

European startups: How not to raise capital in the US - stefanobernardi
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2013/05/04/european-startups-heres-how-to-not-raise-capital-in-the-us/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=share%2Bbutton&utm_content=European%20startups%3A%20Here%E2%80%99s%20how%20to%20%28not%29%20raise%20capital%20in%20the%20US&utm_campaign=social%2Bmedia

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friendly_chap
> You probably haven’t gone to Stanford and MIT

Ahh right, we must be all dumbasses then.

One day I was watching a presentation about programming languages. I thought
it was for high schoolers, although the teacher seemed to be exceedingly good,
he was talking in a style which assumed approx the same amount of IT knowledge
my non-programmer high school 3rd grader little brother has.

It was a Stanford class.

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danmaz74
If the OP is right in implying that US venture capitalists value very much
coming from an Ivy League education, then it's the VCs you should be angry
with, not him...

On the other hand, I can guess that being an Ivy Leaguer has a positive
correlation with having good connections - independently from the quality of
an education there.

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rhizome
Some say the connections are the main benefit of going to an Ivy, much like
participating in the Greek system, getting an MBA, etc.

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danmaz74
The Internet offers great opportunities to create connections without the need
of a physical presence. There lies a great opportunity to disrupt a system
that isn't very efficient at all.

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rhizome
I didn't mean to imply that it was the only way to to create connections, just
those of a certain type (and among a membership of certain power structures).
The Internet is indeed creating alternative methods of networking and business
relationships, but it remains to be seen whether the opportunity gathers
enough power to disrupt to an appreciable (historically significant, to me)
amount. A bunch of Yale and CMU people at the tops of Internet companies isn't
much of a change, after all.

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danmaz74
I completely agreed with you (but upvotes are anonymous... ;) and didn't think
you implied that - I just wanted to add that the Internet _could_ represent a
great opportunity to disrupt the exclusivity of certain mechanisms - even if
that's not easy, and not the case yet.

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dbrian
> You probably haven’t gone to Stanford and MIT. > You probably didn't work in
> a major successful US startup. > You probably don’t have many mutual
> connections with the investor.

That would seem to apply to most people in the US as well.

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stroboskop
> If you’re a European and work in tech in San Francisco, every summer you’ll
> be inundated with dozens of emails from friends, contacts and unknown
> European entrepreneurs who will ask you for advice and introductions to US
> investors for their classic VC fundraising trip.

Possibly due to a biased sample, the post exaggerates the attractiveness of
the US for skilled Europeans founders.

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danmaz74
On the contrary, it looks to me like the post describes the US as a very bad
bet (and so not very attractive) for skilled European founders looking for
investors.

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georgespencer
I run a venture-funded European startup. Raising in the US didn't cross my
mind at any stage of our Series A. European money is just as good as US money.
This post applies to the 5% of dross European startups who think the grass is
greener in San Francisco.

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Archio
> You probably haven’t gone to Stanford and MIT.

Queue out X% of startup people in the United States. You know one common
quality of great entrepreneurs? They're really good at getting into and paying
for elite colleges with sub-10% acceptance rates.

In fact, why doesn't everyone who hasn't gone to Stanford or MIT just smack
themselves in the head, abandon their startups, and apply for low-level
janitorial positions. Clearly they weren't born intelligent and able to start
a startup, otherwise they would have gone to Stanford and MIT where all smart
startup people are able to go when they turn 18.

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hugofirth
> You probably haven’t gone to Stanford and MIT

Oh dear ...

I understand that this was the author's honest appraisal of the thought
processes of potential investors within the SF bay area community. I also
understand that it is probably a true reflection of investor attitude. Lastly
I understand that the sentiment behind it is total c __p - with about as much
foundation in the truth as a bouncy castle has in rock and mortar.

Whether merely perceived or actual, the astonishing arrogance of some
Americans is hurting their image.

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xSwag
Any statistics on what % of successful YC candidates that went to Ivy League
schools? I'm going to assume there is a bias that people who go to prestigious
Ivy are more likely to apply to prestigious programs like YC so probably a
high percentage.

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mansigandhi
I think holds for founders from all countries outside of the US.

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noloqy
Haha I barely started reading the article and I already trip over this
sentence in one of the first paragraphs: "I believe I now have a statistically
significant pool of data and experiences to analyze". Clearly somebody
misunderstood something. Perhaps it is time we stop using terms we don't
understand.

