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European tech industry is B2B focused, because it has no single consumer market, like the US. By the time a startup becomes a success in Spain, its copies will
by krn 8y ago
European tech industry is B2B focused, because it has no single consumer market, like the US. By the time a startup becomes a success in Spain, its copies will be already launched by somebody in France and Germany. In consumer fintech, for instance, UK has Monzo, Germany has N26, and Poland has mBank. Currenly, Flixbus is a major exception to this rule, because it managed to conquer almost the entire EEA long-distance bus market in 5 years, and has just entered the US. Revolut is trying to do the same in fintech.
- maaaats 8y agoYeah, and then the single big player in US can pick off each European country with time. The small players in each country will have a hard time when the force of a USA-wide company tries. Happens in other businesses as well. McDonalds, Starbucks etc.
- expertentipp 8y agoNational economies are very hermetic and their regulations are foreign-hostile (xenophobic?), it's impossible to enter and smoothly operate without some high level "green light", e.g. Polish/Czech direct banks like Fio, mBank, Inteligo couple of years ago were much ahead of what banks in e.g. Germany, UK, or Italy were offering to their individual consumers but had zero chance of launching in these countries. Furniture production in Poland is significant but to sell internationally they're basically submitted to IKEA. Screw those who were selling the "capital has no nationality" mantra in post-Communist countries during the 90s-00s. Flixbus? They spread all over EU with no new value created - the coaches are driving the same as they have always been, quality unchanged, if anything they look like some predatory business sucking in everything into their franchising model.
- krn 8y ago> Flixbus? They spread all over EU with no added value created That's not true. The added value to the passenger is that he can now travel across the entire Europe using a single ticketing system and a unified bus standard, saving a lot of time and hassle. But I agree, that it made a competition almost impossible. Flixbus competes not with other bus companies, but with trains and flights: in terms of price, time, and comfort. Sometimes in wins, sometimes it loses.
- dagw 8y agoFlixbus competes not with other bus companies I guess that depends a lot on the market. Because certainly in Sweden Flixbus absolutely competes with the existing bus companies.
- krn 8y agoI was talking about international routes in Europe[1]. But at least in Germany and Poland (after acquiring Polskibus), Flixbus also controls above 90% market share for bus routes within the country. [1] https://global.flixbus.com/bus-routes https://global.flixbus.com/bus-routes