6 ms·

Don’t worry, Europe: you’re about to get a new beginning

31 points by iProject 14y ago

noelwelsh 14y ago
Last time I checked Europe was not one country. The business environment in, say, the UK is very much different to that in, say, Germany. It's hard to take articles seriously that speak so broadly and vaguely about such a diverse continent.
- LaGrange 14y ago
  Also, this article keeps repeating cliches. Yeah, sure, I won't get a pat on the head and universal admiration for starting yet another boring and doomed startup (though there's circles of people who will give you even that). Also, if you complain about costs and employee rights and stuff it's likely you will be perceived as a whiner -- justly, in my opinion, if those are stopping you then you probably have no business doing business. You will, though, still get health insurance on your pre-existing condition, which makes me way more likely to try (again) in Europe than in US. And if you do something that's generally considered useful there's even a chance for you to score some sponsorship money without a VC dangling off it, you just have to do the necessary paperwork to demonstrate you know what you're doing. In general, even with the crisis and all, we're doing pretty well over here.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  There's a rather irritating trend to treat the EU and Europe as the same thing (they aren't), and to treat the EU as if it's a country. While yes, some things are similar across the EU because of legislation, there are still significant differences between different countries.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    The same applies, IMO, to India and China, both having twice the population of Europe.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      I don't know about India, but it's a single country. So is China, but in effect it isn't, because of Hong Kong and Macao having quite different laws.
  - riffraff 14y ago
    don't forget: treating UE and the Euro(€)-using subset of it (euroland) as if they are one.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      Oh, yup, that's irritating too. Do they not know about the UK (GBP)? Sweden (SEK)? Denmark (DKK)? Poland (PLN)? Czech Republic (CZK)? etc.
- JonnieCache 14y ago
  Now we know how africa feels.
  - im3w1l 14y ago
    Which part of Africa?
    - archgoon 14y ago
      That is exactly his point ;)
brazzy 14y ago
What a load of ignorant, arrogant, pretentious, content-free nonsense....
- Zenst 14y ago
  damit, in the time I spent explaining why I thought it was a bad article you came up with a much simpler explanation.
Zenst 14y ago
"Europe has trailed America for decades, partly because of a tricky environment for entrepreneurs." Disagreeing with that from the start or the article. It realy depends upon what industry you look at, many sucessful entrepreneurs all around the World. Some countries are more suited to enableing them in one area as apposed to other countries and also the feild. Writting books, software and alot of inventions can be done with a extreemly low startup cost. So without clearcut examples it is hard for me as a European to understand. I will accept VC/finance may be easier or was easier in America for some feilds and still is, but a entrepreneur is by definition somebody who trancends the limitations that are normal and as such stands out. Goverments with regards to getting involved in Buisness do it in many ways, grants for research helps in a area that creates buisness's without directly doing so. Buisness's that are well extablished and come to a country can deal with goverments for TAX breaks, no startups/new companies can realy do that or leverage that area of govermentale assistance, they get breaks like all new companies. As for the rest of the article is is realy just focusing lossly upon technology and offers nothing tangable to highlight things. If it had a interview with somebody who tried to setup a technology company in europe and then endedup going to america to do things as it was easier, then the article would have made more sence and of had a good example. Given the author was involved with Messagelabs who's HQ is located in the UK and not the USA, then I would of expected more references to the direction the article takes. More so as that company would seem to highlight against the article as it was started in the UK, grew well, sold to Symantic for large pile of £'s and not $'s indicating a succesful startup in a country thats in Europe. So again can see why I disagree on many levels with this article, sorry.
- omd 14y ago
  Investors are frustrated that they can't replicate the success of Silicon Valley here in Europe, but our governments aren't the ones to blame. The environment here is different because the people want it that way. It's a different culture with different priorities and different goals. Just as Hollywood could only have become what it is in the US because it fits the (West Coast) American mentality, so too could a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram only come out of the American way of doing business. I don't see anything wrong with that and I've been able to do business here for almost 20 years. The trick is to not treat the environment here as something it's not and has no intention to become.
Atropos 14y ago
While I agree with the opinion of the article, the content is quite superficial. Some things that arent mentioned could have a much bigger impact in the long run than some school programming project in Estonia: - The European Venture Capital Funds Regulation being finalised this year - The agreed enddate for SEPA, the harmonization of all European Payment Infrastructures being set for 2014... Especially in the area of mobile payments I see a huge market potential because of the unique structure of the EU. If you travel through Northern Europe for example, you have the Euro in Finland, the Danish Krone in Denmark which is pegged to the Euro and then the Swedish Krone and the Norwegian Krone... A mobile app that would allow you to pay anything directly in Euros without having to convert into local currencies all the time would have huge value for the tourists - and the people selling stuff to them as well. With harmonized payment infrastructures and harmonized legal regimes this should be trivial to implement...
- akgerber 14y ago
  It's tragic that almost all of the benefits of a unified currency are becoming easily replicated by technological solutions just as all the problems of currency union without fiscal union have come to haunt the Eurozone.
Zenst 14y ago
Before you read the article I may suggest looking at this ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessageLabs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessageLabs )company the author was involved with "Jos White is a partner at Notion Capital, a venture fund focused on cloud and SaaS startups. He was previously a founder of three companies, including MessageLabs, which was acquired by Symantec in 2008 for $700m". Then the article become funny.
arkitaip 14y ago
Always hilarious when "experts" lump some 50 countries into a single entity just to draw wildly inaccurate and speculative conclusions because they can't be bothered to do the research required.
enki 14y ago
I'm far less optimistic. I was one of the most vocal and active pro-european-startup activists before I left for San Francisco in 2009. With no capital, I started multiple companies. Some failed, some are still active and now do combined multiple millions of annual revenue (e.g. mjam.net). I started Europe's first YC-inspired accelerator (YEurope) in 2006 and helped put the current global hackerspaces movement into motion so we'd have support infrastructure. Back then I regularly talked to european politicians up to the president level. The point where I left for San Francisco was when I realized that no one there realizes that there is a causal link between wealth creation and having wealth. They don't know they have a problem, or even should they suspect it, they don't know what causes it. On a recent trip back I haven't noticed any change in that - so even if they wanted to improve something, they wouldn't know what or how. The economic crisis provides a convenient excuse for all problems, not an incentive to explore what's wrong. The easiest argument against Europe for startups is sadly on an individual level: Statistics. If you're one of the best - but not the best - entrepreneur in Europe (500 Million People), you know that almost no one more talented than you ever succeeded. And almost no one less talented either. In San Francisco, both people more and less talented succeed all the time. So statistics. It's far more pretentious to think you're so much better than the best among 500 million, than to think you'll do well among the 8 million in the Bay Area.
- mattmanser 14y ago
  I really don't understand the point you're trying to make. Given your experience I would like to, can you expand it a bit? What's the problem?
  - enki 14y ago
    That help won't be coming from politicians, because they don't even remotely get that wealth and wealth creation are linked. And despite what OP wrote, the fundamentals haven't changed in any other way that was perceptible to me. I can't tell you exactly what's wrong with startups in Europe. It's no one thing. It's thousands of things. Unless you've experienced the Bay Area, it's probably impossible to anticipate what you're missing. I didn't. The stuff you get in the Bay Area is stuff that doesn't transfer over the internet - so just by reading hackernews and techcrunch you have no means to figure out what is or could be different. I think Paul Graham's argument (paraphrased) that all startups die by default, but in some environments they sometimes get saved, might come closest in describing what's happening. I think the statistics argument really is the most solid one (though admittedly self-fulfilling, because it means the most driven entrepreneurs leave). Unless something fundamentally changes, any improvements to the ecosystem will have to be gradual over a long time.
lispm 14y ago
I'm from Germany, where the 3.8 million SMEs are the backbone of the economy. The famous Mittelstand competes worldwide and is considered in many areas to be among the world market leaders. It could be that many of these companies are not doing sexy web stuff, but "uninteresting things" like machines and tools - with a lot of software to support it.
- radicalbyte 14y ago
  German work culture is very different from Valley culture. You have a very strong hierarchy, to a point where it stifles creative thinking. That works for certain problems - such as manufacturing and logistics (only in Germany can they make a motorway 1-way for 4 hours in a day because there's a big conference or football match on). It's just terrible when you want to be innovative, and aren't sitting on the "top". The Netherlands is totally the opposite, it's very flat, creative, and people spend all of their time arguing instead of Getting Things Done. Which explains why there are a surprising number of Dutch start-ups here. The UK is a little in between. France.. I understand from a French colleague that they can be amazingly creative and disciplined. Unfortunately the people are all to ready to strike if they think that they're not getting their fair share of the income. Now I don't understand why that's so different than the Valley - shouldn't they accept their fair share of stock, as per all good start-ups? All of Europe suffers from the staffing problems: people are really expensive, and have a large number of rights. It's very hard to sack people, and when you do you have little choice as to who goes (last-in-first-out).
  - tisme 14y ago
    >Unfortunately the people are all to ready to strike if they think that they're not getting their fair share of the income. What's wrong with that?
  - sentenza 14y ago
    I think I have to disagree here. From my experience, working as a team is the centerpoint of German work culture. This includes giving each member of a team the oportunity to contribute in discussions and then also taking their suggestions seriously. The hierarchy is there, but rather at the same level or below the level of most other European countries. In France, on the other hand, hierarchy is very strict, including within a team. Supposedly, this is caused by the French higher education system. Taken together, the German and the French model often produce horrible failures when a French company tries to expand into Germany. If there is a problem to be solved within a team, the German Engineers/Workers will expect to hear the following at a meeting: "Listen guys, we have to change this and that, how do you think we could do it?". A French manager, however, is trained to walk into the meeting and say "We are now doing it like this.". Generally, I would recommend to stop associating strict hierarchy with Germany. Things have been changing for at least 40 Years now and in many fields (probably not all however) the amount of hierarchy is "normal". Things like pulling rank are observed rather seldomly in the technical fields. If you want to see how these things used to be a long time ago, you might want to look at Austria. Also, if you want a reason for why there is no SV-like feel to any of the German technology "hubs", I'd suggest risk-aversion as a reason. If you asked me what the most central collective character trait of todays Germans is, my answer would be risk-aversion. When you tell a German what he can gain, he will ask you what he could lose. On a side note, be careful when forming an opinion about Europe if your only fluent European language is English. Things might look very different on the other side of the language barrier. When talking about Germany, for instance, even the most carefully written publication from the UK will have inaccuracies in it. The way in which todays Germany and the Germanys past are convoluted in public discourse in the UK will influence anybody living there, even if he actively tries to avoid it. On the other side of the coin, natives or expats that live in a European country and tell you about it also have narratives, usually heavyly influenced by how they want to see themselves and their nationality. You basically can't trust anyone.
codex_irl 14y ago
What a load of entitled nonsense, this article is nothing but an unfounded rant IMO. By generalizing "Europe" as a single market / country - which it is FAR from in reality, the author has demonstrated that they really don't know what they are talking about, no entrepreneur in Europe would generalize in this way. Each country has its own set of unique laws, challenges as well as opportunities. I have founded companies in Ireland & never encountered any bureaucracy or red tape which prevented us from following our plans or accessing markets. In fact, one of the governments business development agencies gave us free rent in an incubator for 2 years, connected us with business mentors, used its connections to setup some key introductions which led to our first sales which really helped get the business off of the ground. All for no commitments or equity stake.
jisaacstone 14y ago
For the curious, there is some actual data about this kind of thing over here: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings The United States does rank higher than any European economy (which surprised me) in the aggregate ranking, there are categories where it is well behind.
GlennS 14y ago
Silicon Valley is successful because it was successful in the past. That attracts talented people looking to make it big, and it attracts money. You can put a narrative spin on it if you like, pin it on West-Coast entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone likes to believe that their kind are a cut above, after all.
- geoffschmidt 14y ago
  Sure, if you believe there are network effects to geography, then you can predict that there would be a Silicon Valley somewhere in the world. But why did it end up being in Northern California? Do you think that was pure accident? Could it have as easily been Tokyo? Frankfurt? Tehran? Oxford?
  - dmorgan 14y ago
    >But why did it end up being in Northern California? Because at the time it started happening, and for other reasons, the US was the top dog in the world economy? The 2050 Silicon Valley will be somewhere else. Maybe China.

31 points by iProject 14y ago

Last time I checked Europe was not one country. The business environment in, say, the UK is very much different to that in, say, Germany. It's hard to take articles seriously that speak so broadly and vaguely about such a diverse continent.

LaGrange 14y ago
Also, this article keeps repeating cliches. Yeah, sure, I won't get a pat on the head and universal admiration for starting yet another boring and doomed startup (though there's circles of people who will give you even that). Also, if you complain about costs and employee rights and stuff it's likely you will be perceived as a whiner -- justly, in my opinion, if those are stopping you then you probably have no business doing business. You will, though, still get health insurance on your pre-existing condition, which makes me way more likely to try (again) in Europe than in US. And if you do something that's generally considered useful there's even a chance for you to score some sponsorship money without a VC dangling off it, you just have to do the necessary paperwork to demonstrate you know what you're doing. In general, even with the crisis and all, we're doing pretty well over here.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
There's a rather irritating trend to treat the EU and Europe as the same thing (they aren't), and to treat the EU as if it's a country. While yes, some things are similar across the EU because of legislation, there are still significant differences between different countries.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  The same applies, IMO, to India and China, both having twice the population of Europe.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    I don't know about India, but it's a single country. So is China, but in effect it isn't, because of Hong Kong and Macao having quite different laws.
- riffraff 14y ago
  don't forget: treating UE and the Euro(€)-using subset of it (euroland) as if they are one.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    Oh, yup, that's irritating too. Do they not know about the UK (GBP)? Sweden (SEK)? Denmark (DKK)? Poland (PLN)? Czech Republic (CZK)? etc.
JonnieCache 14y ago
Now we know how africa feels.
- im3w1l 14y ago
  Which part of Africa?
  - archgoon 14y ago
    That is exactly his point ;)

brazzy 14y ago

What a load of ignorant, arrogant, pretentious, content-free nonsense....

Zenst 14y ago
damit, in the time I spent explaining why I thought it was a bad article you came up with a much simpler explanation.

Zenst 14y ago

"Europe has trailed America for decades, partly because of a tricky environment for entrepreneurs." Disagreeing with that from the start or the article. It realy depends upon what industry you look at, many sucessful entrepreneurs all around the World. Some countries are more suited to enableing them in one area as apposed to other countries and also the feild. Writting books, software and alot of inventions can be done with a extreemly low startup cost. So without clearcut examples it is hard for me as a European to understand. I will accept VC/finance may be easier or was easier in America for some feilds and still is, but a entrepreneur is by definition somebody who trancends the limitations that are normal and as such stands out. Goverments with regards to getting involved in Buisness do it in many ways, grants for research helps in a area that creates buisness's without directly doing so. Buisness's that are well extablished and come to a country can deal with goverments for TAX breaks, no startups/new companies can realy do that or leverage that area of govermentale assistance, they get breaks like all new companies. As for the rest of the article is is realy just focusing lossly upon technology and offers nothing tangable to highlight things. If it had a interview with somebody who tried to setup a technology company in europe and then endedup going to america to do things as it was easier, then the article would have made more sence and of had a good example. Given the author was involved with Messagelabs who's HQ is located in the UK and not the USA, then I would of expected more references to the direction the article takes. More so as that company would seem to highlight against the article as it was started in the UK, grew well, sold to Symantic for large pile of £'s and not $'s indicating a succesful startup in a country thats in Europe. So again can see why I disagree on many levels with this article, sorry.

omd 14y ago
Investors are frustrated that they can't replicate the success of Silicon Valley here in Europe, but our governments aren't the ones to blame. The environment here is different because the people want it that way. It's a different culture with different priorities and different goals. Just as Hollywood could only have become what it is in the US because it fits the (West Coast) American mentality, so too could a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram only come out of the American way of doing business. I don't see anything wrong with that and I've been able to do business here for almost 20 years. The trick is to not treat the environment here as something it's not and has no intention to become.

Atropos 14y ago

While I agree with the opinion of the article, the content is quite superficial. Some things that arent mentioned could have a much bigger impact in the long run than some school programming project in Estonia: - The European Venture Capital Funds Regulation being finalised this year - The agreed enddate for SEPA, the harmonization of all European Payment Infrastructures being set for 2014... Especially in the area of mobile payments I see a huge market potential because of the unique structure of the EU. If you travel through Northern Europe for example, you have the Euro in Finland, the Danish Krone in Denmark which is pegged to the Euro and then the Swedish Krone and the Norwegian Krone... A mobile app that would allow you to pay anything directly in Euros without having to convert into local currencies all the time would have huge value for the tourists - and the people selling stuff to them as well. With harmonized payment infrastructures and harmonized legal regimes this should be trivial to implement...

akgerber 14y ago
It's tragic that almost all of the benefits of a unified currency are becoming easily replicated by technological solutions just as all the problems of currency union without fiscal union have come to haunt the Eurozone.

Zenst 14y ago

Before you read the article I may suggest looking at this ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessageLabs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessageLabs )company the author was involved with "Jos White is a partner at Notion Capital, a venture fund focused on cloud and SaaS startups. He was previously a founder of three companies, including MessageLabs, which was acquired by Symantec in 2008 for $700m". Then the article become funny.

arkitaip 14y ago

Always hilarious when "experts" lump some 50 countries into a single entity just to draw wildly inaccurate and speculative conclusions because they can't be bothered to do the research required.

enki 14y ago

I'm far less optimistic. I was one of the most vocal and active pro-european-startup activists before I left for San Francisco in 2009. With no capital, I started multiple companies. Some failed, some are still active and now do combined multiple millions of annual revenue (e.g. mjam.net). I started Europe's first YC-inspired accelerator (YEurope) in 2006 and helped put the current global hackerspaces movement into motion so we'd have support infrastructure. Back then I regularly talked to european politicians up to the president level. The point where I left for San Francisco was when I realized that no one there realizes that there is a causal link between wealth creation and having wealth. They don't know they have a problem, or even should they suspect it, they don't know what causes it. On a recent trip back I haven't noticed any change in that - so even if they wanted to improve something, they wouldn't know what or how. The economic crisis provides a convenient excuse for all problems, not an incentive to explore what's wrong. The easiest argument against Europe for startups is sadly on an individual level: Statistics. If you're one of the best - but not the best - entrepreneur in Europe (500 Million People), you know that almost no one more talented than you ever succeeded. And almost no one less talented either. In San Francisco, both people more and less talented succeed all the time. So statistics. It's far more pretentious to think you're so much better than the best among 500 million, than to think you'll do well among the 8 million in the Bay Area.

mattmanser 14y ago
I really don't understand the point you're trying to make. Given your experience I would like to, can you expand it a bit? What's the problem?
- enki 14y ago
  That help won't be coming from politicians, because they don't even remotely get that wealth and wealth creation are linked. And despite what OP wrote, the fundamentals haven't changed in any other way that was perceptible to me. I can't tell you exactly what's wrong with startups in Europe. It's no one thing. It's thousands of things. Unless you've experienced the Bay Area, it's probably impossible to anticipate what you're missing. I didn't. The stuff you get in the Bay Area is stuff that doesn't transfer over the internet - so just by reading hackernews and techcrunch you have no means to figure out what is or could be different. I think Paul Graham's argument (paraphrased) that all startups die by default, but in some environments they sometimes get saved, might come closest in describing what's happening. I think the statistics argument really is the most solid one (though admittedly self-fulfilling, because it means the most driven entrepreneurs leave). Unless something fundamentally changes, any improvements to the ecosystem will have to be gradual over a long time.

lispm 14y ago

I'm from Germany, where the 3.8 million SMEs are the backbone of the economy. The famous Mittelstand competes worldwide and is considered in many areas to be among the world market leaders. It could be that many of these companies are not doing sexy web stuff, but "uninteresting things" like machines and tools - with a lot of software to support it.

radicalbyte 14y ago
German work culture is very different from Valley culture. You have a very strong hierarchy, to a point where it stifles creative thinking. That works for certain problems - such as manufacturing and logistics (only in Germany can they make a motorway 1-way for 4 hours in a day because there's a big conference or football match on). It's just terrible when you want to be innovative, and aren't sitting on the "top". The Netherlands is totally the opposite, it's very flat, creative, and people spend all of their time arguing instead of Getting Things Done. Which explains why there are a surprising number of Dutch start-ups here. The UK is a little in between. France.. I understand from a French colleague that they can be amazingly creative and disciplined. Unfortunately the people are all to ready to strike if they think that they're not getting their fair share of the income. Now I don't understand why that's so different than the Valley - shouldn't they accept their fair share of stock, as per all good start-ups? All of Europe suffers from the staffing problems: people are really expensive, and have a large number of rights. It's very hard to sack people, and when you do you have little choice as to who goes (last-in-first-out).
- tisme 14y ago
  >Unfortunately the people are all to ready to strike if they think that they're not getting their fair share of the income. What's wrong with that?
- sentenza 14y ago
  I think I have to disagree here. From my experience, working as a team is the centerpoint of German work culture. This includes giving each member of a team the oportunity to contribute in discussions and then also taking their suggestions seriously. The hierarchy is there, but rather at the same level or below the level of most other European countries. In France, on the other hand, hierarchy is very strict, including within a team. Supposedly, this is caused by the French higher education system. Taken together, the German and the French model often produce horrible failures when a French company tries to expand into Germany. If there is a problem to be solved within a team, the German Engineers/Workers will expect to hear the following at a meeting: "Listen guys, we have to change this and that, how do you think we could do it?". A French manager, however, is trained to walk into the meeting and say "We are now doing it like this.". Generally, I would recommend to stop associating strict hierarchy with Germany. Things have been changing for at least 40 Years now and in many fields (probably not all however) the amount of hierarchy is "normal". Things like pulling rank are observed rather seldomly in the technical fields. If you want to see how these things used to be a long time ago, you might want to look at Austria. Also, if you want a reason for why there is no SV-like feel to any of the German technology "hubs", I'd suggest risk-aversion as a reason. If you asked me what the most central collective character trait of todays Germans is, my answer would be risk-aversion. When you tell a German what he can gain, he will ask you what he could lose. On a side note, be careful when forming an opinion about Europe if your only fluent European language is English. Things might look very different on the other side of the language barrier. When talking about Germany, for instance, even the most carefully written publication from the UK will have inaccuracies in it. The way in which todays Germany and the Germanys past are convoluted in public discourse in the UK will influence anybody living there, even if he actively tries to avoid it. On the other side of the coin, natives or expats that live in a European country and tell you about it also have narratives, usually heavyly influenced by how they want to see themselves and their nationality. You basically can't trust anyone.

codex_irl 14y ago

What a load of entitled nonsense, this article is nothing but an unfounded rant IMO. By generalizing "Europe" as a single market / country - which it is FAR from in reality, the author has demonstrated that they really don't know what they are talking about, no entrepreneur in Europe would generalize in this way. Each country has its own set of unique laws, challenges as well as opportunities. I have founded companies in Ireland & never encountered any bureaucracy or red tape which prevented us from following our plans or accessing markets. In fact, one of the governments business development agencies gave us free rent in an incubator for 2 years, connected us with business mentors, used its connections to setup some key introductions which led to our first sales which really helped get the business off of the ground. All for no commitments or equity stake.

jisaacstone 14y ago

For the curious, there is some actual data about this kind of thing over here: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings The United States does rank higher than any European economy (which surprised me) in the aggregate ranking, there are categories where it is well behind.

GlennS 14y ago

Silicon Valley is successful because it was successful in the past. That attracts talented people looking to make it big, and it attracts money. You can put a narrative spin on it if you like, pin it on West-Coast entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone likes to believe that their kind are a cut above, after all.

geoffschmidt 14y ago
Sure, if you believe there are network effects to geography, then you can predict that there would be a Silicon Valley somewhere in the world. But why did it end up being in Northern California? Do you think that was pure accident? Could it have as easily been Tokyo? Frankfurt? Tehran? Oxford?
- dmorgan 14y ago
  >But why did it end up being in Northern California? Because at the time it started happening, and for other reasons, the US was the top dog in the world economy? The 2050 Silicon Valley will be somewhere else. Maybe China.