For those who plan to set up their own company with an idea they got from travelling, pay attention to this post.

True: there are some great ideas abroad; in Japan in telcos and video games, in the US in e-Commerce & retail, in South Korea for consumer electronics, etc. But pay attention to culture.

Here’s one telling example. Look at this statistic (2003): in France, 75% of cell phone users have a contract with a telecom operator. In Italy, 75% of cell phone users use a prepaid card.

Why is that in Italy? Well, the reason is that there is an extremely low minimum wage in Italy. So, the youth often stays at their parents’ home until their late 20s. Consequently, not only do they want to master their communication expenses, they also feel that mum and dad would intercept their mail and see how much money and time they spend talking.

That all makes a hell of a difference in termes of revenues: margins are different (lower in pre-paid, although services higher the bill), distribution channels are unrelated (cost more in prepaid: need for advice; remote refill with pre-paid), pricing differs (more expensive in pre-paid), choice and services too (the French are very keen on sending many SMSs, a huge margin business). Two mobile telecommunications operators, one in France, the other in Italy, are basically (and broadly speaking) involved in 2 different businesses.

What do you think of this major consumer difference between two neighbour countries? Have you experienced similarities between two remote countries, or big discrepancies between two countries close to one another?