
The European Startup Scene is Still Broken - jreacher
https://medium.com/@faloppad/the-european-startup-scene-is-still-broken-f56be481993d
======
mschuster91
> Funding gaps remain larger in Europe than in the US.

Well, of course. Engineers in the US take home five-figure sums each month,
which explains why there are so many startups largely funded by ex-
Google/Apple/MS/FB employees.

In Germany, wages are so low, and taxes and rent so high, that you have to be
either fucking good or fucking rich via inheritance to save enough money for
your own startup.

Not to mention that failure is expected and financed in the US startup
culture, whereas in Europe you can't even get a small loan without putting
your car/house/... as collateral, and you will get shunned for failure.
Therefore, many capable people (have to) choose not to enter the start-up
world.

~~~
ThomPete
Thats not really the problem though startups aren't paying engineers a lot in
the beginning so thats comparing two different things.

While it's true that the funding gaps remail larger in Europe than in the US
it's still the wrong question to ask.

The real question is why the funding gaps are there to begin with. I would
claim 4 major reasons.

1\. Disconnect between the needs of the European politicians and those of
European startups.

2\. Europe has no Silicon Valley or New York.

3\. European startups ask for permission instead of forgiveness.

4\. The EU seems to be fixing the problems that the startups could fix.

In other words a lot of the problems in Europe is the EU.

Go back 40-50 years and plenty of fortune 500 companies were European.

I am exploring it in more depth in this essay:

[http://000fff.org/why-is-europe-failing-to-create-more-
unico...](http://000fff.org/why-is-europe-failing-to-create-more-unicorns/)

~~~
rhaps0dy
>The EU seems to be fixing the problems that the startups could fix.

and then

>In other words a lot of the problems in Europe is the EU.

Are the EU fixing or creating problems?

EDIT: okay, I'm reading the essay. Maybe they are creating problems for the
creation of startups, but solving problems for the population.

~~~
ThomPete
It's a problem that the EU (read politicians) are fixing a lot of the problems
that startups could have been fixing instead.

I.e. it's a bad idea that the EU is not trusting private enterprise more than
they are.

------
jokoon
I'm french, and I even wonder if kickstarter is a decent opportunity for me.
I'm not sure it is in term of finance law.

France is pretty protectionist, and labor laws are also pretty tight.

Maybe my personality is an issue, and maybe it's because I don't have a degree
nor experience, but as someone who is able to read and write C, C++, java,
PHP, when I hear that IT is a booming sector across the globe, I just can't
believe I'm still unemployed.

If you failed at school but went to programming classes and like programming,
if you're not part of the top tier class of people who went to an engineering
school, or managed to get through university, you're not employable.

It's sad because I always hear that you don't need a degree to have a
programming job. Well in france it's not really the case.

Recently I even failed some government funded 1 year school program, where
people learned programming (most of them never wrote code). I learned nothing,
and the jury was patronizing and condescending for some reason which made me
fail and not have this degree.

Meanwhile, the pharma company I went to, which is doing molecular research for
cancer treatments, was pretty happy about my intership.

I guess something might be wrong with my attitude too, but I'm sure I know why
countries like America have more success with IT, it is because they are
liberal, and france is clearly not. I like france, but IT here is not so
awesome.

~~~
biokoda
Speaking as an employer (not in France though). What do you have to show me
that you are capable? I place next to no value on formal education. But it
will get you a foot in the door if you have no actual work experience. It at
least tells me you can commit to something, even if it sucks (like most formal
CS education).

What I do care about is what you've worked on. If you have any personal
projects to show me.

No education, no projects that you have worked on tells me nothing about you.
If there are 10 candidates waiting, you have very little chance of being
picked.

Someone with a history of open source contributions would be at the top of our
candidate list.

~~~
jokoon
I have some downloadable exes on my website
[http://zonas.free.fr](http://zonas.free.fr)

Also bitbucket.com/jokoon/eio and github.com/jokoon/eio

Not really bright, but when I hear the "booming IT sector", I'm a little
skeptic.

~~~
biokoda
Please keep in mind I'm just trying to give you advice on how other employers
might view you.

Your github/bitbucket just looks like bunch purposeless code. I presume it's
your game?

If I were to make a judgement from looking at that. My impression would be
that you might have a hard time being motivated for the work I would give you.
You were not motivated enough to finish school. In your spare time you're
working on a game, which is something beginners tend to start with.

There are a bunch of projects that are highly active and welcoming to
contributors. Projects like servo or atom.io

Also try to keep your reddit and similar profiles private. You can give an
employer too much of an intimate view.

~~~
jokoon
> If I were to make a judgement from looking at that.

I'm reading anyway

> You were not motivated enough to finish school.

You might not know what the school system is like in france, and you don't
know me either, so don't jump to conclusions.

> on how other employers might view you

You seem like a PR person, and I don't really like it. I has its importance,
but I don't think it matters to me or should matter to my existence.

> You can give an employer too much of an intimate view

I got nothing to hide, I like to be honest. Points up for creepiness. If an
employer wants to be politically correct, it's his problem.

~~~
throwaway1304
I read your parent posts and nodded in agreement, wondering if maybe I should
ask for your resume. IT around here really has a lack of smart people that can
keep things running. Then I read this. Whoops, dodged that one.

~~~
jokoon
So what I should change my mind about my opinions? I could say the same about
your comment "Phew, dodged that one".

If you really think you're going to know me by reading my internet comments,
well, that might be your problem too.

~~~
throwaway1304
No, you should not change your mind on your opinions. You should however keep
your opinions to yourself or give up on "l'ascenceur social". Pick one.

(And also, read between the lines. People are dropping heavy hints in their
responses to you.)

------
Kequc
The title of this article is an understatement. I'm a startup founder in
Europe and we've been treading water for a year. How is a company supposed to
get off the ground if nobody has a hand that is able to be reached out to any
of us.

The government made it easier for startups to get loans from the bank. But
they did it the same disastrous way as the housing market crash started. You
can get a loan, the government takes a lot of the risk away from the bank. But
you still have to pay it all back. All that means is that people are getting
loans who shouldn't.

There isn't even a path through immigration. You're much more likely to be
able to stay in Europe if you get a job. Otherwise they just won't let you in.

There aren't any investors here. When we look for investors, we have paid for
tickets into large conferences and met leaders, owners, of Venture Capital
organisations. There is a point where commonly they tell you after jumping
through their hoops they do not have money. They say, we can give you 20k€ for
x amount of equity where x is a two digit number. Everywhere you turn there
are vultures, preying on startups. I get grilled by people promising to hook
me up with investors all the time. People wearing business suits and trolling
tech meetups only 5k€ for their help! They know people. Paid upfront.

Taxes are higher if you own your own company than if you simply have a job
somewhere. Every single thing works against you. If a year ago we were able to
hit the market we had 0 competitors, now we have 2.

~~~
Tomte
_You can get a loan, [...]. But you still have to pay it all back._

Nooooo! Really? You've got to be kidding me!

So basically you don't want to create a profitable company, but living the
cool "startup life" while getting a basic income from the state?

That's... not how we usually see startups.

~~~
Kequc
You missed the point. In order to explain the point I need to repeat myself,
as I went out of my way to explain the point in my original post. When loans
are given out to people who shouldn't be getting loans, you bankrupt more of
those people than you help.

------
SandB0x
I believe London has co-opted (in the Naomi Klein sense) the US startup scene.
We do all the superficial activity: incubators, pitches, hackathons, and so
on, but it is driven by government initiatives and established businesses.

\- There are many copies of the US startup accelerators, but the people
running them do not seem to have the same level of experience and connections
as in the US.

\- Much of the activity is due to business students, both at bachelors level
and MBA, who are somehow "trained" in "entrepreneurship". They "win" startup
pitch competitions based on some slides and sales forecasts, then troll CS
departments, alumni mailing lists and tech meetups looking for coders. I know
this is an old stereotype (and that business skills are critical too) but it
is very true here.

\- The government is often heavily involved. I wouldn't call myself a
libertarian, but I think we would be better off without cringeworthy gov
initiatives like "tech city", state-funded startups
([https://interact.innovateuk.org/](https://interact.innovateuk.org/)) and
university entrepreneurship schemes that look a lot like a way to boost new
grad employment figures.

It all feels like a pale imitation of the US tech industry. Obviously there is
some bias in terms of the US companies we hear about, but most people are
thinking very small here.

A few years ago a friend and I coded up an idea we had over a few weekends. It
was more complex than a straight CRUD app and had some nice visualisations,
but nothing too crazy. We met several "startup advisors" through our contacts
and at meetups. Every time we finished describing our idea, people would ask
us if we were having any luck "finding programmers" to implement it.

~~~
logingone
I've long considered London to be nothing more than a giant PR exercise. Of
course the prime minister is an ex-PR guy, so a connection wouldn't be
surprising. I'm not sure it delivers on the image it projects in any respect.
Except the new trains that have started on some lines - nice to have room to
breathe when you're stuck on a track waiting for a signal failure. Even the
new double decker busses with the aero fronts. What's the real difference?
Nothing. In fact the new appearance doesn't even last beyond the front of the
bus which is what people see when it approaches - the rear of the busses is
unchanged. So we don't have impressive new busses, we have busses that look,
upon first glance, from a specific angle, as though they are. Everything is
careful illusion. People buy into perception. Look! We have silicon
roundabout! Seriously?

~~~
martiuk
The problem is that even if it is a giant PR exercise, it's still sucking
talent away from the Midlands and the North.

There's a somewhat large group of startups here in Birmingham and there is a
significant lack of talent (unless you want cookie cutter Microsoft technology
developers) and investors. I started my own company to work on a project and
I'm contracting at the moment to keep myself going and I still get asked if I
want to join someone's startup as their first software engineer.

------
benbrownww
My experience running 2x startups in EU is that while lower salaries (esp Dev)
helps at seed stage, in addition to government schemes like SEIS, scaling at
SV pace is not possible without SV money. The best product in the world still
needs consistent paid PR and advertising to acquire users - even viral growth
needs a great social and content team to compete with a SV counterpart. These
cannot be scaled cheaply. When the 1st round of EU unicorn founders sell out
and start investing - then things will get interesting. Problem is - I don't
have faith in many of the EU start ups being touted as unicorns, especially
when I compare them to AirBnB, Dropbox, Stripe et al.

------
headmelted
Can confirm that these are real problems (Belfast here).

I'd disagree that there's any kind of local bump among Europeans from being in
Europe. More often than not, I've found that being based in Europe only serves
to put people off, even at home.

I must admit that in the past I've outright skipped over new shiny apps and
websites based in Europe (even if I believe in the idea) under the assumption
that they'll just get crushed later by a US-based rival anyway, although I try
to really give them a fair shake these days and not be an ass about it.

The funding picture here is fairly anemic too, and relies quite heavily on
government support. Most European governments have some public funding
allocated to building their "own Silicon Valley", but their results from
allocating funding is about what you would expect from people not well versed
in the industry.

I wrote about this recently as relates to losing Web Summit for silly reasons
on Medium (same username). Don't want to direct link as I'm not trying to
hijack the thread, people can check it out if they're interested.

Thanks for writing this.

~~~
danmaz74
> I must admit that in the past I've outright skipped over new shiny apps and
> websites based in Europe (even if I believe in the idea) under the
> assumption that they'll just get crushed later by a US-based rival anyway

And this is one of our big problems in this space.

------
gozo
The problem I have with these kinds of comparisons is that they seem to
compare with Silicon Valley and not European countries that overachive in
terms of startup like, say, Sweden which isn't very close to SV culturally.

------
throwaway45834
there is no european startup scene* - if you are mark zuckerberg and building
something that you intend to scale to every single person on earth, every
single person you meet will look at you like you have two heads or something.

europeans write essays like tihs -
[https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider)

that is literally a european essay urging you to reconsider.

* obviously they use the word, they just mean something different by it. i'm cmparing it with s.v.

~~~
pavlov
I find it only positive that there's a European startup scene that tries to do
things differently from Silicon Valley.

If you want to do the unicorn chasing thing, it makes sense to go to San
Francisco. Places like Berlin, Madrid or Helsinki each need to have something
unique to offer; there's no point in being a cheap imitation of the California
dream.

~~~
ecthiender
Perfect. I think you nailed it. Posts claiming that European startup scene is
bad is only looking for unicorn chasing. I just don't think it's a healthy,
organic way of building a sustainable company.

I think more startups should stop imitating the SV culture and come up with
their own way of doing business.

------
gtpasqual
>Talent is still localised. The European mobility is still low and employment
laws are still strict on non-EU citizens

This may be an acceptable argument for America, but makes no sense for Europe.

I've seen great migration from high-unemployment EU places( Spain, Portugal
and Italy) to UK, Germany and Switzerland.

Finding talent in EU is much easier (and cheaper) than in the U.S.

~~~
tianlins
I guess the point is flow of talent from outside Europe. For example, there
are significantly more good engineers from Indian, Europe and East Asia moving
to Silicon Valley.

------
rwmj
What are the factors stopping remote working in start-ups? It seems easier to
address these than to force your hires to all move to a single place.

------
faloppad
It's not like SV doesn't have any difficulties though (hiring, living costs,
copycats etc). The main difference is the depth and failure tolerance of the
home market. The number of early adopters is so much higher that it is much
easier to take a product off the ground. In Europe you probably have to scale
it country by country

