - you will pay just about the same as living in the US. However, if you can live like a local, your cost of living will drop dramatically. I never had a problem with street food.

http://www.chinasmack.com/2009/pictures/recycled-slop-swill-... Even my relatives stopped buying street food for me there. Generally it's really unsanitary. Even street food in NYC is unsanitary, china is definitely worse.

I've definitely seen horror stories like that before. Maybe I was just lucky.

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#94

Post by aaronkaplan »

When you were growing up, the previous generation of German businessmen gave up some of their profits to pay for your education and health care, and to ensure that you grew up in a relatively safe and pleasant environment. They did this with the expectation that you would in turn pay for the following generation.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that you should be forced to perpetuate the system. You didn't choose where you were born, and if you think the system in place there is wrong you should be free to leave. But you've benefited from the generosity of others, and now by moving to a country where it's cheaper to do business precisely because it doesn't offer its people the same advantages that Germany does, you're ducking out of repaying that debt. Have you thought about other ways to pay it back? Or do you consider the previous generation to be suckers for paying your way without making you sign a contract first?

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#95

Post by fauigerzigerk »

zatara wrote: post #55

My experience with surfing tells me that you don't paddle towards where the wave has been, you wait and position yourself for the next one. The basic assumption is very sound, in a global world economy repositioning may be very interesting. I too agree that Europe is mostly dead for innovation and startups, but China is probably over-rated and too much bubble-prone at the moment (not to mention corruption, cultural s…

I don't know much about Brazil but it would be the the first latin american country without crazy excessive regulation.

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#96

Post by cvg »

AndrewO wrote: post #42
mattm wrote: post #32

I lived in China in 2008 and while I'm no expert on China, you will learn quite quickly that some of your perceptions about China are not true: - In china, you can pay a programmer 600€ a month Sure, for average programmers. For good ones, you are going to be paying the same as elsewhere. A friend of mine there told me her brother was earning nearly $500 US/day working as a programmer for a company and they even gave…

To add to your point on bribery, let's not forget that many countries have laws against bribing foreign officials. In the US it's the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act ). I'd assume Europe has something similar (Wikipedia brings up a missing link to a European "Criminal Law Convention on Corruption", but I haven't looked into it). Even if the host country is so…

Also, it's illegal in China. Enforcement is lax, but if you cross the wrong person expect the law to be enforced. Several Rio Tinto officers had to find this out the hard way.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62S0R020100329

Network, the Chinese way, and get some people on your side quickly.

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#97

Post by hga »

rdl wrote: post #80
3pt14159 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is a clear win. Set up a corporation in a single day. Fairly straightforward taxes (not the lowest around, but still fairly simple). Technical cities (Waterloo, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa). Zero corruption, unless you're in the construction industry, but effectively nothing. Easy employee termination (2 weeks pay without cause, 0 weeks pay with cause). Low occurrence of lawsuits, especially medical, and much s…

I assume he's actually trolling us. Canada is a great choice. Singapore or Hong Kong would be ok. Various Eastern European countries, or Ireland, or Australia or New Zealand -- all great. The only reason I would put a small business in China is a manufacturing business, or a services business focused ON CHINA. A services business focused outside China based in China is utterly insane. You have the language issue, the…

There's also the "can I connect to this outside Internet service today?" risk.

As I recall, people said companies can generally VPN out, but that adds to your costs (paying the external VPN site, plus latency, another single point of failure, etc.).

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#98

Post by ido »

yardie wrote: post #26
ido wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not U.S born, it's QUITE difficult to simply walk in and start a company in the U.S. And you'd spend a lot of time just solving those problems, and have a lot less time to setup your company. Not only that, you might have a hard time even getting to the US in the first place, as one of the requirements for even getting a visa is to show that you have "sufficient ties" to you current country of residence (e…

If you are trying to immigrate to the US on a non-immigrant visa then hell yes they will put you through the wringer. Do the proper paperwork and apply through the greencard lottery. There are plenty of empty spots for French and German greencard seekers. Since we share the same language the UK slots are perpetually full. Australians get a special immigration visa (R-1?) just for being awesome.

I'm not French or German.

I haven't really heard of the lottery before, and I suspect this is the reason:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa#Winnin...

The amortized chance of "winning" over all regions is 1.51%.

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#99

Post by semanticist »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #87
lionhearted wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I've heard too many horror stories from entrepreneurs getting burned in China to want to put all my chips in that stack. I had a girlfriend who was working at a Chinese media company five years ago, and her company said something unpleasant (true) things about an important company in the local province. The mayor called up the newspaper, and was pressuring them... it turned out alright in the end, but it was a…

I would also be concerned about the legal system in China, but political pressure on the media is very widespread in europe as well. During the Iraq war, the entire BBC top management was fired for being critical of the war. In many European countries, polititians are the bosses of journalists at the most important TV stations.

Do you have a citation for that BBC claim? I don't recall anything remotely like that.

There was a lot of government pressure over the 'dodgy dossier' scandal, but nothing like 'the entire top management' being 'fired'. (By who? The BBC Trust?)

Re: Why I’m giving up on Europe and moving my startup to China

#100

Post by astrange »

lionhearted wrote: post #8
9oliYQjP wrote: post #3

China's great until you have to go to court there and realize you're being totally screwed over because your opponent has an "in" with the government. There are countries like Australia and Canada that strike a nice middle ground between too much and too little regulation, have decent, stable economies right now, and solid relationships with China in the case you want to partner with a company there. But I've heard t…

> But I've heard too many horror stories from entrepreneurs getting burned in China to want to put all my chips in that stack. I had a girlfriend who was working at a Chinese media company five years ago, and her company said something unpleasant (true) things about an important company in the local province. The mayor called up the newspaper, and was pressuring them... it turned out alright in the end, but it was a…

> see AirBNB... hotels don't pay off the judge, they pay off the governor

The law you're thinking of allows having guests as long as you actually live in your residence. My impression was that it doesn't actually affect AirBNB because of this.

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