Can a company like Instagram be founded in Europe and successfully exit for $ 1 billion? What do you think ?
This is precisely the question Bartłomiej Gola asked at WebIT BG last week. Here are his answers.
Theory says yes
In theory Europe is well suited for successful companies:
- We have talented software engineers and hackers;
- Great ideas are available everywhere;
- Funding is available - both early stage seed funding as well as VCs.
Forget about it
The short answer though is "forget about it"! There are several major differences between Europe and Silicon Valley which could break your start-up easily.
1) Europe doesn't have a strong branding with respect to technology. We are not perceived as a strong tech community which produces great things. Not to mention individual countries like Bulgaria. This means foreign investors are less likely to invest in European companies because they haven't heard about other successful companies coming from the region.
We as a community should work together and popularize the region (especially South Eastern Europe). I've seen this already in action. German cloud provider cloudControl has branded their website as "Proudly Made In Berlin".
2) The lack of reputation leads to the second issue - less followers on social media. Think about it! How many people in the US or Silicon Valley do you follow on Twitter? How many follow you back? How many of those who do, actually engage with what you share?
With some exceptions like my friend Bozhidar Batsov your social reach is quite limited when it comes to hi-tech users.
3) Less reputation plus less social reach means less buzz and less early adopters. Silicon Valley is a great place to generate buzz and find early adopters. Because of the software industry and many start-ups located in the area people generally have more open mindset and will try out new ideas, share valuable feedback, engage in social media and spread the word.
Early adopters are crucial for every start-up. And we don't have this mindset in Europe. I have seen it myself. From 400 friends and co-workers whom I've contacted via LinkedIn, half or more of them in Europe, only a few, not even a dozen have tried Difio. And we are talking about service from developers about developers. Nada.
I've tried another experiment as well. This time about non IT business. From around 100 female friends on Facebook around 10 followed a Facebook page which I've invited them to. The page is online ladies shoes shop.
What to do about it?
I don't have a clear answer here. We need to work hard and make Europe and Bulgaria well known in the software industry and start-up community. I encourage everyone to try, fail, try, fail and try until they succeed. And brag about what you do all the time.
This also prompted me another question. "How do companies in the Bulgarian start-up eco-system find their early adopters?" I think I'm gonna start a new blog category dedicated to this topic.
Is your company the next Instagram? Please use the comments and tell me.
Comments !