What Europe can learn from Silicon Valley
Some Thoughts on what the European Startup Ecosystem can learn from Silicon Valley’s Culture
A lot of people wonder where or what the next Silicon Valley can be.
By now even BBC has a series called “The Next Silicon Valleys” featuring other tech hubs like Seattle, Berlin and Tel Aviv.
On top of that existing ecosystems are rebranded in reference to the
Valley like Silicon Roundabout (London), Silicon Beach (Los Angeles) or Silicon Alley (New York).
I’m not sure this is the right way to go. But Jason Calacanis, Brad Feld & Mark Suster have already expressed their concerns on branding ecosystems Silicon Something so I don’t have to.
I feel an insane amount of effort is put into re-creating Silicon Valley.
Yet I also feel a lot of that effort is wasted on copying superfluous stuff or even misconceptions that people have of the Valley.
Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur.
L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
— The Fox in The Little Prince
That’s why I wanted to share the two ingredients that make the ecosystem in San Francisco & Bay Area special to me.
Vision
People here are thinking bigger. People here are encouraging each other to think bigger. This is a huge deal. Instead of stomping on ideas and spending brain cycles on reasons why they won’t work people here help you to take what you have and extrapolate possibilities with you.
Also when you talk to people at companies like Square, Stripe, Twitter, Uber, Facebook, Google or to people at startups that are still in their early days you’ll notice they don’t just explain what they are doing they explain why they are doing it. People are driven, determined and incredibly passionate about the bigger vision they are executing on.
A lot of the fascinating businesses here are built around purpose, meaningful use cases as well as great leadership.
Paying it forward
Unlike any other place I’ve seen it feels like San Francisco & Bay Area has this incredibly strong culture of paying it forward.
Everyone feels obliged to help you. Even if you are a complete stranger. People will take their time to share lessons learned, make introductions and meet you where you are right now to help you make your next step.
People want to see you succeed. Everyone who is a bit more experienced than you knows the hardship and enjoys to help others out.
This is a completely different game dynamic and in stark contrast to ecosystems where people believe that in order for one person or company to gain something the other player has to lose.
So what can we do in Europe? I think both vision and the concept of paying it forward are the main ingredients that make the Silicon Valley and we can import those traits to Europe.
I think the most efficient ways to do this are to either get people from Europe to the Valley or to get people from the Valley to Europe.
As simple as that.
Here are three programs where I know first-hand that deliver on this.
Seedcamp, a leading European micro-seed fund is doing an amazing job in transferring expertise, and mindset from Silicon Valley and other US hubs to Europe. They also have an incredible worldwide network, especially in San Francisco and Bay Area.
Check their Tumblr from the recent US Trip.
Apply to Seedcamp.
FounderTalks, a close-knit event series with founders from YCombinator and 500 Startups companies who share their lessons learned. It is one of the most hands-on & no-bs events around entrepreneurship I’ve ever attended thanks to its wonderful host Audrey Kim (prvsly YCombinator).
If you are somewhere in Europe or close enough don’t forget to apply.
Apply to FounderTalks (Vienna on May 29th).
Leancamp, the unconference where user experience, engineering and marketing expertise merge into unicorn rays. Super hands on. Product focussed. Every leancamp is a temporary bubble of people helping each other to get better at building products people want.
