The 6 dollars reason Greek startups are prone to failure

food

Starting or running a startup means a lot of things, living on a tight budget is one of them. Reading the The Startup Diet from the Parse.ly guys and they were able to get their food cost down to $4/person/day brought memories from my trip to San Francisco in late May 2009.

The sun was shining in San Francisco but it felt a bit chilly. The micro climate in SF is an amazing phenomenon but rather ranting about the weather i wanted to eat; i was starving. Tim Ferriss explained it’s all about the amount of exposure in direct sun light. This is how cold or warm San Francisco feels when having brunch which by the way cost only 6 bucks. Six dollars for full organic food or approximately €4.3 according to Google. Unfortunately the photo doesn’t help to understand the size of the portion but basically it was a 3/4 full kind of paper Ziploc container. Pretty decent amount of organic food for $6 from an open bar.

Any Greek knows that not only organic food is freakin expensive in Greece but with 4.3 euro you can only buy a coffee and half a sandwich of some sort, assuming the coffee costs 2 euro tops. A 4.3 euro sandwich does the job but it’s not as anything close to organic healthy or healthy enough. That said, you can’t be creative, productive and healthy while eating only sandwiches. The body and the mind knows better than you. Been there, done that and failed miserably.

Being Greek, i know for sure that until a very late period of time we Greek sons consider food as de facto. Having someone cooking for you (hello Greek mom) is not the issue here. Recipes are available online for free. The real issue is that no one, i mean no one, ever taught Greek boys and girls how to manage and balance their budget for a reasonably healthy life style (cooking included).

Starting or running a startup is crazy stuff but only for people alive, standing on their own feet and being able to manage and balance will, stamina and costs for covering even the most basic needs such as food. Greeks never learned to master any of these. Neither the Greek startups will.

2 comments on “The 6 dollars reason Greek startups are prone to failure”

  1. Whining, however sophisticated, it is nevertheless whining. Do not partake to it. It is not organic 😉

  2. Well, prove me wrong. I’d more than glad to see myself failing miserably on this one.

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