4 ms·

None of these are issues that European entrepreneurs I talk to have ever had.

• mbesto 13y ago
  Hi. You're right, no European entrepreneurs talk about these topics, but they are very much implied barriers to entry. What is normally vocalized is the size of their markets - which implies that scaling out to a whole EU launch is much more difficult.
  • antr 13y ago
    A US SaaS hasn't got tax, legal, culture issues when selling their products in Europe. So how can all of these be issues within the EU?
    • mbesto 13y ago
      Have you ever tried to sell something in English to a French company? Have you ever tried to sell something in Russia without "having a connection" to someone? Why does Dropbox have a Irish HQ?[0] [0]- https://www.dropbox.com/dublin https://www.dropbox.com/dublin
      • antr 13y ago
        Cherry pick all you want. Dropbox and others grew to millions without having a multiple-language site, European headquarters, "Russian connections", etc. My business currently sells to the world with an English website, one terms of service, one VAT, and one business location in a non-English speaking country. We are not the only ones.
        • mbesto 13y ago
          You can cherry pick all of you want (i.e. your own business). How about Spotify? Why did people in Germany and the UK have to wait years after Sweden already had it (when the technology already existed)? Whereas Rdio in the US was able to tap into 350 million people right off the bat.
          • antr 13y ago
            Spotify's rollout has nothing to do with the country's laws nor regulation, but due to private commercial agreements between parent record labels and countries' OpCos. Blaming a country's laws and regulations, instead of the private commercial/licensing agreements that stifle content rollout is unheard of. You are mixing two very different topics.
            • mbesto 13y ago
              > private commercial/licensing agreements And who do you think enforces commercial licensing agreements?
              • antr 13y ago
                Why are you making this argument up? Which governments in the world care about Justin Bieber's latest album release dates, distribution and pricing strategy, etc.? There is NO evidence that governments make studios establish a release date, distribution strategy, pricing strategy, etc. This is a barrier created entirely and solely by the music record industry. Wow!, Simply wow! You've tried to make an argument on an issue you have no data for, and now you need to make up stories to justify your believes. Wow!
      • M2Ys4U 13y ago
        >Why does Dropbox have a Irish HQ? There are two main reasons why companies set up European HQs in Dublin/Ireland: 1. Avoiding tax. Ireland has a low rate of corporation tax and some fairly large loopholes. See the Double Irish arrangement and the Dutch Sandwich[0] set-ups. 2. Avoiding privacy protection. The data protection authority in Ireland is tiny[1] and severely under-resourced, so finds it hard to enforce European data protection standards which are significantly higher than in the US (which has pretty much zero regulation when it comes to privacy) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement [1] http://i.imgur.com/IKHC2Ud.png http://i.imgur.com/IKHC2Ud.png - This is the office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland. A tiny office next to a supermarket. This is the authority responsible for policing privacy for dozens of huge multinations in Europe, including Facebook.
• ThomPete 13y ago
  they are those i know and projects i been involved with. But hey dont take my word for it. Try it out yourself.