5 ms·

That headline sums up the European startup scene (I say this having worked for a shady German startup myself, that has owed me and other former employees money

by mkl95 6y ago

That headline sums up the European startup scene (I say this having worked for a shady German startup myself, that has owed me and other former employees money for ages)

gregoriol 6y ago
What do you mean exactly?
- mkl95 6y ago
  Working for a small European startup sucks. The company will ALWAYS find a way to shift the blame when something like this happens, not to mention every EU startup I've worked for gets away with late payments and shady financial moves (the worst offender was a German company I worked for early in my career).
  - viraptor 6y ago
    > Working for a small European startup sucks. The company will ALWAYS find a way to shift the blame Start-ups across ~50 countries? Always doing the same thing? I think you may be generalising quite a bit... It's not like an SV company would ever shift blame on the customer, right? :-)
  - HatchedLake721 6y ago
    Yes, “European Startup” is one big homogenous thing, and not 30+ countries and half a billion people in population.
    - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
      The EU makes a big effort to harmonize law across countries, so there might be some sense to talk about European startup scene. Though, of course German-speaking countries scene would have its own different as Germany itself.
    - helmholtz 6y ago
      This line of thinking would lead to the of near-enough every interesting discussion. A certain amount of generalisation is required for discussions of these sorts.
  - jnwatson 6y ago
    Late payment is not limited to European startups. Even large European companies do it. My personal undersampled data indicates a negative correlation between latitude and days until payment. South of 45 degrees, expect 180 days regardless of terms.
dsnr 6y ago
German companies have a reputation for not giving a shit about customers and customer support is virtually non-existent. For example you are quite often required to cancel your online subscriptions by letters sent by post 1-3 months in advance.
- Slikey 6y ago
  3 months in advance is the legal limit, it's great. We also love our contract bindings for 2 years. Cunsumer friendliness here is heresy.
  - snicksnak 6y ago
    It's so bad, there are even companies that handle cancelations by mail for you. You enter your contract details on their website, they print it and send it by registered mail.
    - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
      What if you have to cancel this cancellation service?
  - dsnr 6y ago
    And god forbid you miss the cancellation deadline, you’re stuck with another year.
    - cheschire 6y ago
      Or pay a termination fee equivalent of 10 months service.
    - manfredo 6y ago
      Why don't people just stop payment? I remember when an insurance company tried to not let me cancel. I copied some boilerplate termination letter from the internet, and blocked payments from my card. They cancelled very quickly. Then again this is in the USA, so Germany may work differently.
camillomiller 6y ago
Plenty of good startups here, but the bad ones. oh boy, the bad ones...
ant6n 6y ago
Perhaps the underlying problem is Startup financing. Capital is hard to get, so the people who start startups aren’t technical, but rather connected business folks. So the technology is wonky, and the approaches aren’t product-first. Afaik, flixbus was founded by former BCG consultants, sounds unusual for a Startup.
- camillomiller 6y ago
  Boom. You nailed it.
ashtonkem 6y ago
There’s a weird edge case at least in US courts where the process of suing for lost wages is greater than the wages lost. This creates a lot of gaps for fraudsters, unfortunately.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Same in Germany during the quarantine when some big chain gyms kept collecting membership fees even though the government said it's not legal to, they did it anyway. Your only way to get justice was to take them to court, which would cost you more than the fees and since Germany doesn't have a class action lawsuits framework, each member would have to sue the gym separately.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    That is extremely obnoxious. The more I learn about the German legal system, the less I like. On the weird and semi-related flip side, our gym voluntarily cancelled ours (I planned to keep it going because it's a family business and I wasn't suffering financially) because it was cheaper for them to cancel their SaaS that they had used to track & bill members.
gerdesj 6y ago
You can't tar and feather the entirety of Europe like that. I'll provide a contra-example anecdote: Me and two other chaps formed a start up in 2000 - bog standard IT services/consultancy. Still trundling along, we won't set the world on fire but doing OK. One of our employees is Polish, in Poland. We pay him the same as everyone else. OK he's actually now self-employed for tax purposes and Brexit but his rate is the same as our other techies. He was working remote six months before anyone had heard of SARS-CoV-2. When we started out our first two employees were enticed away with twice their previous pay. lol. Travel shops don't pay much here in the UK. They stayed for 10 and 15 years. One month in 20 years we had a cash flow problem. We like to keep a decent float in the bank rather than drive fast cars. I do like to sleep at night. The Directors didn't get paid that month but all staff were paid. The next few months we caught up OK. Anyone who's run a small business will know that's not bad going for cash flow. I should point out that we have never, ever had an overdraft. We do have a mortgage but that costs less than the rent we used to pay for less than half the size of building. I could go on (sorry). Not all startups strive for the stars. A famous French bloke once memorably described Britain as a nation of shopkeepers (ie boring as fuck): I take that as a compliment.

by mkl95 6y ago

That headline sums up the European startup scene (I say this having worked for a shady German startup myself, that has owed me and other former employees money for ages)

gregoriol 6y ago

What do you mean exactly?

mkl95 6y ago
Working for a small European startup sucks. The company will ALWAYS find a way to shift the blame when something like this happens, not to mention every EU startup I've worked for gets away with late payments and shady financial moves (the worst offender was a German company I worked for early in my career).
- viraptor 6y ago
  > Working for a small European startup sucks. The company will ALWAYS find a way to shift the blame Start-ups across ~50 countries? Always doing the same thing? I think you may be generalising quite a bit... It's not like an SV company would ever shift blame on the customer, right? :-)
- HatchedLake721 6y ago
  Yes, “European Startup” is one big homogenous thing, and not 30+ countries and half a billion people in population.
  - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
    The EU makes a big effort to harmonize law across countries, so there might be some sense to talk about European startup scene. Though, of course German-speaking countries scene would have its own different as Germany itself.
  - helmholtz 6y ago
    This line of thinking would lead to the of near-enough every interesting discussion. A certain amount of generalisation is required for discussions of these sorts.
- jnwatson 6y ago
  Late payment is not limited to European startups. Even large European companies do it. My personal undersampled data indicates a negative correlation between latitude and days until payment. South of 45 degrees, expect 180 days regardless of terms.

dsnr 6y ago

German companies have a reputation for not giving a shit about customers and customer support is virtually non-existent. For example you are quite often required to cancel your online subscriptions by letters sent by post 1-3 months in advance.

Slikey 6y ago
3 months in advance is the legal limit, it's great. We also love our contract bindings for 2 years. Cunsumer friendliness here is heresy.
- snicksnak 6y ago
  It's so bad, there are even companies that handle cancelations by mail for you. You enter your contract details on their website, they print it and send it by registered mail.
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    What if you have to cancel this cancellation service?
- dsnr 6y ago
  And god forbid you miss the cancellation deadline, you’re stuck with another year.
  - cheschire 6y ago
    Or pay a termination fee equivalent of 10 months service.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    Why don't people just stop payment? I remember when an insurance company tried to not let me cancel. I copied some boilerplate termination letter from the internet, and blocked payments from my card. They cancelled very quickly. Then again this is in the USA, so Germany may work differently.

camillomiller 6y ago

Plenty of good startups here, but the bad ones. oh boy, the bad ones...

ant6n 6y ago

Perhaps the underlying problem is Startup financing. Capital is hard to get, so the people who start startups aren’t technical, but rather connected business folks. So the technology is wonky, and the approaches aren’t product-first. Afaik, flixbus was founded by former BCG consultants, sounds unusual for a Startup.

camillomiller 6y ago
Boom. You nailed it.

ashtonkem 6y ago

There’s a weird edge case at least in US courts where the process of suing for lost wages is greater than the wages lost. This creates a lot of gaps for fraudsters, unfortunately.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Same in Germany during the quarantine when some big chain gyms kept collecting membership fees even though the government said it's not legal to, they did it anyway. Your only way to get justice was to take them to court, which would cost you more than the fees and since Germany doesn't have a class action lawsuits framework, each member would have to sue the gym separately.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  That is extremely obnoxious. The more I learn about the German legal system, the less I like. On the weird and semi-related flip side, our gym voluntarily cancelled ours (I planned to keep it going because it's a family business and I wasn't suffering financially) because it was cheaper for them to cancel their SaaS that they had used to track & bill members.

gerdesj 6y ago

You can't tar and feather the entirety of Europe like that. I'll provide a contra-example anecdote: Me and two other chaps formed a start up in 2000 - bog standard IT services/consultancy. Still trundling along, we won't set the world on fire but doing OK. One of our employees is Polish, in Poland. We pay him the same as everyone else. OK he's actually now self-employed for tax purposes and Brexit but his rate is the same as our other techies. He was working remote six months before anyone had heard of SARS-CoV-2. When we started out our first two employees were enticed away with twice their previous pay. lol. Travel shops don't pay much here in the UK. They stayed for 10 and 15 years. One month in 20 years we had a cash flow problem. We like to keep a decent float in the bank rather than drive fast cars. I do like to sleep at night. The Directors didn't get paid that month but all staff were paid. The next few months we caught up OK. Anyone who's run a small business will know that's not bad going for cash flow. I should point out that we have never, ever had an overdraft. We do have a mortgage but that costs less than the rent we used to pay for less than half the size of building. I could go on (sorry). Not all startups strive for the stars. A famous French bloke once memorably described Britain as a nation of shopkeepers (ie boring as fuck): I take that as a compliment.