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Comment by ant6n | Hacker News Reader

In France, apparently you can go on unemployment for 2, up to 3 years to start a startup. With up to 80% pay.

In Germany you can get 6 months of unemployment insurance when starting a startup out of unemployment. Or get 6 months paid when starting a startup out of Uni. Then you could get various public funding opportunities like a startup bonus (for example 50K public funding for 50K private investment in an innovative company in Berlin).

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> In France, apparently you can go on unemployment for 2, up to 3 years to start a startup. With up to 80% pay.

Then why does France have such a low rate of new business formation (5.3/1000 people) - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS?most_rec...

Or as another indicator, number of tech startups per Million is 234 for the US, while only 24 for France - https://www.startupranking.com/countries

3 things:

- the culture is not the same as the US. French people tend to be very financially risk-averse

- the VC eco-system in France exists but it is trash

- people who have the skills to create startups in France tend to do it outside of France because they will have access to better capital/labor markets (for example, DataDog and Docker both have french founders)

Also, how easy is it to fire people in France? If it’s difficult then startups will be much more reluctant to hire in the first place, and founders to embark on the whole startup adventure which necessarily implies a lot of hiring/firing.

Quite hard, but other countries with similar labor laws (like the Netherlands) manage to have decent startup ecosystems.

> the culture is not the same as the US. French people tend to be very financially risk-averse

Interesting, given the number of people who claim that better social benefits in the US would encourage more startups and other business formation.

There is no such claim. Id claim that a system that helps all of of society by providing health, employment, income, childcare, housing and transportation security isn’t necessarily completely toxic for a small number of Startup founders, as a system. Since it also may help founders to an extent. Its about individual risks that are possible.

The problem in Germany and France is the VC and business culture, but thats not primarily a result of income taxes.

> - people who have the skills to create startups in France tend to do it outside of France because they will have access to better capital/labor markets

There are a lot of French people here in the bay area.

From what they told me, it's actually easier to come to the bay area, navigate through the US immigration system and get funded than get funded at home. Not only that, some startups got funding from VC funds with LPs... from France!

Because tech talent is cheap for the amount of productivity in US with ability to fire at will.Ease of fooling and swindling people if you have the right connections. In Europe shit that gets you into jail is a just a small monetary fine in USA.

> In Europe shit that gets you into jail

How many people went to jail for Wirecard?

Because in France, in order to hire someone you need to have a shit ton of cash on hand... and then if they suck, you can't just fire them. It's too expensive to start a venture, so the folks that are willing to risk it leave in order to do so.

Amazingly I did that for 3.5 years at 70% pay, I think the law changed after that. It is the biggest "incubator" in the country.

Do you possibly have more specific information about france? I would love to know more

There are a few different things:

You can get a part of what you would receive as unemployment benefits as capital to invest when creating/taking over a company: https://entreprendre.service-public.fr/vosdroits/F15252

And you can also just continue receiving unemployment benefits while creating a company, as long as revenues are below a certain threshold: https://www.legalstart.fr/fiches-pratiques/autoentrepreneur/...

I was told they they just stopped this policy

Not to mention that in Germany many University students not only get free schooling, but also housing AND a monthly stipend. Essentially UBI for students!

*free=tax payer funded

Definitely not really true. Under 15% of students receive BAFÖG [1]. No idea where you got the idea that German students get free housing at many Universities as that couldn't be further from the truth considering that there are only enough rooms for around 10% of all students [2] and those are definietly not free, although pretty cheap. However many struggle to find an Apartment, especially in bigger Cities like Berlin or Munich.

[1] https://www.bafoeg-rechner.de/Hintergrund/art-2416-bafoeg-st... [2] https://www.iwd.de/artikel/wohnungsnot-der-studenten-verscha...

I said many, not all :). You're right, housing isn't free, but if you get student housing it's usually less than the monthly stipend thus free for the student.

not really. The average monthly stipend (that only 15% even get) is 579€, which is arguable not enough for rent in most bigger Cities (and that is ignoring that you also need to eat). The vast majority of students are either financed by their parents (the stipend is dependent on their income and if they earn more than a certain amount they a legally obligated to help their child) or by themselves. In Germany the university is mostly free (a couple hundred euros a semester), but most definitely don't live for "free".

IMHO it is the worse time to start a startup. You should do it while still in the uni so that you can get all kinds of help. Equally good seems some actual experience(?) People have been writing software and running businesses for a good while. Maybe they know something?

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