
Facebook to Open Startup Garage at Station F in Paris - programLyrique
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/17/facebook-to-open-startup-garage-at-station-f-in-paris/
======
muse900
I don't know why, it might just be me, am thinking of startups as a bad thing.
If I ever decide to build my own app or solution or something I wouldn't go
for a startup setup. I'd set it up as an actual business, make profit and
expand, I wouldn't wait for some investors coming in throwing money at me, I
don't get why people in tech cant see that. Just because people that built
uber etc became rich out of that doesn't mean that the percentage of the
startups that actually make it and their creators become comfortable enough is
more than lets say 5%. Chances are you'd win the lottery easier than starting
a startup.

So dear fb and google and whoever, build business garages where people go with
an idea and they've been given a cheaper way to expand their business on their
own and see if they can actually make it, rather than trying to find the best
ideas to invest for yourselves, that would help.

~~~
espadrine
When creating a business, there is this old choice between _bootstrapping_ and
_venture capitalists_.

The former forces you to squeeze every penny into gaining traction in the
market, as becoming profitable is hard, and your cash reserves limit your
ability to advertise.

The latter gives you the means to grow very fast and to gain experience from
people who have played the game countless times, but it encourages reaching an
exit (either by selling the company or through an IPO).

It sounds like you favor bootstrapping.

> _build business garages where people go with an idea and they 've been given
> a cheaper way to expand their business on their own and see if they can
> actually make it_

That was the idea behind Kima15 [0], which was co-created by Xavier Niel, who
is also behind Station F. It provided 150 K$ within 15 days in exchange for
15% of the company's shares at a post-money valuation of 1 M$.

[0]: [https://medium.com/kima-ventures/kima15-lessons-learnt-
and-w...](https://medium.com/kima-ventures/kima15-lessons-learnt-and-whats-
next-a1a456800233)

~~~
K0SM0S
I may be old (is 34 already old?) but to me a "startup" by definition is the
latter in your post, VC-style funding aimed at hyper-scaling. Hence the "up",
from the "start".

Otherwise it's just a regular small business (most countries and stats
institutes would have a specific name for these >10 employees companies, like
"very small" business or whatever).

There's confusion, imho, when we call any new company a startup just because
it's operating in the tech industry (you can totally be a startup in any
industry, so long as it has the potential to scale up dramatically). You can
be a regular small business even in tech, you can be a startup-er in food.
This is a 2x2 matrix.

Also, funding can take many forms, e.g. some startups being groomed by
corporations (I know HP did that sometimes, with former employees). You still
get the big money and obligations, and you already have one major future
client; but nowhere near the same level of nonsensical buzzing.

------
irmbrady
Nice timing for the French Tech Visa:

[http://visa.lafrenchtech.com](http://visa.lafrenchtech.com)

Discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13410510](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13410510)

~~~
mavdi
and Brexit

~~~
gourou
and the Presidential Campaign [https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/17/frances-
presidential-front...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/17/frances-presidential-
front-runner-francois-fillon-on-french-startups/)

~~~
mavdi
And Donald Trump too I guess...

------
pokemon-trainer
"startup garage"

 _looks at photos of spacious, high end, neomodern office architecture_

we've come a long way since hp

~~~
paganel
>
> [https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/photo-j...](https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/photo-
> jan-17-8-45-31-am.jpg)

Those containers look like worse than prison cells. A prison cell at least has
got an window.

~~~
BoorishBears
Of course the difference here is you can just leave your "prison cell" and go
home whenever you want.

~~~
wott
Not sure. They are startups after all.

------
tom_mellior
"And anyone will be able to rent some office space [at Station F] for
€195/desk/month in the huge 366,000ft² (34,000m²) building."

Interesting. The last time I looked at this a few months ago their web site
seemed to suggest that they were looking for startups to rent space, but not
individuals. Details are lacking, but a quick comparison with other coworking
spaces in Paris suggests that this is 100-200 EUR cheaper per month.

------
chinathrow
Looking at the pictures of Station F, all I see is noise. How will they tackle
the noise problem when having so many people working in one big hall?

------
matt4077
I just learned from some protest flyers that google is opening a similar
campus literally a stone's throw from my apartment (in Berlin, Germany).

It'll feel kinda strange. Like your parents coming to visit you at college.

~~~
lostboys67
Protest flyers what are they protesting about?

~~~
hocuspocus
Living in Berlin I'd guess that people are protesting about the
gentrification.

~~~
bogomipz
And this is part of what makes Berlin and specifically Kreuzberg charming and
unique. Google already has an office in Mitte where it is not out of place.

I really don't like the ideas of these giants co-opting start-up spaces. Once
companies have reached the FB and Google size they are kind of the antithesis
of start ups. This just feel like they are building "right of first refusal
acquisition" spaces.

I realize this sounds curmudgeonly but I feel like their money and influence
in these spaces encourages building acquisition targets rather than
encouraging people to build their own Google and Facebooks.

------
welanes
While considering a move to France, one of most interesting organisations I
stumbled across was The Family
([https://www.thefamily.co](https://www.thefamily.co)).

They exude a really good ethos - or have really good copywriters, at least -
and show self-awareness of some of the reservations that come up on HN when
somebody mentions Startup and France in the same sentence.

Their 'Toxicity' post damn well near seduced me (pesky Frenchies!) and is
worth a read:

> _France is full of incubators, there’s news coverage, there’s this startup
> out of Bulgaria that just raised 2 million, everybody’s a software engineer,
> hell, in some countries, everybody’s a CEO! But that’s the difference
> between hype, which is useless, and hope, which is useful..._

> _...If you rely on TechCrunch and Medium to give you hints on how to be an
> entrepreneur, you risk three things: the first is that you believe it’s all
> true. The job of any good entrepreneur is to sell a good story. Nobody sells
> you the horrible things going on with the company (at least not until after
> the company is well on its way to being dead). The second is that you miss
> critical information filters ...The third risk is that you start to think
> it’s easy...that growth is just a matter of deciding when it’s the right
> time._

> _Money and people are needed to make any project work, but they are
> replaceable: there’s always someone willing to write another check, and
> there’s always someone who you can find to take over a particular job. But
> you can’t get back time. A bunch of people sitting around, saying that
> they’re working, talking about new projects every two months, focusing on
> getting a grant rather than getting a sale, those are people in a toxic
> ecosystem who are just wasting time._

> _Learn to recognize fake work — anything that doesn’t bring you closer to
> more customers, that doesn’t bring you closer to a better product, that
> doesn’t put people in contact with your solutions. Applying for public
> money, going to conferences, taking meetings, this is fake work that doesn’t
> help you with your business model, doesn’t identify problems and solutions,
> doesn’t show you the actual goals that you have to achieve in order to have
> success. Real work does all of those things._

> _If you can make money, you’ll have time to figure out the right business
> model. You won’t have to rely on investors who don’t understand your goals.
> Finding bad investors can be worse than having none at all._

[https://www.thefamily.co/toxicity](https://www.thefamily.co/toxicity)

Anyone have any experience with these guys? Algolia and Crisp.im passed
through their doors, and they seem to be doing well.

~~~
bsaul
Just for info, they're not an incubator in the traditionnal sense. You can't
work at their (gorgeous) office. You can see it more like a "club", for doing
networking. You also have access to some ressources, but most of their
"startup spirit" talks you'll find are mostly translations of american books
or talks from valley people, not really first hand experience. They do provide
you with good trainings on fund raising, but you may want to ask for the
detail of everything you're going to bave access to before you agree to give
them 1 to 3% of your company.

Also, to my knowledge, the only successfull startup they have was "save",
which is a fantastic company lead by very nice people, but it unfortunately
filed for bankruptcy a few months ago, after having had a too intense growth.

At the moment, i'd say the biggest problem with every single incubator i know
is the lack of unicorns coming out of them. Most people giving advices haven't
created anything big themselves, and the few people who created really big
companies ( criteo and blablacar for the last 10 years) don't go in those
ecosystems to mentor newcomers.

------
julio83
Thank you X.Niel for 42 and station F.

------
cracker_jacks
Are startups also required to provide 5 weeks of paid vacation + public
holidays? Also, are there limits on the number of hours worked per week?

I'm all for workers benefits, but I don't see how a startup with limited
funding could afford those benefits to their employees.

~~~
SamReidHughes
I'd compare the costs of vacation, short work days, to the cost of a Bay Area
salary.

~~~
cracker_jacks
But the salaries for Bay Area startups are usually much lower than the
standard tech companies like FB and Google. Startups make up for the
difference by distributing equity (which could potentially be worth more in
the long run, but could also be worthless).

~~~
hocuspocus
Even assuming worthless equity, for the cost of one employee in SF you can
hire two in Paris.

Startups in France get several kinds of tax breaks. Also, many founders get
started while on unemployment benefits.

~~~
cracker_jacks
What are you thinking the salary of early stage startups are in the Bay Area?
I really doubt the ratio is 2:1 compared to Paris.

~~~
hocuspocus
Gross salary would be more like 3:1. Real cost to the employer at least 2:1.

I just opened AngelList to search for junior developer positions at seed-stage
startups and it confirms the ratio.

SF: 80-120k

Paris: 30-45k

------
hn_news
If start up becomes successful, Will Facebook own part of the equity in this
start up?

As a founder, why would i want to give up equity to Facebook? Why would i need
to be in this "garage"?

------
d_theorist
"Thirty students will meet with Facebook every week to make the world a better
place (or that’s how I think about it)."

Fantastic neutral reporting here from TechCrunch. Not at all just a recycled
press release.

~~~
Jordrok
_" But most importantly we're making the world a better place. Through
constructing elegant hierarchies for maximum code reuse and
extensibility."_[1]

Which one is the parody? Sometimes it's hard to tell.

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3222784/quotes?item=qt2896998](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3222784/quotes?item=qt2896998)

------
trhway
given the history of creativity in Paris shouldn't it be a mansard instead of
garage?

------
sbt
this is political theatre

------
danyfs
Thanks Facebook for this good offering! WE will certainly apply to be part of
it.

