I recently come across quite a few young entrepreneurs, some of which talented, who expressed their desire to cross the ocean to set up their venture. While I understand that Europe and Italy in particular have some limitations in their ecosystem which is a legitimate source of concern for entrepreneurs, this decision is in my view only rarely justified and more a result of an non critical “fascination” with the “valley mythology” which could prove very costly and decrease rather than increase the chances to succeed.
Particularly disappointing in my view is that such recommendations often come from people and managers who transfer their own frustration to the entrepreneurs they are supposed to help.
Entrepreneur should realise that probably 80-90% of the Valley’s mythology is what Americans can qualify as “bull...t”. Companies founded in “garages”, meetings with VCs which translates into checks in a matter of hours, immediate access to the elite of tech guru’s, zillions of VCs ready to fund at hundreds of millions USD pre-money valuations ideas of young kids with no business models. Those kind of stories (which might be emphasized transpositions of what happened once or twice in a decade) are indeed powerful catalysts for anybody (myself included 13 years ago when I started in this business). Reality is however very different and for one succeeding there are hundreds who tried.
That said, don’t misunderstand me: I recommend startups in certain sectors to go to the valley once or twice per year. Brainstorming with other tons of CEOs who are in your same shoes and networking with VCs all at 2 hours driving, tech events of every kind, etc. is certainly helpful to source new ideas, improve your business development strategies and keep up with the times.. going there with clear ideas on what to do and whom to meet is certainly recommended and is a way to take advantage of the pluses of the valley avoiding risks and traps of a full move there.
There are quite few negatives too which are often downplayed:
- Tech talent is the most expensive and best developers are constantly sought after by other companies and their loyalty minimal.
- Talent in general very hard to attract unless you have the very best VCs and the most promising outlook
- Smart ideas with no IP protection are easily copied as they become “visible”
- Local market is small and not very representative of the “world outside”
- Generally speaking, starting a company where you don’t have network is much more challenging…source your first customer, attract developers, get first and easy money from friends&family, find you mentors, etc. can be 10x harder and time consuming than if you where in your home country
In conclusion while it remains true that to conquer the world in SOME and ONLY some sectors (e.g. enterprise software) being there at some point is a must do, it can be a very serious mistake for many others, particularly in a very early phase when success doesn’t depend on sitting 10 yards away from Google’s founders in Starbucks.
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