EU Startup Monitor
Among European founders it's quite common to hear a lot of frustration and confusion regarding the demands made by European business angels and investors. One adagio, quite common amongst the European founder community, is that "American investors invest and European investors say they're investors." Indeed, the lack of public guarantees, of a duly integrated capital market, of a perennial high risk aversion culture, and of the lack of legal efficiency and certainty, make private investors not focus on the opportunities posed by EU founders. The power law explained by Sebastian Mallaby is, in Europe, anathema, as much as the "move fast and break things" motto.
I have created this EU Startup Monitor beresol.eu/startups/ that tells us to which extent the gap between the EU and the US keeps growing, relentlessly. I still remember meeting a European "business angel" who told me he'd be interested in investing 10k EUR (yes, ten-thousand euros) in a project I've developed for 1% of the equity of that project, with voting rights and a return of 0.5%. I nicely answered "No, thanks, that is money I can myself bootstrap, and that's not being a business angel." I pity those who let him meddle in their projects. Sadly, he was not rare, but quite common in Europe.
Have you also encountered these types? I'm reading!
(This is my very first post in Lounge, congratulations to @Ryan and his team for this venture!)
