LET'S FIX EUROPE FOR STARTUPS – AMA with Andreas Klinger & EU-Inc
Hi, I'm Andreas Klinger, investor at Prototype Capital and former CTO of Product Hunt.
LET'S FIX EUROPE FOR STARTUPS
We (the @euinc_petition crew) is on Monday again in Brussels. We want your input beforehand.
What questions about EU-Inc do you have?
What ideas have you got to improve Europe for Startups?
What feedback or suggestions do you have?
Want to know how you can help?
Europe won't fix itself and it's only impossible until someone simply does it. So, let's do stuff.
What is EU-Inc:
A new pan-European legal entity for startups.
By addressing regulatory fragmentation, EU-Inc seeks to radically simplify founding and pan-European funding of European startup as well as and standardize employee equity options—empowering European startups to scale across Europe and globally. With over 15,000 signatures from the biggest European founders, VCs, and policymakers, this initiative is shaping the future of innovation in Europe.
Replies
From twitter/X: @J0aquIm_B4rb0s4 https://x.com/J0aquIm_B4rb0s4/status/1890061101439848824
Product Hunt
@J0aquIm_B4rb0s4 @euinc_petition agree - but this is super hard to do
Mainly: What is a startup? Until when? What happens when a company is no longer a startup?
Member states don't want to give up power. And they don't want their biggest companies to pretend to be "5 startups in a trench-coat" – so all the answers above have to be super "niche"
Our current approach is to say:
1) Basic infrastructure (eg entity, registry, etc) as lean as possible without any restrictions for whom it is – but in return also keep taxes&employment locally
2) Do additionally needed grants/programs/sandboxes/etc separately as programs companies have to qualify for (and phase out over time – but without needed incorporation)
from twitter/X: @edimc21 https://x.com/edimc21/status/1890071293665657312
Fixing Europe for startups," you say? Just a casual Monday in Brussels then. Anyone else got world peace on their to-do list for this week? Good luck with EU-Inc! 😉
Product Hunt
@nirvayaa it's only impossible until someone simply
does it ;)
what products can we build to advance EU INC? How should we go about proving to politicians this is safe, in their interests and requires very little work from their side?
Andsend
Wow, this is amazing! Thanks for passionately moving things forward and involving us in the process. I talked about this in a podcast just yesterday. I truly think key here will be to have a process and UX/UI that is super simple to set up, run and comply as an EU-Inc company.
I'd use Estonia's E-gov as a blueprint for how to build this, and not try to involve too many other novel technologies to begin with. Make it just work and the rest will follow.
I'm a Swede, and setting up a company here has also become fairly the past years. It can be done online, on your mobile, in just an hour or so. However, there is one step, involving the banks, that still causes too much friction in the machinery, but otherwise it might be a good example to look at too.
chatWise
Hi @andreasklinger ! That's indeed a great initiative. Being a tech entrepreneur in Europe myself, i think there are many things that need to be fixed, but let's stick to the ones that keep people from even starting their business.
Why integrating payments (i.e Stripe) to my startup product require to incorporate myself, with a minimum cost of usually from 300-1000 euros? What if I dont have that cash? What If I have a killer product, and I cannot go through that process? I think there should be regulatory framework, or maybe that's too fancy of a term, there should be a "cushion" for new startups, where a lot of these costs, should be covered by their local governments. In the end of the day we are starting with the aim to grow local and global economies, why not get any support to start?
Why so much bureaucracy in Europe? No matter the type of the legal entity to be set up, the process should be a click of a button, and not weeks or months of doing paperwork. Is there any plan to make the whole process for startups smoother?
If they don't resonate with crypto, Europe is fucked. Well, to be honest even if they do Europe is fucked (im European, dont get my tone wrongly, or flag biased <3) due to many macroeconomic events (i.e strong dollar, tariffs, centralization etc). What is their take? Is Mica still WIP? is it finalized? are banks gonna keep banning people from entering the blockchain world? What if Im a cryptocurrency-native startup, and i have zero intentions integrating fiat currency to my product/service, what then? Am I consider an outlaw? There should be a way there that keeps things regulated but not limited.
For me these are the most important things that occupy my head for now. Hope they are of use to you, so we can get some beneficial feedback :)
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Andsend
@andreasklinger I'm curious, what do you personally think will be the competitive advantages of European startups compared to Asian and North American, when all this is in place?
How common is remote bank account opening by using eID services under the eIDAS Regulatiion? There is an abundance of eID providers, but you still have to go to a bank branch to open an account in most cases (not talking about fintech companies, but about real banks).
And does the initiative involve change in this direction?
CI HUB
@andreasklinger It is a great initiative and we actually know each other from old Sektor5 days in Vienna.
The idea of standardizing working throughout European countries is a great opportunity to add strength to startups working in multiple jurisdictions is great for the employees.
Keep up the good work.