With Station F, Paris will have the world’s biggest startup campus
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I still have the feeling this is more of a stunt to bring attention on Station F than on the startups themselves. Beyond the buzz, there is very little vision. It's a giant intensive farm in a denser, currently-under-redevelopment neighborhood.
In this super dense setting, they're piling up various talent for sort-of-low-cost rents, hoping to raise unicorns thanks to nearby campuses, increased VC flow in Paris and general attention towards startups. This strikes me as a formula thought out by people who have never actually been in a successful startup (Roxanne Varza has been successful at _talking about_ startups, never at actually building things).
One outcome is that all those points successfully connect together. Another, more probable outcome is that it will turn out impossible to keep focus, talent and purpose in a giant, open space (also probably soon to be under-maintained judging by French standards).
Several french regions have their (semi-)publicly funded equivalent of Station F (Lille with Plaine Images & Euratechnologies, Nantes with La Cantine, ...) and while there is a considerable quantity of startups in Paris, there is no local de facto hub. I'd argue that Le Sentier area plays that role, but it's a neighborhood where lots of startup happen to be located. In the early 00s it was dubbed "Silicon Sentier".
Plaine Images & Euratechnologies have been built in former industrial complexes with the aim of redynamizing local ecosystem as a whole. Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, hopes to do the same to the XIII arrondissement.
Presented with the option "improve performance and you'll receive an extra 100k a year although you'll only see 50k of that" would you:
A. plod along with current work-ethic and current salary
B. move to where you'd see 80k of that
C. Continue to perform and be 50k wealthier
France loses the talent of those that choose option B (See: London) but option A seems illogical.
France policy are very hostile toward capital. That is a problem when startups rely on raising xx M EUR in cash.
This is actually is a lot more subtle. Sure there are heavy taxes about which that some (ideologically interested) people love to complain about. But there are also a lot of public subsidies that those very same people will never publicly acknowledge benefiting from (again pushing an agenda).
There are lots of tax optimisations in the french tax code. The weirdest one has to be investment into "sofica" companies, which are shell companies for movie productions. You have to make sure that the movie will fail to maximise your tax credit. So you have to pick wisely: do not invest in the next Asterix or Luc Besson movie, you'd end up loosing money to the IRS. That's one of the reasons hollywood accounting is also a thing in France. The idea is not to massively undercut the author, but to make sure the investors aren't hit with back taxes!
One of the main points of VC funding is that it is easy to get... compared to state funding.
An early stage venture ain't developing anything if they are busy filling government paperwork and optimizing taxes. They should be busy using their resources for growth and creation, not busy trying to protect their resources from the government.
The schemes for tax avoidance in France are very complex, as much as the schemes to get government help [for a company], and they can totally backfire if there is anything misdone or an unexpected change in government.
The economic system is anti-startup and pro-big companies. That's why there are very few SME in France.
I've seen a lot of startups joining up to have access to bigger founds they would have had alone. It also split the bureaucracy burden as it is in everyone interest to succeed so paperwork is mutualised.
So, yeah, it's different. Not impossible.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millionaire#HNWI_population
When I was in Nantes this summer, I kept seeing subtle little details that made me think something interesting was going on. Compagnie La Machine (with its multi-story robotic spiders http://www.lamachine.fr/) seems to be surrounded by a maker scene, and even perfectly ordinary magazine shops carried Open Silicium (http://www.opensilicium.com/) a really nice embedded systems magazine that covers advanced hobbyist and professional concerns. This is a lot harder core and more specialized than the Linux Journal, for example, and when I've shown it off to US booksellers specializing in "maker"-related publications, they just about drooled.
Combine that with the French startups I saw at La French Touch in New York a couple of years ago, and some of the recent legislative changes the government was supposedly working on, and I kinda wanted to hang around and see what was up. I have a sneaking suspicion that the French have all the raw ingredients for an excellent startup scene, but that funding might still be something of a struggle.
http://www.plaine-images.fr/en/services-2/
It's located in a former textile factory and combines both openspace/co-working spaces, private offices in varying sizes. It also has a strong focus on creative industries (gaming, VR, audio...). Several companies that have started there have an excellent track record and several world-class leaders are in talks with them.
If you mix public subsidies + good space design + integration in the socio-economical fabric + specialization on a vertical, you end up with very high potential and growth. That's exactly what's happening right now at Plaine Images, even though it's not very well known outside of Europe.
Funding is not that much of an issue, tbh. As I stated elsewhere in this thread, I raised little, but had I wanted more, London & Berlin are literally next door and many large european VCs are familiar with the french ecosystem. The business angels I chose have exactly that track record (early 90s-00s, create company in France, raise a few hundreds k€ in France, large rounds in the US, IPO on Nasdaq, get rich and become BA/VCs).
I'm not going to list the usual "french unicorns" such as Blablacar or Criteo, but see Devialet, a hw "startup": they have closed a 100M$ round with a Korean fund two weeks ago so access to capital definitely exist...
By the way, La Cantine unfortunately had a massive fire two weeks ago, so we will have to wait and see if the phenix rise from the literal ashes :'(
I've actually worked for a startup that was formerly at la Cantine (which has actually burned down less than two weeks ago), and I can confirm Nantes is a lovely place to work at.
In 2016, hiring is still an issue, and investing is always seen as a risk instead of an opportunity.
When I was in Paris the only people I met were those majoring in Finance, the amount of computer programmers or engineers at the universities were extremely low. Why? Because the jobs just aren't there. Paris is and has always been a hub for Money. People then majored and specialized in Money. It is where the Money is; Money is where the jobs would be.
Don't let the media blitz carry you away at the announcement of Station F, it is a media wave designed to tell people, 'look... we are diversifying our economy' as Berlin and London have also been attempting (rather... ineffectively for Germany). The media blitz is a way of telling individuals in France (and all of Europe actually) that this is where tech jobs can be found... so make the decision to major in tech.
What I imagine will happen is: many people from Eastern Europe (strong scattering of micro tech scenes without sufficient exposure) will flock to Station F to take advantage of it's proximity to all of the local funding that can be found in Paris. Paris is a place like London and New York where people park their money for expansion. Station F is just another place for these people to park their funds.
We could be seeing the beginning of a rocking station F, or, we could be seeing the beginning of a very large media hype designed to encourage diversifying the economy that will be the beginning of a very slow 'meh' Station F.
France makes people sad. One in 3 adult takes psychotropic drugs[1]. I lived in Australia and I was happy every day, in France there's just no good news. A brilliant example is, GP mentionned buildings are under-maintained, that's an excellent summary. It's the no-politics week so I won't dive into the past-and-future causes of this chronic stress, but it exists.
[1] http://www.france24.com/en/20140520-france-drug-addiction-1-...
It's not that hard to find a place to work in Paris, it's hard for employers to find good candidates. I've spent most of the year looking for developers at Streamroot [1] and we struggled to have applicants. We hired 5 persons in the first 6 month of the year and still have a lot of open positions.
I don't know if you will read this post, because it's a bit late and you don't have any mail/twitter on your profile.
But we are looking for developers, including junior ones, in Paris or Nantes, if you're interested :
http://www.welcometothejungle.co/companies/lucca/jobs
Cheers, Guillaume
Most people associate Paris with old world charm, weltsmerchz, brooding philosophers and artists, sassy and fashionable women etc. - none of this is compatible with neckbeards with macbooks, obsession with money/productivity/growth that a thriving startup scene inevitably brings. Let it stay that way.
It would be interesting to see if there can be a third way - an attractive location for startups with a culture that is open to entrepreneurship without being overly obsessed with quick unicorn money and without being entirely dominated by startups and VCs?
I find it bordeline cringey to see how other countries try to imitate "SV culture".
it's one thing to be inspired by something, and no question we should all admire what SV has created. On the other hand, I dream of France creating products that reflect its own identity and culture. It's not like we don't have anything in the past ot get our inspiration from.
I wish we didn't try to become SV, but try to become our better self, so to speak.
http://www.leparisien.fr/info-paris-ile-de-france-oise/trans...
Paris is not perfect but I don't see how this kind of initiative couldn't be a move in the right direction.
About the money part, Paris is far from being London or NYC, the gravity center isn't financial services, at least you don't feel it when living there.
There is great talent (engineer+design), I'd say the marketing overall is weak and too timid.
If you want to be paid well, you need to work for a company where the technology is the product. Writing Java for a bank? The software is not the product, so you won't be respected like in Silicon Valley.
But those are in NY/London, not Paris.
I never understood why some companies in France are reluctant to pay well their developers, especially startups with funding.
The take home pay certainly is much, much lower in France than in the US, but it comes with access to top-notch free healthcare, free university, pension contributions, 5-7 weeks paid leave and generous unemployment insurance amongst other things. It all adds up.
I'm French, working in London and I've been happy with the trade off of more pay for a thinner social safety net, but I know it would be foolish to compare wages directly. I suspect the difference is much less spectacular with everything taken into account.
Let's just say that it's hard to make much more past 2000 EUR per month after taxes in Paris. And the accommodation costs the same number as in London (at 1 EUR = 1 GBP).
If we are speaking of software engineering salaries that's really low. In Helsinki capable professionals can get 'easily' 3000€ after taxes per month (not in all companies though). If one has proven track record, is undoubtedly in 'smart and gets things done' category, etc.
Are you really getting that as a junior? I highly doubt so.
I bet that you're not accounting for what would be translated literally as "the income tax". Wait till you get the 3k€ tax bill at the end of the year ;)
Income tax for 32340€ (assuming you're single) => 3093€ a year
net salary after tax: 2437€
CQFD.
My calculator gives 2336 EUR per month on 12 months. (2156 EUR on 13 months).
The thing is, you're on 12 months so it's better than the estimation I gave initially. You're lucky in a sense, many places are forcing 13 months contract nowadays, which instantly steals 1/12 of your income.
Anyway, I consider that it fits the definition of "not much more than 2k". That will plateau [counter-]exponentially fast, don't expect to get 3k anytime soon :D
Let's say you have a contract written "26k gross over 13 months".
It means, you're paid 2k per month (26/13).
In December, you'll get 4k at once. [If you're still there, and worked the whole year, and didn't give your notice, and weren't sick more than X days... There can be some pretty nasty conditions to try to not pay you].
---
The dishonest way to put it (what French people think and what company say): say that the salary is 26k. Except it's really not that, you can NOT rely on that money.
The programmatic way to put it: You're paid 24k gross, 2k per month. You MAY get 1 month of [mostly] guaranteed bonus at the end of the year.
The left-France-For-Abroad way to put it: French companies not only pay bad but they try to fuck with your income and ostensibly lie to your face. Americans/London tech did not do that, they give the real number for your salary, and they add ON TOP generous bonus/RSU/profitshare plus free catered food and insurance.
Many maybe, but I doubt it's the majority since I never heard about this in our industry.
Note that it's delayed by one year, you'll pay now for the year before.
Really ? Shortly after I graduated, I've been hired at 2700€ (net salary minus income tax). If you have professional experience and are paid below 2500€, you really need a new job ! (all my friends are hiring, feel free to contact me on twitter)
That's a hard number to get for someone with 5-10 years experience. Sorry to say but there is no way you got that after graduation ^^
Even if you are part of the "privileged schools" with a special network of friends and "copinage", in finance. That's really really tough.
Would you mind sharing the gross salary number actually written on the contract and the name of the company and the careers page :D ?
> If you have professional experience and are paid below 2500€, you really need a new job ! (all my friends are hiring, feel free to contact me on twitter).
I had some professional experiences at the time and there was no way I'd get anywhere near that.
I've left the country since because I'd rather leave the street than live in the street.
Let's talk business. Let's imagine for a minute a guy who is handling the core trading infrastructure, for a financial institution, responsible for over 1 bazillion dollar in assets.
What kind of career would you or your friends offer back in France for that kind of profile?
As I already replied to your other comment, your calculation is flawed (partially because of your 13 month stuff but not only)
> Even if you are part of the "privileged schools" with a special network of friends and "copinage", in finance.
I'm from that kind of school, and in finance you don't really need network or "copinage" to get 55k a year. With it, a few manage to reach above 100k.
> Let's imagine for a minute a guy who is handling the core trading infrastructure, for a financial institution, responsible for over 1 bazillion dollar in assets.
I'm not really in the financial business, but I'm not sure you could find work in «trading infrastructure» here in Paris. Maybe BNP has some stuff, but I know many banks have settled in London for that part of their business.
That being said, you could easily find a job above 60k in Paris with this background. Streamroot[1] had a position for this exact profile several month ago. Of course it's probably not much compared to what you earn in the trading business, but saying that 2500€ a month is impossible in Paris is just wrong nowadays.
I don't know how the market was several years ago, but I think you really underestimate the shortage of developers in Paris at the moment.
> I'm from that kind of school, and in finance you don't really need network or "copinage" to get 55k a year. With it, a few manage to reach above 100k.
I just checked your linkedin (and you should see mine). You're from the Ecole Centrale Paris. You absolutely have the network and you're privileged. You absolutely underestimate how hard it is to get a job from someone who is not from one of these schools, didn't study in Paris and has no friend/family in Paris.
> With it, a few manage to reach above 100k.
Yeah sure the legendary top 1% that every one heard about. Do you actually know the guy and checked the payslip?
Either way. It's both non representative AND it's still not on-par with London/SV for the cream of the crop.
> I'm not really in the financial business, but I'm not sure you could find work in «trading infrastructure» here in Paris.
I don't care especially about financial businesses. It's just one offer ready-to-sign I have on my desk. I try to make a collection of those. I guess it's like people who came from desert that now hoard water... I come from a job desert and I hoard job offers to maintain my mental sanity :D
This is really just one of the many jobs in there. I knew noone, I have zero network. I sent a few resumes and I got that.
That's the way it works in London. That's not the way it works in France :(
> That being said, you could easily find a job above 60k in Paris with this background.
With the taxes and costs of living. I estimate 60k€ in Paris to be like £50k in London (possibly less).
If we go higher, the difference will becomes more dramatic. No point to have a good salary in France with all the taxes, it's just stealing everything.
> but saying that 2500€ a month is impossible in Paris is just wrong nowadays.
There is a hundred people every year, who are in Paris, from the top schools in Paris, who may approach that. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'd say it's very limited and Paris sucks for the rest of the world.
> Of course it's probably not much compared to what you earn in the trading business
Way more or way less than what you think. It could go either way. But I'm still young and whatever I do now is just a step on the infinite ladder of the universe :D
> I don't know how the market was several years ago, but I think you really underestimate the shortage of developers in Paris at the moment.
0) A shortage that only applies to dudes from centrale and normale. Too bad for me.
1) There is no shortage in France. There is no money and there is no good company.
2) What are the odds of a good position in Paris without knowing the right people? High risk, low reward.
4) Even if France paid on-par. The tax would hurt so bad that it would still suck. Better make money elsewhere that doesn't steal it right away.
5) There is no such thing as a "shortage", the only thing is an "over abundance of companies who pays shit". Obviously, the international markets has increased my standards :D
6) In SV/NY/London. There is a small [but very real] market for the top talent, the few guys who knows what they are doing and what they're worth and are ambitious enough to pursue it. There are real options for the top 1%, in Paris there aren't.
Conclusion:
Your linkedin profile says that you're looking for a job, in France or abroad. You just surrendered. Even you, you do NOT believe in your country :p
This ignores the much lower price of consumables in the US as well.
As much as I usually love to hate on the French system, it's hard to describe to someone who never experienced it the feeling of security that comes with the knowledge that every treatment decision for you is made by your doctor on the basis of best medical outcome, period.
Never before I moved to the UK and discovered private insurance through work had I even heard about "preexisting conditions", "lifetime limits", and the whole idea of having to talk to some guy in a call center about your ailments to get pre-approval, which you might or might not get based on whether this will affect their finance guy's Q4 targets.
Oh and "inefficient health care system"... absolutely, if by that you meant the US system : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-29/u-s-healt...
Americas healthcare is not truly private either - there's a lot of state intervention in it. They manage to get the worst of both worlds due to the inefficiency of the federal government.
Working as a software engineer in Paris, and having most of my friends doing the same, I think your were juste living in a bubble.
Furthemore, french people don't go to university to study engineering, they go to engineering schools, which are dedicated structures. Some are public, generalist, and really famous (École Polytechnique where Fabrice Bellard comes from, École Centrale where VLC was created, École des Mines) but there are also a lot of smaller private and specialized school (Epitech, Efrei, Epita or “42” for computer sciences for instance).
In France, people mostly go to university to study law, medicine, social sciences or humanities.
The french have had dedicated engineering schools for a while, which are good, and most are very cheap (state sponsored).
There are many universities and they cover all topics (also state sponsored). Including law, finance, engineering, medicine, psychology, social sciences...
Some stuff (law/medicine) can only be done through a university (they're the only one to get the state-certificate to exercise the job). When it comes to engineering, universities offer it but the degrees are considered "shit-tier".
Note: They are not that bad per-se. They just get no considerations for old cultural reasons.
I got a lot of interesting offers in Berlin, for what it's worth. And I expect that Berlin is a lot more agreeable to live in.
You will have huge trouble because you don't speak French.
You will have huge trouble for all administrative stuff. Like, it's hell to rent a flat even if you could pay 12 months in advance, because there isn't any AND the agencies will reject you because you don't have a history in France nor French parents with income to "vouch" for you.
Most importantly. There are no good jobs. The startup ecosystem is a joke and there is no Google/Facebook/Apple/Uber/AirBnb to work for.
And finally, the quality of living is mediocre, at best.
2. that's absolutely right, but working in Germany without speaking German wasn't really a good experience of mine either.
3. that's cute. Administrations are horrible everywhere, and it's even worst if it's not your country because you don't know what “everybody knows”.
4. Google is in Paris, but if you're looking for a good job, you probably don't want to work for Google anyways. (At least I don't, since I've had several bad feedbacks from both French or American offices)
5. this is highly subjective, I won't argue over this one.
For app guys, just google Appsterdam if you want to know more...
2. Just meant to better consider staying or going to a country one speaks the language. No European countries speak or learn french, too badd ^^
3. There are variable levels of challenge. Some of which can be now circumvented with airbnb :D
4. Google ain't -really- in Paris. The first thing that comes up in the interview for frenchies is "that position only exists in Zurich or Dublin or London, do you have a preference?".
Don't be mean, Belgium and Switzerland are crying right now !
I relocated from Paris to SF as a senior dev, and I am going back after 1 year. Yes I was making like 3x more in salary, but then housing in SF cost at least 2x more than in Paris, commute is just as bad, healthcare is a mess etc. And taxes are not that low :) - lower than in France, but you do not get much back, ie no healthcare, no retirement, not very good infrastructures etc. For me overall financially it is more interesting to go back.
Regarding jobs, I never had any problems to find interesting jobs in Paris, but I am working in embedded/low-level/networking/telcos systems, and I think Europe is skewed towards this kind of stuff whereas SV is skewed towards web/mobile.
To be honest I think it really depends of your lifestyle and priorities. I really enjoyed my year in SF, it is a beautiful city with great peoples, but I'll be happy to get back to Paris.
Honestly, my best advice for youngsters would be to leave the country for a few years. That's just the best option on the long term. They can come back to France, if they ever want to, and their experience will [hopefully] allow them to get interviews in the very few decent Parisian places.
I'm in distributed large scale systems. Not much of those in Paris I'm afraid ^^
Cost of living is pretty high (still less than London but the gap narrowed in the past few years). Count €1000+ if you want to live in a comfy flat in the inner city, which you do if you want to have reasonable commute duration, and enjoy the nightlife/culture.
I've been living in Paris for 3 years now, and before I lived almost a year in Boston, 6 month in Berlin and several month in London. Paris is really close to London on many topics (cost of living, commute time, nightlife, cultural events) but the quality of life is way better (weather, food) and Paris as a city is really beautiful. Berlin is really different from Paris, but really enjoyable also ! But eastern Germany's economy is still lagging far behind overall Germany and Berlin's job market is quite poor.
The biggest problem I have with Paris is the real estate, renting a flat is expensive but not extreme, but as soon as you want to buy something, it becomes crazy.
*salaries are usually counted before taxes. With a €40k salary, you'll earn around €28k after all taxes.
To me the real problem with housing in Paris is, landlords request to see 2 years of tax sheet. When coming back from Australia, I just decided it would be too hard for me to find housing in Paris, and created my startup in Lyon.
Landlords are insane in Paris ! I had a friend who made 48k in his first job, he came from Grenoble and his parents weren't rich enough to "vouch" for him, so he spent almost a month before finding a flat, because landlords rejected him all the time, despite his salary.
With a diploma from a good engineering school and a previous work experience (internship and/or apprenticeship) the companies I talked about in [1] will pay you above 40k when coming out of school. With the two financial companies in the beginning being above 45k.
The main problem I see with developer employment in Paris, is the weight of the diploma in the remuneration. People with a university degree being offered around 30k most of the time.
E.g. for Polytechnique : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%C3%89cole_Polytechniq...
While Paris is the economic center of France, it is not where the money is. That would be London, NYC or Shanghai. Maybe Brexit will drive finance back to France, but France started driving them away with the early 80s nationalizations of Mitterand.
I think Station F could present a great, regional hub for EMEA. France and other European countries turn out amazingly talented technologists. But those same countries don't always provide an environment for them and their businesses to thrive. That is partially due to how people invest in Europe, partially due to how governments regulate, and finally to a discomfort with marketing in France itself.
There are holes in the European funding ladder moving from pre-seed to IPO that drive European entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley. Those holes are due to a lack of investors who are willing and able to identify opportunities at every stage and take a risk. Most European money is old, and it prefers real estate. If that money allots a percentage for VC, a lot of it will end up with Silicon Valley firms, because the top ones have unrivaled track records and the money does require a plane ticket to travel. And the SV VCs see all the best European entrepreneurs come through to pitch anyway.
The second problem is regulation, and something close to that which I don't quite have a word for. The best analogy would be to compare the Napoleonic code, which attempts to legislate for all contingencies from the beginning, with common-law systems, in which a body of precedent rulings and thought develop in response to the world. My impression of France is that it creates analytically rigorous and often misguided policies, and seeks to apply them to quickly evolving situations. I believe that thinking also infects many decision-makers who affect tech, who aren't responding and creating as quickly as they might in another cultural context.
Finally, tech needs hustlers and hype. New things must be sold. France has a history of inventing amazing technology before other countries, and not marketing it well (Minitel).
With luck, Niel's Station F will address and mitigate those risks.
I've turned down jobs in the past because they were in open offices, and I might still do so today. I basically agree with you that it's a bad idea to work full-time in an open office. But, for a three days a week kinda work place, just for a change of pace and an excuse to take a walk out of my house, it's been really nice. I plan to start checking for co-working spaces when I first get to a new city. It gives me some much-needed variety in my work day, gets me communicating with other people in tech in the city I'm in, and provides some other benefits (some of those benefits: there are distractions but they're different than at home and at coffee shops, the internet is faster than my home internet or most coffee shop WiFi though this may not be true for everyone, quieter than coffee shops, not home so I can fixate on work and not whether dishes or laundry needs doing, etc.).
I'd like to visit Paris one of these days, maybe once my French is stronger. I could see signing up for this for a while.
That said, I also spent some time at the ATX Hackerspace which did have a bunch of startuppy types, and it was mostly free of bullshit, too, because so much of the focus there was on the hacking and not the "I just need to raise $x million and this thing's gonna explode!" mindset. So, conversation in that space were about laser CNCs, 3D printing, and electric cars, rather than everybody trying to give their (too-long) elevator pitch to as many people as possible.
just go to paris now. unless you are absolutely fluent, parisians will just respond in english.
I have a private office now and, amazingly, it costs no more. But the irony is that I only found out about it through someone I'd met in the previous open office.
I dream of being able to start a company by completing a form and sending a copy of my French ID. And all the rest (accountants/HR/law) would be handled by online third party services smoothly. Same should go for banking services associated with the company.
I think France has great potential but it needs simplification of processes. I'm not expecting the government to do it, hence my desparate call to other French entrepreneurs.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot entrepreneurs can do, it's up to the authorities to be brave and reform the infamous "Greffe du Tribunal de Commerce". Simply changing your registered address required, last I checked : filling out a 10 page or so form, amended company formation documents, mandatory publishing of an expensive ad informing of the change in one of the government-sanctioned newspapers, and writing out a cheque (!) for 47.52€ or something.
This is insane. Emmanuel Macron, as an economy minister tried to dismantle this whole craziness but faced strong lobbying. Here's hoping he's more successful as a presidential candidate.
Besides that Emmanuel Macron absolutely made things worse for companies, it's the Politics Detox week on HN, so please refrain from talking politics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404
Rather than build a startup to raise funding, they might build a startup to sell products.
I agree that the incentive system for startups right now is broken, as so many are simply aiming for an IPO before they're exposed as jokes but there's an inherent advantage to being in SF for any type of fledgling tech business.
This maybe the wrong way to think about it. Outside of hard-tech I see very few companies that are benefitted by building in a void.
Though your larger point still stands, once you have product market fit, the funding regime in SF gives an unfair advantage to companies that know how to use it for their particular domains.
Also the investment tissue has considerably developped, the funding stages become a pain mostly at series C.
Honestly, I would be surprised if there is no VC development.
I don't think it's fair to say "there are" when "there IS" only a single company that pays this kind of money in Paris.
Basically all the companies I know someone in pays this kind of salary to people with 3 to 5 years of experience ! Are we really living in the same city ?
I was referring to the "twice as much" in "around 50-60 [...] but there are tech companies that pay up to twice as much "
Are you saying that these companies pay 50-60k€ or 100-120k€ for people with 3-5 years experience?
It is not what the dev receives(which would be 50-75k€).
While the number on the paper looks much lower, in reality your standard of living isn't much different.
The employee will see something less than 3k arrive every month, while it costs the company 150k per year.
This explains why you may not get the best and the brightests. (with these 30k per year you can fund you education, healthcare and unemployment)
Also, the cost of living in Paris may be less than NYC, SF, DC, but I think that's about it.
Also, every job I've ever had provided me with free health insurance. Not sure what the big deal with that is.
1) You get your [not really] free education in France not in Paris because it's crazy expensive [unless you live there with your family who own something].
2) Get your master [you can only do master level here and everything else is highly underated].
3) You try to leave to America and you can't because H1B are crazy impossible to get.
4) You move to London.
5) You realize your master is useless there and you could have got all the same with only a bachelor, save the money and a few years of your life.
6) You go back to France once a year for the engineer school job fairs to recruit interns and help Frenchies leave their country.
They could just as well be at home, saving that money and putting it in the startup instead?
But they grew tired of working in their apartment and started to rent a place as soon as they had sufficient funds (after 2 years).
Their problems were:
* Lack of separation between worklife and the rest.
* Living and working with the same persons. They are really good friends but it was still hard apparently.
* Having to dedicate a big part of your apartment to the work (desks but also hardware, documents, etc.).
It's what I did in the end.
It was a critic against the website missing an important piece of information. And also a bit of a complaint since I spent five min looking for the address on the site before resigning myself to Google it, thinking that such piece of information could not have been omitted.
I agree "campus" is a good easy-to-understand term. It's comprehensive for all. Maybe, the term "incubator" could be deprecated in the near future.
Someone else mentioned [1] Nantes' La Cantine. That looks more usable; it's a big collection of little shops under one big roof. Looks like a repurposed mall. Repurposing an unused mall for this sort of thing might make sense. Rentable spaces of different sizes, good HVAC, power, and sprinklers, plenty of parking, not much heavy construction required.
[1] http://jonathanwinandy.tumblr.com/post/3198051103/ouverture-...
[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/la-defense-office-district-rebou...
(Alternate link to picture only: https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-PK039_LADEFE_J...)
I've stayed there... it's not so bad, and not far from the center of Paris either.
Weren't a bunch of high profile French actually leaving France because of HUGE taxes in france?
Any French here can answer this question?: for a start up making 5000 euros a month - how much would you pay in taxes?
But as a startup, you have so many ways of diminishing your taxes. You can deduce your investment into R&D when it is a least 20% of your costs, up to 80.000€/year, "young innovative enterprises" (JEI) get a 50% tax break for 7 years, the CIR is quite literally 30% of your R&D paid by the state, I can't even list them all because there are so many.
As a startup, you are most likely going to choose to pay impôts sur la société, which is taxed at 15% for the first 38.120€ of benefits, then 33.3%. In your example, 5000€/month adds up to 60000/year, so the first tax bracket takes 5.718€ out, and the second one 7.220€, for a total of 12.938€ in taxes per year. Once again, that is before any tax rebate, which can very easily get your down to maybe 6.000€/year[1]
The high profile french leaving were leaving for tax havens, so I'm not sure that's really a good example.
[1] http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/dgi/public/professionnels.i...
Im all for the idea, but 195euro/desks are not a solution IMO. If you want to create thriving business scene (in any country) - drop small business tax rates (and other liabilities) to 0-5% and lock them there for first 5 years. Then if business makes it successfully to the commercial stage in 5 years - increase taxes to the current "market rate".
Ka-ching! Then You really have a new start up mecca!
But corporate tax alone is not a good way to evaluate the opportunity of creating your company in France.
As a startup you are supposedly doing innovative stuff and R&D so you actually get tax credits[0]. Crédit Impôt Recherche &Crédit Impôt Innovation brings you up to 30% of your R&D investment.
As a startup in France you are eligible to the Jeune Entreprise Innovante status which basically means you pay nearly no social contributions on the salary of your R&D personnel (which is a huuuge amount: as a rule of thumb, total cost of 1 salesperson is roughly twice his/her net salary. Paying half of that for your engineers is...cool).
As a startup in France you also get grants from BPI (Banque Publique d'Investissement) and colateral for your private loans.
As a startup in some regions of France you can get local grants which can be a huge amount as well (and Paris is not one of them).
If you want to try to get into the French Tech Ecosystem, there is a program similar to Startup Chile, French Tech Ticket[1], but the grant is only 25k€
To give an anecdotal example, I raised south of 1M€ of private equity (which is obvious a very small amount by US or european standards), but I got almost as much public grants/tax credits/local help. My colleagues/competitors located in the Paris region got substantially less local help for the same amount of money raised and comparable market/R&D programs.
[0] http://cache.media.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/file/CI... [1] http://www.frenchtechticket.com/
[1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
which basically means you pay nearly no social contributions
I'd love to complain about taxes (and I do that all the time) but ultimately it didnt matter. I left the country because there is no job.
> with companies like Facebook and TechShop opening offices there
Is Facebook still a startup?