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Comment by aposch | Hacker News Reader

Hi, my name is Anita. I'm from Vienna too. I started wienett.com and raumdirekt.com some years ago. I can say it's not only "Angst" that prevents Austrians from being entrepreneurs but also it' s the political and social system. many friends of mine - employees - say they would never be so silly (!) to give up their social security they have being employed. yes it's true, we need role models and we need changes in our school system (learning business), in our insurance system (microbusinesses are treated like big companies) and in our mindsets. I'm on the schnitzelconf mailing list and hope to be in the second batch of early bird tickets ;-) and yes: I'd love to spend 250 euros to be able to meet new faces and people from abroad.

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Hi Anita, I'm from Vienna and self-employed since 2004! I don't think there are big disadvantages regarding social security for self-employed people. You get health insurance just the same as other people, and if your business really should fail there's very low unemployment and it's quite easy to get a job even in economically stressful times.

I think a bit part of Austrians having inhibitions about starting their own businesses is as you say, the mindset. And that's what Amy is attacking with the conference. And it will be good! :)

As much as I hate the school system here, I don't think it plays a big part in it, and is used as an excuse to not trying to take some risk (and there is almost no risk!) -- actually, I find it much riskier to NOT BEING YOUR OWN BOSS. Are those friends of yours willing to be someone else's pawn for all their lives? I'm betting they also often complain about how they don't really enjoy their work (at least lots of my employed friends do that). :)

And welcome to the SchnitzelConf club!

>I think a bit part of Austrians having inhibitions about starting their own businesses is as you say, the mindset.

I think its the rampant Marxism, frankly. So many brainwashed people in this society think that success = criminal behaviour, and that to be a successful capitalist means you have to be an utter thief. To be fair, the Austrian society has its statistics in this department, which go back to before the Austro-Hungarian empire, and I doubt some dubious American-style hype festival is going to change much about that.

I think the "successsful=criminal" belief is actually a cover up for fear of the unknown, a rationalization. The correct fix is not ranting but exposure to wonderful, kind, thoughtful, passionate successful people.

Thus, again, my conference.

"Culture through Osmosis" isn't really a popular model around these parts .. you're going to have to burn, baby, burn ..

Hi Anita! Nice to meet you! I really hope you'll come to Schnitzelconf, your projects look awesome! Either way, we should at least meet for coffee sometime.

For the record, your friends are extra silly. You know that self-employed people (selbständig) in Austria have social health insurance, pension, and even unemployment coverage?

My husband is selbständig and he even has a part-time employee, all without creating a GMBH. (Don't get me started on how GMBHs are superior to the American LLC!)

    My husband is selbständig and he even has a part-time 
    employee, all without creating a GMBH. (Don't get me 
    started on how GMBHs are superior to the American LLC!)

This might be getting off-topic, but I would personally be interested to hear the aforementioned opinion about GmBHs.

Buy me a coffee sometime and I'll be glad to tell you. :) I live in the 6th and work in the 14th (for now).

You're on, email sent.

Instead of 'doing coffee' with all these guys, why don't you come to Metalab on Friday night and hold a few lightning talks?

http://metalab.at/

Why not? Simple reason… I get the feeling that many of the people at Metalab that I have met are aggressive anti-making-money at worst and disinterested in being told that Austria is actually a fantastic place to start a business. I think a lot of people complain because it gives them an excuse.

I don't think my talk would be welcome, or I would be given the cold shoulder, so I don't put myself through it.

Well, you're wrong. There are tons of people in the Metalab scene who are into making money, and who want to get their startups rolling .. otherwise why else would there be so many startup meetings there in the first place?

>I don't think my talk would be welcome, or I would be given the cold shoulder, so I don't put myself through it.

Weird. Preach to the converted, much?

I'm wrong? I've got into this conversation - about how the business climate here is actually excellent - at MetaLab, with MetaLab members, after viennajs more than once, and they sure didn't want to hear it.

And as for preaching to the choir, no. If I were only interested in preaching to the choir, why would I bother to create a fairly controversial conference?

After all, the "accepted" startup model is building, growing huge, and hoping for an acquisition, rather than charging.

But preaching to people who really don't want to hear it - that's another story, and a total waste of time.

No, you're wrong about Metalab - there are plenty of people in the Metalab scene who would respond to your ideas if you were to make the effort to present them .. metalab is a hotbed of new-startup activity and some of the hackers there are really trying to make money, rather than just get it from their parents, as so many "smart kids in Vienna" do these days ..

What you might be interpreting as disinterest in the subject of startups is more like to be a disinterest in the means by which you are preaching to the converted .. sure you're not just getting a negative personal response and broadly generalizing it to avoid discomfort?

I didn't say they were disinterested in startups, I said they were disinterested in talking about charging money for products and how the business climate in Austria is actually superior to that in the US.

Not everyone - but enough that I wouldn't bother trying to force my unwelcome ideas on people by giving a talk.

And yes, I'm positive it's not "a negative personal response." The people I have connected with clearly enjoy my company.

Regardless of MetaLab, I'm still interested in buying you that coffee if the offer still stands :)

Too bad.

Some people I've met (like Paul Böhm, which IIRC is the founder of MetaLab) seem very much pro-startup, but it could be that my experience is not representative of the norm, as I am hardly a regular member.

In fact Paul may be one of the reasons why "startups", as a subject, is such a tender one in the Metalab scene. You can talk about "startups" for years without actually starting one.

It seems that there is a particular brand of arrogance required of anyone trying to get something new done in the world of The Mob Mind, and that Mob Mind may well already be on its way to agitation in the Metalab scene, with regards to startups .. However, that arrogance persists in the Metalab scene, in the form of others, in the wings, preparing their new ideas for delivery.

I'm probably not up-to-date enough on the local MetaLab gossip, because I don't really know what you are talking about.

Paul is no longer in Austria - he moved to the States, following that grand hacker dream of success in Silicon Valley .. but as far as I know, he was Mr. Startup, indeed..

I don't even talk about startups. I talk about making products and charging for them.

The problem is, you don't simply "have" health and pensions insurance, you are forced to pay somewhere around 250 euros per month for that insurance, regardless of your income. During the first 3 years of your first startup it is less than that. Unemployment insurance (which is a ridiculous idea for the self-employed anyway) is voluntary and costs extra.

In the UK, the minimum contribution is around 20 euros per month. It gives you health coverage (no dental) and you are not forced to pay into the pensions system. In my view, the UK system is hugely more attractive for startups. Ireland is similar I believe.

Maybe. But if you can't make €250 per month, you're doing it wrong, or not aiming high enough -- but you can learn how to do it right.

To be "successful" for a one-man/woman show I'd argue that you need to earn at least €5k a month, after recurring costs for your business, but without taxes/insurance etc.

It's really not that hard to reach that level with the right idea, the right presumptions, lots of work and none of the excuses.

EDIT: Actually, when I first started being "selbstständig" back in 2004 and got a tax consultant, she asked me "how much do you plan to earn per month?", and I said "5000 euros"-- she thought it was a joke. Mindset problem.

No, I think it's the other way around. If you can make 250 per month plus regular living expenses from the get go you're probably not aiming high enough. Why would anyone need financing from ycombinator if they could just be profitable? How long did it take Facebook to be profitable? Or Google?

The burn rate is very important initially. It can make or break a startup.

3 (or possibly 4 - I didn't ask) of the speakers I invited started companies, with zero funding or with a bit of F&F, that have revenues from nearly-$2 mil/yr to more than $2 mil/yr.

Maybe you should write them to tell them that it's not possible without $5,000 of funding for a summer.

On the balance, if you can't manage to figure out ways to save $5k for a summer yourself, you should seriously question whether you have the ability to run a business.

If you can't figure out how to pay for 250 euros a month - which you could earn each week as a dishwasher in Vienna, so it's not as if it's some vast sum - then you are similarly ill-equipped.

If you can't bear to give up one week of your time in order to spend the other 3 weeks on your huge future business, ditto.

By the way: I wrote an ebook to self-fund our work on Freckle and it earned us over $40k. It was sooooooo haaaaaaard. But even then, it was cream - not necessary. We could have kept working on it after hours for free, as we had been doing. It would have taken a bit longer, but so what?

I'm not saying that paying 250 euros into a social security system each month makes it impossible to start a startup. I am the last person to discourage anyone from starting a startup. I've never been employed in my entire life.

What I'm saying is that paying 20 is more attractive than paying 250. And indeed, I cannot bear to give up 25% of my time just because some socialist government has decided to force me to save for retirement. I do not intend to retire. Ever.

So you're a dishwasher then? It would take you 25% of your time to earn 250 euros?

If you don't want to support the socialist government, you should really move to the US.

Your argument has swung from "can't pay the costs" to "hate socialism," while also loving that you can only pay 20 euros a month for basic healthcare.

Which is it? Do you want a very socialist govt to pay 20 euros to? Or do you want none? Do you want health insurance? Or do you want none? Do you want funding so you can live off somebody else's investment in your business, or do you want to not have to pay anything?

In case you really don't understand what I'm saying and your questions are not just rhetorical point scoring I'm going to try to make it clear once again:

a) I think low cost of living is important in the initial stages of a startup. The lower the better. Spending time on anything other than the startup is bad. Dishwasher or other salaries in Vienna are not particularly relevant to understand this principle. Therefore, the UK and Ireland are better places to start a startup than continental Europe.

b) If a significant part of the cost of starting a business comes from mandatory contributions to something I don't want and will never consume (i.e pensions), I get annoyed. You may not know that half of those 250 euros go into pensions and not health care. I want the health care part but I don't want to be forced into a pensions scheme. All contributions should be a share of the income people generate, not a set minimum fee. I have no idea whether that is socialist or not.

c) I'm not as anti-socialist as you might think. My opinion is that society needs to catch people who fall, for practical reasons as well as human dignity. Some things like health care, basic shelter and access to information need to be available to everyone. I don't believe that abject poverty makes people more entrepreneural. The biographies of successful people just don't support that claim. I am willing to pay a share of my income to cover the cost of helping those who cannot help themselves. Unfortunately, in Europe, the people who are best protected by this odd form of socialism are not the ones who have fallen but rather those close to government and traditional trade unions. They don't just cause unnecessary cost, they also create very inflexible rules that discourage self-employment and make it very expensive to hire people.

Having said that, I totally agree with you that none of that should deter anyone from starting a business wherever they may be.

I remember being quite surprised in the UK when I heard from a friend whose tooth broke off that he would have to wait several days for an appointment. Also long wait times with broken limbs, I seem to remember (forgot the details). That was 13 years ago, but still, there might be disadvantages to the UK system.

Oh sure, there are tons of problems, but the Labour government has pumped massive amounts of money into the NHS (the national health service) after they came to power in 1997. The budget was growing at an anual rate of 7 or 8 percent up until recently. 13 years ago the UK spent much less on health care than the average European country. Now it's about equal.

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