4 ms·

One of the main reasons why USA based companies win against EU based startups.

autokad 5y ago
i disagree. The US has arguably a better, larger, and cohesive economy. Also EU talent comes to the US because EU companies just dont value their tech workers as much. EU has to pay tech workers more, or else it will loose in tech, 100%. Lastly, there's regulation and taxes that makes it hard for businesses to develop.
nosianu 5y ago
Only a part. In Europe you could not even become big, each country is too much its own market. It sis much much harder, or even impossible, to build a large company for all or even only for many European countries compared to building one for the entire US. I worked for a German IT (software) startup in Germany and also in the US, for that startup and before that for another large German company. We found that getting started in Germany was easier compared to the US, where the "winner takes all" mentality was also visible on the side of potential customers, so entrance into the market was hard(er). In Germany getting initial customers for unproven stuff was pretty easy in comparison. The problem is the switch from initial customers to scale. What made it easy to get started made it hard to achieve scale. When you get to a certain size and "fame" you get a big share of the entire US market. In Germany, but I think I can extrapolate to Europe, from what I experienced, the buyer side does not have a similar tendency to favor large already-winners and get them to become (European) champions. It's maybe not exactly completely valid examples, but I like them as illustrations: coffee machines or phones. In Germany (never mind Europe) even within the same company I found completely different phone systems and desk phones in different buildings (same with many other small parts). In the US, where I was sent to many big companies, I saw much less variety. Same with coffee machines, where every single department often has a different machine. In the US, more of the same wherever I went. I'd be interested what you guy think about my coffee machine and phone (and phone system) observations, if you have relevant experience. I saw this as a sign how buyer forces in the different countries (EU as a country) supports more but much smaller variety vs. fewer but large winners, but wasn't sure with my small sample.

i disagree. The US has arguably a better, larger, and cohesive economy. Also EU talent comes to the US because EU companies just dont value their tech workers as much. EU has to pay tech workers more, or else it will loose in tech, 100%. Lastly, there's regulation and taxes that makes it hard for businesses to develop.

nosianu 5y ago

Only a part. In Europe you could not even become big, each country is too much its own market. It sis much much harder, or even impossible, to build a large company for all or even only for many European countries compared to building one for the entire US. I worked for a German IT (software) startup in Germany and also in the US, for that startup and before that for another large German company. We found that getting started in Germany was easier compared to the US, where the "winner takes all" mentality was also visible on the side of potential customers, so entrance into the market was hard(er). In Germany getting initial customers for unproven stuff was pretty easy in comparison. The problem is the switch from initial customers to scale. What made it easy to get started made it hard to achieve scale. When you get to a certain size and "fame" you get a big share of the entire US market. In Germany, but I think I can extrapolate to Europe, from what I experienced, the buyer side does not have a similar tendency to favor large already-winners and get them to become (European) champions. It's maybe not exactly completely valid examples, but I like them as illustrations: coffee machines or phones. In Germany (never mind Europe) even within the same company I found completely different phone systems and desk phones in different buildings (same with many other small parts). In the US, where I was sent to many big companies, I saw much less variety. Same with coffee machines, where every single department often has a different machine. In the US, more of the same wherever I went. I'd be interested what you guy think about my coffee machine and phone (and phone system) observations, if you have relevant experience. I saw this as a sign how buyer forces in the different countries (EU as a country) supports more but much smaller variety vs. fewer but large winners, but wasn't sure with my small sample.