Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
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Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#2Wondering which EU countries will take the lead here.
Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#3It's definitely good to see a strong increase in entrepreneurship in Europe, though I do wonder whether the Y Combinator program can keep up its quality and value-add as they themselves scale up.
It's one thing to have weekly sessions with experienced leaders like PG and others, and a small enough cohort whereby you can swap stories and learn as you progress through the program. On an industrial scale though, you lose a lot of that intimacy and you have to default to cookie-cutter approaches. Learning via mentors originally, vs. learning in the classroom currently.
I know many founders use Y Combinator as a badge of merit to increase their chances of follow-on funding, but there is an interesting question of how much value-add it now adds to the original type of startup team (young, scrappy, more inexperience than product-market-fit and customers).
Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#4This is basically failure in European startup ecosystem that companies needs to go SF, but good for Y Combinator and SF that they can attract best talent.
Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#5This is basically failure in European startup ecosystem that companies needs to go SF, but good for Y Combinator and SF that they can attract best talent.
It's not "European startup ecosystem", it's basically "European societies". Imagine how well would SV work if being involved in a bankrupt company (co-founder, major investor, C-suite) made banks refuse to talk to you again for 10-20 years. I believe that was the case in France. You wouldn't even be able to open a checking account, never mention any credit again.
Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#6Do they mostly move to the United States then?
Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#7Payflow: https://www.payflow.es/ (surprisingly, no english version)
This is a fantastic innovation if it takes off and if the charges aren't prohibitive; it has the potential to obliterate predatory payday lending. In a world of free instant automatic electronic payments, there's no good reason to delay salary payments until the end of the month.
Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#8This is basically failure in European startup ecosystem that companies needs to go SF, but good for Y Combinator and SF that they can attract best talent.
It's not "European startup ecosystem", it's basically "European societies". Imagine how well would SV work if being involved in a bankrupt company (co-founder, major investor, C-suite) made banks refuse to talk to you again for 10-20 years. I believe that was the case in France. You wouldn't even be able to open a checking account, never mention any credit again.
AFAIK banks are legally required to open checking accounts on demand of any resident in Germany, no matter their background. But I am not sure, just a rumor.
Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#9This is basically failure in European startup ecosystem that companies needs to go SF, but good for Y Combinator and SF that they can attract best talent.
No. European "companies" look to the US and see that you can lose billions of unlimited investor money for years with no repercussions and no negative consequences for the founders.
Now "successful" European startups want in on the money.
YC's "most successful startups" routinely lose hundreds of millions of dollars every year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27485360
Re: Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
#10I always wanted something like https://www.carbonfact.co/ - hope it takes off and they expand the list of products.