Andreas von Bechtolsheim is one of the earliest investors of Google and co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Today we had the pleasure of him delivering a speech live from Palo Alto via Skype and talking about „The Silicon Valley Perspective“.
He explained why it is easier for startups to become successful in the US and especially the Silicon Valley rather than Europe. Some of his main points included the incredible growth and success story of the „big 5“ Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft. He mentioned some lessons for young startups on how to beat the existing big players:
- you don't have to be the first one
- you just have to recognize the existing problems and solve them
- you have to be first to solve those problems
- you need high growth in short time
„A hint I can give all German startups is to establish a link to the US“
At the end of his speech he compared VC funding in the US and Europe/Germany and advised all young founders to establish a connection to the US, because this could be key for the success of the company. Not only does the US offer multiple times the venture capital amount available in Europe, but it offers one single market which can result in a higher growth rate. These two aspect might be very important in the early stage of an startup and can make a big the difference.
