In today’s market, where investors reward efficiency over hype and customers demand solutions that work across borders, Europe’s supposed weaknesses have become its greatest strengths. Our own $1 billion journey proves it.

Progress beats polish every time 

In DataSnipper’s early days, our founders didn’t have much capital, brand recognition, and certainly no fancy office. They had a few laptops, a shared workspace that doubled up as the lunchroom, and a product that barely worked. That might sound like a list of disadvantages, but I believe they’re the main reasons why the business moved fast enough to win. 

When you don’t have extensive resources, you must turn to being creative, resourceful, and fast. Instead of over-engineering, you test ideas quickly. Instead of waiting for the “perfect” conditions, you take action with what you have. 

For example, they ruthlessly focused on getting our product into customers’ hands as quickly as possible. Often, far too early. This was intentional. It created a very swift feedback loop to build and improve our offering. They moved fast and iterated rapidly. 

Scrappiness changes your psychology. Every obstacle becomes a puzzle to solve, not a reason to pause. They didn’t have the budget for big-ticket marketing campaigns, so they built an army of customer advocates by personally solving their problems. They didn’t have a data science team, so they taught themselves analytics at night to understand the metrics. They didn’t have a dedicated Quality Assurance department, so every single employee diligently tested features, including the founders themselves.

That constant bias toward progress over polish allowed us to iterate in weeks what typically took larger companies months to decide on. The lean and scrappy approach they used out of necessity became part of our DNA. Even when we could afford to spend more resources down the line, we strived to operate with the same mindset. 

Use your European location to sell globally

Unlike U.S. startups that can grow large while staying domestic, European founders operate globally from day one. They have to and it’s an advantage.

From a single HQ, we could sell across Europe’s diverse markets, hire multilingual talent, and reach customers in three continents within 24 hours. A morning call with Asia, a midday demo with Madrid, and an afternoon pitch to New York, all without leaving Amsterdam.

Europe’s diverse talent pool makes this even more powerful. You can hire native speakers for your key markets without opening foreign subsidiaries. You can easily hire from outside the EU and sponsor their visa without any of the H1-B visa challenges you would face in the United States. It’s one of the reasons we were able to expand revenue globally while still being headquartered in Europe. Geography, diversity, and time zones turned into strategic advantages.

Think globally when fundraising

Too many European founders confine fundraising to their home turf. That’s a mistake. If you want to build a global company, you need global capital.

That means reaching out to investors in the U.S., Asia, and the Middle East. Not just the individuals a friend can introduce you to over coffee. One of our biggest backers came from cold outreach. You should be picking up the phone (or sending a well-researched email) to explain why your product has worldwide potential.

Raising from global investors also signals ambition to your team and your market. It’s not about asking for money; it’s about showing that you’re building something that transcends local markets. The right investors aren’t just writing a check, they’re opening doors to customers, talent, and partnerships in their regions.

Why Europe can compete with (and even beat) Silicon Valley

Would we have grown faster in the U.S.? Maybe. But “faster” isn’t always better. Europe’s constraints forced discipline. We didn’t raise too much too soon. We didn’t hire ahead of revenue. We didn’t chase shiny features no one needed.

Today, our HQ is still in Europe. Our team spans continents. Our customers are in 170 countries. The next billion-dollar story might not come from California. It could come from a city where the coffee is stronger, the buildings older, and the team is already thinking globally from day one.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

Introducing the 2025 Fortune Global 500, the definitive ranking of the biggest companies in the world. Explore this year’s list.

Picture this: you’re 26 years old, fresh out of Wharton, and you decide to start a business with two friends. You spend years building a digital marketing firm that eventually works with Dollar Shave Club and Madison Reed. You bootstrap the entire thing without taking a dime of venture capital funding.

That’s exactly what one Wharton graduate did — and her story represents the reality of entrepreneurship that most people never hear about.

Lori Rosenkopf, a management professor at Wharton Business School and head of Venture Labs, joins us to shatter the biggest myths about starting a business. The Mark Zuckerberg college dropout story? It’s not just rare — it’s misleading.

Research shows that the most successful entrepreneurs, those in the top 0.1 percent of venture-backed firms, average late 30s to early 40s when they start their companies. Many continue launching businesses into their 50s and 60s. 

Your age and corporate experience isn’t holding you back from entrepreneurship — it’s actually giving you an advantage.

Rosenkopf breaks down seven different types of entrepreneurs, from disruptors who overturn entire industries to bootstrappers who build profitable businesses using their own resources. You’ll hear about a founder who disrupted the hair color industry in her 50s with Madison Reed, and a banker who built an entire financial services division inside Square.

We cover the rise of direct-to-consumer brands in 2013, why 80 percent of entrepreneurs are bootstrappers, and how artificial intelligence is creating new opportunities for people to start businesses without massive upfront investments.

Rosenkopf explains her “six Rs” of entrepreneurial thinking: reason, recombination, relationships, resources, resilience, and results. She argues that most people already think entrepreneurially without realizing it — even parents who optimize their family routines are solving problems through innovation.

We explore the world of “intrapreneurs” — people who build new businesses within established companies — and discuss acquisition entrepreneurship, where people buy existing small businesses instead of starting from scratch.

Whether you want to start a side hustle, position yourself for a promotion, or eventually launch your own company, Rosenkopf’s framework shows multiple paths to creating value through innovation.

 

Timestamps:

(0:00) Entrepreneurship myths

(1:28) Data on successful entrepreneur ages

(2:10) Seven entrepreneur archetypes 

(3:09) Defining entrepreneurship through value creation

(5:27) The disruptor model 

(8:13) Direct-to-consumer origins

(11:13) Bootstrapper 

(14:03) Transitioning from employee to bootstrapper

(18:38) AI’s impact on entrepreneurship

(28:27) Social entrepreneur 

(35:31) Technology commercializer 

(39:45) The Funder 

(43:12) The Acquirer 

(58:06) Intrapreneurship 

(1:03:12) Finding your entrepreneurial calling

(1:14:40) Six Rs of entrepreneurial mindset

(1:19:50) More information

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