Product Hunt

Maker

📌

Hey folks Andreas here, i was founding team of Product Hunt and its first CTO. We are doing something special today - we launched a pan-european petition that aims to fix Europe for startups. www.eu-inc.org The very first step in fixing Europe for startups is to get rid of the national silos we all face in our ecosystem. Ever wondered why it's so hard to raise money in your country in Europe? Because angels from neighboring countries would barely invest in your country - usually due to not wanting to deal with your local legal+tax systems. The outcome is that in Europe less than 18% of all early investments is pan-european, where-as in the USA coast-to-coast investing is super common. But we can fix this. How? By creating a shared legal entity as a standard across Europe. Think US Delaware Inc + YC SAFE notes but for Europe - it's obviously more complex in practice but it's doable (see https://www.eu-inc.org/faq ) And even more rare - there is very strong political will to make this happen. What we as the startup industry need to do is to show that this is a #1 priority. We got 6 weeks until the work agenda of for the next Commission (think years of work) is defined. We need to make our voice heard and quite literally get everyone of the European Startup Ecosystem to sign this. You, me, everyone in your team, your investor, everyone in your portfolio's teams, the founders in your whatsapp, slack and discord groups. Everyone. If we speak up together. We can create a pivotal improvement for startups - quite like the biggest improvement for European Startups in our generation. Among the first co-signatories are people like Patrick (Stripe), Taavet (Wise), Index Ventures, Sequoia, Atomico, and hundreds more - and we just started yesterday! We have 6 weeks to make this happen! This petition is for anyone who wants to make Europe more startup-friendly - hopefully you included! Please go to www.eu-inc.org and sign now!

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8mo ago

Amit

Clearbit

@andreasklinger inspiring stuff!

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8mo ago

Mariam Hakobyan

Softr

@andreasklinger 100% with you! Building a successful business is already hard, legal and tax should be a default setting.

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8mo ago

Glenn McWhinney

This had me at "hello"! I'm a British citizen and to be clear, that means I live in Europe but not in a country which is a member of the EU (since Brexit). That distinction needs to be made.👍 I started a new business with my partners recently and as a team, we didn't want to incorporate in England as we wanted to be part of a bigger ecosystem so we used Stripe Atlas and set ourselves up in Delaware, USA. The process was so simple even though none of us are US citizens. I'm imagining a European equivalent where business owners and investors alike can come together without barriers? If this is what EU Inc. will be like, even if it's close to what we experienced with Atlas, this could be the start of a brand new era for commerce in Europe as people flock towards it. Petition signed, spreading the word, totally onboard.

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8mo ago

Steven Renwick

Tilores

@theflowagency to be fair, the UK was more or less the European Delaware until it did Brexit. Loads of German startups started as UK Ltds., as it is so simple to start and to invest in.

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8mo ago

Andreas Klinger

Product Hunt

Maker

@theflowagency @major_grooves as someone who had a UK LTD - 100% yes - brexit killed this option unfortunately

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8mo ago

Glenn McWhinney

@major_grooves @andreasklinger ...and yet if you asked me whether I'd prefer us to be a US Inc. or an EU Inc. (if it had to be one or the other) I'd prefer to keep it local and be part of European growth as this is my home turf! Bring it on💪

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8mo ago