The presentation I did NOT do at the Ignite Athens Show. Dedicated with love to former US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld! Turning Europe YOUNG again!

1. The European Startup Revolution
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

2. Turning Europe Young Again:
The “Startup Revolution”
Ignite Athens
Thursday September 20th 2012
Dimitris Tsigos
President
YES – European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

3. Youth of Europe
• Unemployment
– It’s not the problem, it’s a symptom of the
problem
– The recovery of the global economy has been
proven fragile
• The youth of Europe has to make a
decision on their future
– Shall we change things?
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

4. YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

5. Though in a completely irrelevant context, in
a course proven already wrong & unfair by
history,
Secretary Rumsfeld got it right:
Europe is old .
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

6. If Europe was a person
• Would probably be a very conservative
person
• Also, a rather old person
• Old persons – usually – have lower
dynamism, don’t like risk-taking, go the
safe way
• Do we really like this Old Europe?
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

7. Young European Entrepreneurs
are turning Europe
YOUNG AGAIN!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

8. EU GDP >> USA GDP
We lack economic dynamism
Who is gonna create the
necessary economic dynamism?
The Youth of Europe!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

9. How?
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

10. Very simple. By starting-up!
Startups are creating new jobs!
“Employment Boost: 83% of U.S. Startups Plan To Hire
in 2011”
http://mashable.com/2011/04/22/startup-outlook/
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

11. We all need to start-up!
• We need to inspire CREATIVITY
– In the educational system
– In life-long learning
– In the whole society
• It’s not fancy only to consume any more,
it’s even fancier to produce!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

12. Has the World realized the
necessity to start-up?
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

13. YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

14. YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

15. YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

16. YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

17. What about the StartupEurope
initiative?
We all look forward to it!
Let’s do it!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

18. Are we really trying to start-up?
• VC Spending per capita
– US: $100
– EU: $10
– Euro-zone: $5
– Israel: $250
• Israel alone invests more in VC than
Germany, France & UK together
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

19. Can we really start-up in Europe?
• According to EBAN – European Business
Angels Network, the volume of early-stage
investments in 2009 has been …
– US: $18B
– EU: 4B
• While EU27 GDP has been considerably higher
than the US GDP
• Entrepreneurship can turn ‘Old Europe’
young again!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

20. Why to Start-up?
“The mission of a company is to
maximize shareholders value”
…as well as to get very high bonuses!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

21. Sorry, not any more.
This model (thank God!) collapsed
together with Lehman Brothers
Not sure that everybody has
realized this fact.
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

22. So, what is it all about?
• Entrepreneurship was supposed to be just
about making money
• Now it’s about materializing creativity!
– It’s actually about happiness 
• It’s about building a new kind of
relationship with labor, based on the joy of
creating!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

23. What’s the new key-word?
Sustainability!
We need to push for the “ecosystem
approach” in European start-ups
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

24. Entrepreneurship & Education
• There is a missing link in the European
educational & research system
– R&D – Startups
– Failure stories in the subsidized R&D projects
• We need to boost creativity in the
educational system
– Result orientation
– Culture of failure!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

25. If you’re afraid of failing…
…then you simply don’t try!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

26. Creating opportunities
• Short-term
– Access to capital
– Special focus to increased availability of risk financing
• Beware of the death valley!
• Mid-term
– Access to market
– Materialize the “Single European Market” concept for
enterprises
• Long-term
– Entrepreneurial culture
– Promotion of new development models based on the
regional competitive advantages & culture
• The end of Fordism
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

27. So, is there a crisis after all?
Yes, but it’s not financial.
The crisis is political.
The solution can only be political!
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

28. What about Europe?
No, the end of the world is not
coming.
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

29. We must be optimistic!
• Europe is far more sustainable both from
the US and from China
– No over-debt, no over-consumption
– Reasonable conditions in the labor market
• Mid-term we need to address the issue of
political integration
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

30. The triangle of European success
• Symbolic Capital
• Human Capital
• Financial Capital
• Europe doubtlessly leads the World in all
of those three axis.
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

31. The time to get Europe truly
united is coming!
A Federal Europe is not a dream
for tomorrow, it’s a necessity of
today.
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs

32. Thank you 
YES European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs