3 ms·

BS. There are tons of European startups. But the have 'revenue' and 'profits'. Which means no one bothers reporting on them. Don't you think $10M for some str

by axod 16y ago

BS. There are tons of European startups. But the have 'revenue' and 'profits'. Which means no one bothers reporting on them. Don't you think $10M for some strange social news reader app seems a little over the top? or $200M for twitter? They're insane investmensts. The only reason SV investors invest is in the hope that someone even more drugged up on SV koolaid will buy the company. Bubbles upon bubbles. It's unsustainable. I'm really happy that we're more risk averse in Europe. Get real. Get revenue and good solid business models.

dododo 16y ago
can you name these european tech start ups? i can think of very few.
- Silhouette 16y ago
  I'm in Cambridge, UK. The alumni from the university's Computer Lab have started hundreds of businesses in recent years, many off the back of their academic research, and that is only the ones who have notified the alumni organisation about what they're doing. There are multiple business parks around the city focussed heavily on small business and in at least one case focussing almost entirely on start-ups. This is just in one city and talking about one department of one university. Of course you haven't heard of most of these start-ups. They probably operate in specialist fields that are of no personal or professional interest to you. So do most businesses in the world, start-up or otherwise. But many of these organisations grow into successful businesses, often without taking much if any external funding. I don't know what it is about HN recently, but it seems like some people believe your business is only a success if it becomes the next MicroGoogleApple with a multi-billion exit for the founders, and the only path to doing that is getting lots of rounds of increasingly silly money from angels/VCs and then selling out to a major corporation for what we seem to be calling "FU money" these days. The ideal way to do this is apparently believed to be starting a Internet-based, mass-market company providing a trivial service and running it on a web site with a silly name formed by taking a normal word and adding the ending "ly". In other news, hardly any companies will ever pull off this combination (I can count exactly none so far), while there are countless tech companies working on all kinds of applications that make plenty of profit by actually doing something useful in a certain market, which would probably provide an eight or nine figure exit for their founders if they chose to leave. These don't necessarily hit the headlines, because not everyone cares about specialist software or services, and not every founder wants to run up a company to a paper value of billions in two years and then exit making a good deal for their VCs.
  - dododo 16y ago
    you didn't name a single tech start up. why not if there are so many? there are many small businesses in the UK: http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/news/statistics/small-businesses-in-the-uk.shtml http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/news/statistics/small-bus... but i cannot find any statistics on the area of business.
    - Silhouette 16y ago
      Well, about five seconds with Google and the information I provided ("Cambridge Computer Lab tech start-up") would get you the 100+ companies mentioned here: http://www.camring.ucam.org/cl/page?sp=12 http://www.camring.ucam.org/cl/page?sp=12 Another obvious search ("Cambridge business park companies") would find you places like this: http://www.stjohns.co.uk/tenants/ http://www.stjohns.co.uk/tenants/
pclark 16y ago
axod, you've built an awesome lifestyle company and you should be proud of that. but some people want to build billion dollar companies - it's a matter of taste - but if you want to do that, especially if you want to do that in the consumer space - you often need to defer revenues for user growth. and doing that in Europe is very hard. I'm really not sure this is even up for debate - who are the startups you're thinking of? again, different approaches to different companies with different aims. I don't think $10M for a social news reader app is insane, nor do I think Twitter raising $200M is insane. Some people thought Facebook raising so much was insane - that they'd never make money - and look at them now, almost $1Bn in revenues. You're not looking at bubbles, you're looking at investors placing very specific bets on industries or trends in the hope that in five years from now they'll have another Facebook.
- axod 16y ago
  You're right - I'd rather play a much longer term game - build a business that sustains itself rather than saddle myself with investment. >> "but some people want to build billion dollar companies" How many of the big SV startups actually make a profit though? Sure, maybe on paper they're 'worth' millions since people invested at a certain level, but I don't think that's healthy. Isn't it the least bit worrying when Reddit starts asking users to donate money? After it was sold for millions? You can't compare Facebook + Twitter. Facebook is a destination. Their website gets a massive amount of eyeballs and is a big gaming platform. It was always obvious that they'd make good money from that. Twitter however so far is a backend message passing system, which lots of apps use. I'm really skeptical twitter will ever pull off monetization. Twitter don't get the mindshare or eyeballs. Apps that use twitter do. At the end of the day though, I think it's a matter of taste, and what you're most comfortable. As you say, different aims. I'm very much more comfortable with the European way of building companies.

by axod 16y ago

dododo 16y ago

can you name these european tech start ups? i can think of very few.

Silhouette 16y ago
I'm in Cambridge, UK. The alumni from the university's Computer Lab have started hundreds of businesses in recent years, many off the back of their academic research, and that is only the ones who have notified the alumni organisation about what they're doing. There are multiple business parks around the city focussed heavily on small business and in at least one case focussing almost entirely on start-ups. This is just in one city and talking about one department of one university. Of course you haven't heard of most of these start-ups. They probably operate in specialist fields that are of no personal or professional interest to you. So do most businesses in the world, start-up or otherwise. But many of these organisations grow into successful businesses, often without taking much if any external funding. I don't know what it is about HN recently, but it seems like some people believe your business is only a success if it becomes the next MicroGoogleApple with a multi-billion exit for the founders, and the only path to doing that is getting lots of rounds of increasingly silly money from angels/VCs and then selling out to a major corporation for what we seem to be calling "FU money" these days. The ideal way to do this is apparently believed to be starting a Internet-based, mass-market company providing a trivial service and running it on a web site with a silly name formed by taking a normal word and adding the ending "ly". In other news, hardly any companies will ever pull off this combination (I can count exactly none so far), while there are countless tech companies working on all kinds of applications that make plenty of profit by actually doing something useful in a certain market, which would probably provide an eight or nine figure exit for their founders if they chose to leave. These don't necessarily hit the headlines, because not everyone cares about specialist software or services, and not every founder wants to run up a company to a paper value of billions in two years and then exit making a good deal for their VCs.
- dododo 16y ago
  you didn't name a single tech start up. why not if there are so many? there are many small businesses in the UK: http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/news/statistics/small-businesses-in-the-uk.shtml http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/news/statistics/small-bus... but i cannot find any statistics on the area of business.
  - Silhouette 16y ago
    Well, about five seconds with Google and the information I provided ("Cambridge Computer Lab tech start-up") would get you the 100+ companies mentioned here: http://www.camring.ucam.org/cl/page?sp=12 http://www.camring.ucam.org/cl/page?sp=12 Another obvious search ("Cambridge business park companies") would find you places like this: http://www.stjohns.co.uk/tenants/ http://www.stjohns.co.uk/tenants/

pclark 16y ago

axod, you've built an awesome lifestyle company and you should be proud of that. but some people want to build billion dollar companies - it's a matter of taste - but if you want to do that, especially if you want to do that in the consumer space - you often need to defer revenues for user growth. and doing that in Europe is very hard. I'm really not sure this is even up for debate - who are the startups you're thinking of? again, different approaches to different companies with different aims. I don't think $10M for a social news reader app is insane, nor do I think Twitter raising $200M is insane. Some people thought Facebook raising so much was insane - that they'd never make money - and look at them now, almost $1Bn in revenues. You're not looking at bubbles, you're looking at investors placing very specific bets on industries or trends in the hope that in five years from now they'll have another Facebook.

axod 16y ago
You're right - I'd rather play a much longer term game - build a business that sustains itself rather than saddle myself with investment. >> "but some people want to build billion dollar companies" How many of the big SV startups actually make a profit though? Sure, maybe on paper they're 'worth' millions since people invested at a certain level, but I don't think that's healthy. Isn't it the least bit worrying when Reddit starts asking users to donate money? After it was sold for millions? You can't compare Facebook + Twitter. Facebook is a destination. Their website gets a massive amount of eyeballs and is a big gaming platform. It was always obvious that they'd make good money from that. Twitter however so far is a backend message passing system, which lots of apps use. I'm really skeptical twitter will ever pull off monetization. Twitter don't get the mindshare or eyeballs. Apps that use twitter do. At the end of the day though, I think it's a matter of taste, and what you're most comfortable. As you say, different aims. I'm very much more comfortable with the European way of building companies.