4 ms·

Fragmented European market; the culture and language differences.

by tdons 8y ago

mtgx 8y ago
Bingo. You can launch a startup in the "United States" or "in China" in day one. You can't really launch a startup in "Europe" from day one, unless you only offer an online service and only to the English speakers (a tiny single-digit percentage, on average) of those countries.
- syntheticcdo 8y ago
  Beyond the language barrier, does the regulatory burden of complying with all applicable EU and individual state rules factor in at all?
  - kazen44 8y ago
    it depends on your market you are trying to enter. Let's not forget that harmonizing these rules is one of the major points of the EU in the first place.
baxtr 8y ago
I don’t but that argument. In math you’d say that this is an “continuous function”, wouldn’t you? Where is the break-off point? Germany for example has 80 mio people, Japan has 120 mio or so. You’d expect the same level of activity scaled by population size. Am I wrong? EDIT: Another example countering your point is Sweden/Stockholm. Tiny population, high number of startups and unicorns.
- adventured 8y ago
  That really heavily depends on the market in question. They're all so different in terms of culture, regulation, politics, market structures, productivity, output, wealth, etc. Jordan for example has the same population size as Sweden, that's about where the similarities end. Sweden, along with Canada and Australia, are just about ideal micro US versions in technology, in terms of potential to pull off your scaling of activity. Good market economies, relatively robust technology societies and technology economies, high GDP per capita and incomes, plenty of wealth and capital to invest, stable open societies with respect for human rights, english language use giving them global benefits (Sweden having one of the world's highest english language adoption rates, outside of primarily english speaking countries), and so on. Japan has far less spending power per capita - disposable income - than the US, and their economic output per capita is similarly far lower. Their cost of living is not far lower to offset. US GDP per capita will be around $63,000 for 2018. Japan is down around $38,000 to $40,000. Culturally Japan has historically not been friendly to risk taking, entrepreneurial activity. That has shifted some over the last 10-15 years, but not immensely (it's starting from an extreme where a long corporate career was the only acceptable path). There's a considerable difference between Sweden and Japan on that conservativism. Japan also is very different at a macro level, they put themselves into a particularly bad 20+ year debt trap that has robbed their economy of the surplus capital it needs to invest into expansion and innovation. Germany is doing OK, in regards to technology and tech start-ups. They've lagged a bit in the transition from old industrial to new technology [1][2], it appears to be a cultural problem that is acting as friction. Culturally they're not nearly as dynamic on entrepreneurism as Sweden has become. Perhaps it's just easier to change directions at the scale of Sweden than Germany, with all the entrenched institutions and large conglomerates that Germany has. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/germany-needs-to-reengineer-to-thwart-digital-obsolescence https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/germany-n... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/inside-europe-s-struggle-to-build-a-truly-global-tech-giant https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/inside-eu...
  - baxtr 8y ago
    Ok, so you’re saying it’s not size (as single root cause)
ElBarto 8y ago
That's a lazy excuse, IMHO. To me the key is to embrace new ideas, think big and have the drive to deliver. An example: Deliveroo is doing extremely well in many markets around the world but is a British company. Interestingly the founder is... American of Chinese origin.
- refurb 8y ago
  I had a classmate from France in my class at a US college. He opinion was that in American you can think big and fail and no one looks down at you for it. Not the same in the EU. Same with becoming wildly successful. In America those people are looked up to as role models. In many parts of the EU, being the "tall poppy" is a bad thing.
kowdermeister 8y ago
Investors tend to be very rational here, they won't throw money and any stupid shit. At least that's what I've seen :) Of course, if you do that, you will find unpolished gems from time to time. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/europe-venture-capitalists-silicon-valley/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/europe-venture-capita...

Fragmented European market; the culture and language differences.

by tdons 8y ago

Fragmented European market; the culture and language differences.

mtgx 8y ago

Bingo. You can launch a startup in the "United States" or "in China" in day one. You can't really launch a startup in "Europe" from day one, unless you only offer an online service and only to the English speakers (a tiny single-digit percentage, on average) of those countries.

syntheticcdo 8y ago
Beyond the language barrier, does the regulatory burden of complying with all applicable EU and individual state rules factor in at all?
- kazen44 8y ago
  it depends on your market you are trying to enter. Let's not forget that harmonizing these rules is one of the major points of the EU in the first place.

baxtr 8y ago

I don’t but that argument. In math you’d say that this is an “continuous function”, wouldn’t you? Where is the break-off point? Germany for example has 80 mio people, Japan has 120 mio or so. You’d expect the same level of activity scaled by population size. Am I wrong? EDIT: Another example countering your point is Sweden/Stockholm. Tiny population, high number of startups and unicorns.

adventured 8y ago
That really heavily depends on the market in question. They're all so different in terms of culture, regulation, politics, market structures, productivity, output, wealth, etc. Jordan for example has the same population size as Sweden, that's about where the similarities end. Sweden, along with Canada and Australia, are just about ideal micro US versions in technology, in terms of potential to pull off your scaling of activity. Good market economies, relatively robust technology societies and technology economies, high GDP per capita and incomes, plenty of wealth and capital to invest, stable open societies with respect for human rights, english language use giving them global benefits (Sweden having one of the world's highest english language adoption rates, outside of primarily english speaking countries), and so on. Japan has far less spending power per capita - disposable income - than the US, and their economic output per capita is similarly far lower. Their cost of living is not far lower to offset. US GDP per capita will be around $63,000 for 2018. Japan is down around $38,000 to $40,000. Culturally Japan has historically not been friendly to risk taking, entrepreneurial activity. That has shifted some over the last 10-15 years, but not immensely (it's starting from an extreme where a long corporate career was the only acceptable path). There's a considerable difference between Sweden and Japan on that conservativism. Japan also is very different at a macro level, they put themselves into a particularly bad 20+ year debt trap that has robbed their economy of the surplus capital it needs to invest into expansion and innovation. Germany is doing OK, in regards to technology and tech start-ups. They've lagged a bit in the transition from old industrial to new technology [1][2], it appears to be a cultural problem that is acting as friction. Culturally they're not nearly as dynamic on entrepreneurism as Sweden has become. Perhaps it's just easier to change directions at the scale of Sweden than Germany, with all the entrenched institutions and large conglomerates that Germany has. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/germany-needs-to-reengineer-to-thwart-digital-obsolescence https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/germany-n... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/inside-europe-s-struggle-to-build-a-truly-global-tech-giant https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-16/inside-eu...
- baxtr 8y ago
  Ok, so you’re saying it’s not size (as single root cause)

ElBarto 8y ago

That's a lazy excuse, IMHO. To me the key is to embrace new ideas, think big and have the drive to deliver. An example: Deliveroo is doing extremely well in many markets around the world but is a British company. Interestingly the founder is... American of Chinese origin.

refurb 8y ago
I had a classmate from France in my class at a US college. He opinion was that in American you can think big and fail and no one looks down at you for it. Not the same in the EU. Same with becoming wildly successful. In America those people are looked up to as role models. In many parts of the EU, being the "tall poppy" is a bad thing.

kowdermeister 8y ago

Investors tend to be very rational here, they won't throw money and any stupid shit. At least that's what I've seen :) Of course, if you do that, you will find unpolished gems from time to time. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/europe-venture-capitalists-silicon-valley/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/europe-venture-capita...