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> If anything, Europeans appreciate cultural differences more than people from the US.

Maybe a bit too much. Sitting in Austria I've less worries about getting customers from Texas (US is US) than about getting customers from France (oh god, the language barrier, the red tape, …) or Poland (I don't even know who to hire for translations!).

And it really bogs you down. The US is one unified market, for software vendors at least. The biggest single-language market in Europe is Germany (coincidentally? its economic powerhouse), but tapping in Germany + Austria + Switzerland already means dealing with two currencies and three different legislations. And everything past it will have diminishing returns. Another language, another set of red tape to deal with, for a handful million potential customers… Why even bother? US startups won't have to deal with any of that until they want to expand internationally, and even then they can skip half the pain (l10n) if they focus on other English-speaking markets.

> Sometimes this leads to hard work (80+ hour weeks), other times to unfair play (Uber licensing and traditional taxis come to mind)

That's a bit naïve, European businesses have no problems with fighting dirty (we invented cartels, dammit, and 80 years later people still think light bulbs only last 1000 hours!), and entrepreneurs will bust their asses either way. It just doesn't get them as far.

With respect to your point about different legislations, some states in the US have extra regulations and consumer rights. That's why you often see state-specific fine print in purchases. In the case of California, environmental regulations are stricter than many states, and CA market requires product modifications for cars and motorcycles. Sometimes these stricter regulations result in product modifications nationally.

I'm aware of that, but very little of that applies to software and services, which IIRC is most of all startups.

And the situation for physical goods is worse in Europe still.

I agree with you, but I still think there are some special cases for software. If I understand correctly, privacy implications in EU states may be stricter than that of the US. I can only imagine this makes coding harder for user data (if user.country != "special snowflake").

Isn't this the reason the EU exists?

Oh, it's definitely helping, no doubt. But it can't just wish away language barriers and sovereign nation states.

> But it can't just wish away language barriers and sovereign nation states.

It's telling you think that's the goal of the EU (especially the "sovereign nation states" part). And people wonder why Brexit happened…

There's no indication that they thought that was the goal of the EU. They have only said these things will be barriers regardless of the existence of the EU.

You are being needlessly rude.

Yes.

Only somewhat. The Euro solves the currency issues, except that Switzerland doesn't use it. The EU has some unifying regulation, but (so far as I know - I'm not in the EU) it covers less than Federal regulations do in the US, which leaves more to the discretion of the individual countries.

The US constitution has a clause that says, in effect, "if it covers interstate commerce, the Federal government gets to regulate it, not the states". If you're doing business across state lines in the US, well, that's interstate commerce by definition. States do get around that with health regulations and taxing requirements and such, but as I said, I think the situation in Europe is considerably worse.

Also, Switzerland isn't a member of the EU anyways.

Drifting off topic, but, no. The EU exists to prevent war between European countries. The rest is bonus, or a means to an end, if you will.

That's absolutely not why the EU exists, come on.

I wouldn't say it the way the gp does either, but the predecessor to the EU was indeed founded for economic integration with the goal of making that integration prevent ww3.

Absolutely not? Interesting, tell me more what is the real reason (also, it works, even if it absolutely not is why).

We moved GitLab from the Netherlands to San Francisco. Some things I noticed:

1. In the US we got to see more other startups that were going really fast and that pushed us to go faster ourselves, Y-Combinator helped with this.

2. It was easier to find people that are experienced with modern sales and marketing practices in the US.

3. Customers in the US like to buy from a US company (and pay by check, these took 2 months and cost $70 to cash in the Netherlands).

4. On average companies in the US adopts newer technology sooner.

5. There was better advice and investment available in the US, Y-Combinator helped with this.

6. In the US there are much more success stories, this raised our ambitions.

I know many impressive startups and incubators in the Netherlands (shoutout to Adyen, 3ax Cycling, AppSignal, and Utrecht Inc.) and we have some awesome Dutch customers. The above examples and talking about the statistical average, there are awesome organizations and people everywhere.

Wouldn't it be enough to set up a postal box office in the USA to create a US 'presence' for many saas companies based in Europe? Provided, of course, that you are available during US office hours for email and phone support?

You still have to pick an entity to bill from. If that is a foreign entity the US customers need a special form from you to do business with you https://www.irs.gov/uac/form-w-8ben-certificate-of-foreign-s...

And having a postal box office doesn't solve cashing a foreign check in the Netherlands.

So as a first step I recommend incorporating a US entity (Inc. in Delaware), setting up the PO box (we used Earth Class Mail), and getting a bank account (heard good things about first republic bank).

> Y-Combinator

Nitpick: it's Y Combinator (no hyphen).

Thanks, just seeing this now and it's too late to edit. As an alumni I should know better.

The Spanish siesta is a break in the middle of the day because of the high heat. Spanish workers are the ones who, in average, work the longest hours in Europe (38 hours/week) after the Greek (42 h/w) and the Portuguese (39.3 h/w). Please stop the prejudice.

I have something to say about that. I live in Portugal as a foreigner and the working hours mean nothing. People are making coffee breaks all day long and the amount of sloppiness and incompetence can often be mind-boggling. As an example, my German girlfriend works in a dental laboratory and her Portuguese colleague would not possibly understand why it's not common practice in a German laboratory to watch Youtube videos on your cell phone while working. He really, honestly didn't believe it when she told him that German bosses don't appreciate that.

To be fair, salaries in Portugal are ridiculous, I have no idea how people get along with 600 Euro/m, 800 Euro/m tops, when at least in Lisbon rents are high. Some hard working people seem to literally live off toasted bread and coffee. This is disguised by the average salary of 1000 Euro/m after taxes, because the gap between rich and poor is very high.

I myself work at university, and I can attest that what takes 1 day at maximum anywhere in Northern Europe is projected to take 1-3 weeks here. I have a colleague who surfs on the Net the whole day and gets paid for it -- again, extremely bad payment, though.

So no, mere presence does not count and work hours don't count either. For Portugal, I blame the bosses, though, who seem to be universally incompetent assholes and reliably manage to create a catastrophic working atmosphere.

Sorry if I've offended some Portuguese, but that's my impression of the work ethics here after nearly a decade of living here. It has its advantages but productivity is not one of them.

You have not offended this Portuguese. However, if one was to go exclusively by your account, one would come out with the understanding that is a country of incompetent slackers, and I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. I do however concede that most of management in here is fairly amateurish and incompetent.

I agree, it wasn't meant to be generalized and is only a relative thing. If the horror stories I've heard are right, Portugal is a shining beacon of diligence in comparison to Angola. My point was just that if your boss is an asshole and you only earn 600 Euro/month, this can hamper your motivation.

Bah, I could tell the exact same stories about middle Europe and northern Europe.

> it's not common practice in a German laboratory to watch Youtube videos on your cell phone while working

Boy have I got news for you...

While the Spanish work day is longer, it's not necessarily more productive. Long lunch breaks and the fact that the country uses the wrong time zone (enforced by Franco, no less) make the Spanish a sleep-deprived people:

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21704816-and-knackered-...

The US has high-heat and we don't have any concept of a siesta, so it's not wrong at all to say there are cultural differences.

Of course there are cultural differences, but this has nothing to do with "work behavior". The average work hours in the US, for example, is 34.4 hours/week.

Yes, and Spain's is only 32.48[0]. What is your point?

[0] - http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/

My source says 38 hours. My point is that saying that "Southern ones are more carefree and want to relax" is false and prejudiced.

Just like saying that Walloon are dumber than Flemish.

> My source says 38 hours.

Care to cite your source then?

False? Maybe, maybe not - I have no idea. Prejudiced? Most certainly not.

If you don't know if it's false or not, you clearly don't have the data to judge it, hence you've got prejudices.

Fun fact: Most Spaniards I've met in UK are shocked by the "calling off sick" (after a night out) and low effort culture they've found in Britain. I personally think that's not true either, but tells me more about Spaniards than anything.

Truth is Spain is unproductive due to corruption. Also, you've got prejudices, like everyone else :-)

P.S.: I'm Spaniard and I consider myself lazy, hence why I got in IT (earn more with less effort). I run away from manual labour :-)

It would be good if Spain could get in with the 20th century and use air-conditioning

(but yes, it's a cultural thing)

Spaniard here. Generalising a bit, _all_ offices here have air conditioning, and _nobody_ does the siesta thing.

A lot of smaller shops do siesta hours closing from 2 - 4 or 4.30.

There's air conditioned everywhere, not sure which Spain you've visited really.

On the other hand, it doesn't have to be ON all the time at like 19 degrees Celsius like in the US, where I carry a jacket around to put it on only when I'm inside a building :-)

It may be true, but infrastructure has nothing to do with work ethics.

If only English had a word for siesta like, don't know, nap? I would use nap in the same sentences as siesta and I always considered them equivalent.

The cultural thing with siesta is that after midday and for a few hours it's pretty much suicide to go outside, less do work under the sun, hence why in agricultural towns is common to work from 5 or 6 am until noon-ish then go to have lunch and sleep a while until it's safe to go outside and start with your social life.

In the cities that schedule doesn't exist, but some traditions remain like shops closed from 2pm to 5pm or businesses closed the whole month of August. In any case, these are also disappearing due to big chains taking over the high street, who have enough money to invest in several store clerks to cover 10am-10pm (yup, that's the typical mall schedule in Spain).

An interesting thing I found out from getting to know a Swedish family living in Mexico was they make a conscious effort in their society to not be too good or better than everyone else. People strive to be a B versus an A. Not every single person subcribes to that thinking but I've rarely met a Swedish person that didn't seem to be fairly happy.