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Europeans may be more risk averse too -- perhaps more YOLOs in America because there's nothing to lose, where as in Europe you can still have a normalish life,

Europeans may be more risk averse too -- perhaps more YOLOs in America because there's nothing to lose, where as in Europe you can still have a normalish life, but it's not just a strong safety net either though -- many unicorn concepts were done in Europe, but they didn't become big globally. Maybe the lack of VC to scale - a lot of money sloshing around in SF. Maybe there's less of an culture of thinking "my way is the best" that Americans have more than others[0], maybe the smaller cultural market (there are 350 million Americans, only 30 million Spaniards). Maybe could be Americans are more into Consumer Ethnocentrism and less likely to buy into foreign things than Europeans too (the number of American flags waving around in the states is shocking). I wouldn't expect to see "Designed in Finland" if I bought a nokia phone. The US market has always been far harder for europeans - even Brits - to crack than the other way round. [0] https://infographic.tv/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Map-Who-thinks-their-country-is-the-best-in-758x397.jpg https://infographic.tv/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Map-Who-th...

JKCalhoun 6y ago
Your first point is interesting to me. I have a friend that made a crazy call on some stock options that seemed to me like 10 to 1 odds. When I asked him why he said essentially, it's the only way I'll ever have a chance to get rich. I think a lot of Americans may be driven to entrepreneurship because, short of the lottery, it may seem to them the only way to climb the ladder. Countries where life is a little more ... comfortable? ... may have fewer people willing to roll the dice (so to speak).
CM30 6y ago
I think the VC one is the main factor here, as is how risk adverse many investors seem to be in Europe. Put simply, the majority of them don't like investing in B2C companies, they don't like investing much money in general (by US standards) and they certainly don't like investing in businesses where it'll take years for it to pay off if they're lucky. This means that if you ask for investment in something like Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube/Reddit/whatever you're almost certain to be turned down by European investors, because they're seen as too risky compared to say, a shop saying office software to ad agencies. But these high risk businesses are also ones with a high pay off if they do well. There's also the fact European investors seem to have a relatively 'stingy' standard when it comes to how much money is worth investing in a startup. While over there in the US it seems like unproven companies are getting tens of millions of dollars on a whim, over here it seems like £50-100K is seen as a 'reasonable' investment amount, with some offering even less than that. That money is not gonna be enough to hire Google level software engineers, have all the fancy buildings and facilities that many young folks expect, pay for high end hosting platforms, pay for a massive marketing/ad campaign, etc. So even if you did get funding, you'd likely be outcompeted by US based companies flush with cash and resources that have years of runway compared to your 6 months or so worth.
- CalRobert 6y ago
  It's interesting, when I look at EU supports for entrepreneurship or vc amounts it's largely a question of whether an investment of 6 months' salary is enough to quit my job. The scale is pathetic by comparison to the US. Although, I'm hoping to bootstrap something here in Europe for my next gig. Public healthcare, insanely cheap houses (compared to California) and cheaper devs should help with runways.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

Your first point is interesting to me. I have a friend that made a crazy call on some stock options that seemed to me like 10 to 1 odds. When I asked him why he said essentially, it's the only way I'll ever have a chance to get rich. I think a lot of Americans may be driven to entrepreneurship because, short of the lottery, it may seem to them the only way to climb the ladder. Countries where life is a little more ... comfortable? ... may have fewer people willing to roll the dice (so to speak).

CM30 6y ago

I think the VC one is the main factor here, as is how risk adverse many investors seem to be in Europe. Put simply, the majority of them don't like investing in B2C companies, they don't like investing much money in general (by US standards) and they certainly don't like investing in businesses where it'll take years for it to pay off if they're lucky. This means that if you ask for investment in something like Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube/Reddit/whatever you're almost certain to be turned down by European investors, because they're seen as too risky compared to say, a shop saying office software to ad agencies. But these high risk businesses are also ones with a high pay off if they do well. There's also the fact European investors seem to have a relatively 'stingy' standard when it comes to how much money is worth investing in a startup. While over there in the US it seems like unproven companies are getting tens of millions of dollars on a whim, over here it seems like £50-100K is seen as a 'reasonable' investment amount, with some offering even less than that. That money is not gonna be enough to hire Google level software engineers, have all the fancy buildings and facilities that many young folks expect, pay for high end hosting platforms, pay for a massive marketing/ad campaign, etc. So even if you did get funding, you'd likely be outcompeted by US based companies flush with cash and resources that have years of runway compared to your 6 months or so worth.

CalRobert 6y ago
It's interesting, when I look at EU supports for entrepreneurship or vc amounts it's largely a question of whether an investment of 6 months' salary is enough to quit my job. The scale is pathetic by comparison to the US. Although, I'm hoping to bootstrap something here in Europe for my next gig. Public healthcare, insanely cheap houses (compared to California) and cheaper devs should help with runways.