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Which country are you located in? Why was targeting Europe as your market a mistake? What are you freelancing on? I'm a freelancer getting started in France aft

by toumhi 13y ago

Which country are you located in? Why was targeting Europe as your market a mistake? What are you freelancing on? I'm a freelancer getting started in France after a few years of web dev experience and thinking of targeting the European startups so am really interested in your experience :-) Personally after having been employed for many years and tried to build products full-time, I'm currently working on getting freelance clients and thinking of building a product later, to serve these same clients. That way you got plenty of validation for your product. You could do the same: consult on devops for your niche, and later on or at the same time build a product out of the biggest pains you observed. Note: a product could be software but also an education product (ebook or course). This would help with getting even more insight into the problems of your customers while buying you some time to build your software product(with the money earned from your education product) since it takes much more time to validate and build a business on.

koevet 13y ago
Hi there, I'm currently located in Zurich, Switzerland. Targeting Europe as a small consulting company is, IMO, a big mistake for the following reasons: - Language: even though I'm fluent in 3 languages and my biz partner in 2 other languages, still there are certain countries where speaking the local language makes all the difference in getting a contract. I'm thinking of Germany, France or Italy. Scandinavian countries are way more relaxed in that regards but it is still cumbersome sometime to attend meetings with older folks. - Hidden costs: when you start having clients all over Europe you need people to show up once in a while. So you hire these people (and you have to be sure they are happy to fly around Europe), pay them daily allowances, hotel, plane tickets, insurance. These costs, along with the Europe high labor cost, kind of shrink the margins. - Hard to get new clients: unless you are a very big consulting company, you need to convince your clients that you are not going to sit with them 5 days a week for, say, 6 months. This is often a show stopper because clients don't know you - they only know you are small - and simply don't trust you, at least at the beginning. - Big clients are slow: we tried to target large enterprises and this was another mistake. Large companies are very slow in deciding if they like you or not. The process to go from first contact to a signed contract can take over one year. Feel free to drop me an email at luciano[ ]fiandes.io if you need more information.

by toumhi 13y ago

koevet 13y ago

Hi there, I'm currently located in Zurich, Switzerland. Targeting Europe as a small consulting company is, IMO, a big mistake for the following reasons: - Language: even though I'm fluent in 3 languages and my biz partner in 2 other languages, still there are certain countries where speaking the local language makes all the difference in getting a contract. I'm thinking of Germany, France or Italy. Scandinavian countries are way more relaxed in that regards but it is still cumbersome sometime to attend meetings with older folks. - Hidden costs: when you start having clients all over Europe you need people to show up once in a while. So you hire these people (and you have to be sure they are happy to fly around Europe), pay them daily allowances, hotel, plane tickets, insurance. These costs, along with the Europe high labor cost, kind of shrink the margins. - Hard to get new clients: unless you are a very big consulting company, you need to convince your clients that you are not going to sit with them 5 days a week for, say, 6 months. This is often a show stopper because clients don't know you - they only know you are small - and simply don't trust you, at least at the beginning. - Big clients are slow: we tried to target large enterprises and this was another mistake. Large companies are very slow in deciding if they like you or not. The process to go from first contact to a signed contract can take over one year. Feel free to drop me an email at luciano[ ]fiandes.io if you need more information.