Building a Startup in Poland vs Silicon Valley

I have built companies in Poland and worked with founders in Silicon Valley. The differences are real and they change what playbook works. This is not a ranking. It is a map for founders who need to decide where to build and how to adapt.

The cost equation

Poland’s advantage is burn rate. A senior full-stack developer in Warsaw earns 15,000-25,000 PLN net per month (roughly 3,500-5,800 EUR). The same developer in San Francisco earns 15,000-25,000 USD per month. The gap is closing. Polish salaries have risen 40% in tech over the past 5 years, but it is still significant.

What this means in practice: a pre-seed round of 300K EUR in Poland buys 18-24 months of a 3-4 person team. The same round in the Bay Area buys 6-9 months. That difference matters enormously at the stage where you are searching for product-market fit.

When I built PizzaPortal, our engineering team was in Poland. Our cost to build the initial product was a fraction of what a US competitor would have spent. That extra runway gave us time to iterate. Time is the most valuable resource in early-stage startups.

The talent pool

Poland produces exceptional engineers. The country graduates 80,000+ STEM students per year. Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, and Gdansk all have deep tech talent pools. Finding a developer who can build your MVP is not a problem.

Finding a head of sales who has sold B2B SaaS to US mid-market companies — that is a problem. Poland’s talent gap is not in engineering. It is in go-to-market. Very few people in Poland have experience running outbound sales to enterprise customers in the US or Western Europe. This is the single biggest constraint for Polish startups trying to go global.

The solution most successful Polish founders use: keep engineering in Poland, hire your first sales and marketing people in the target market. A co-founder or early employee in London, Berlin, or New York who understands the buyers closes this gap.

Where the money is

Polish VC has grown rapidly. Total startup investment crossed 1B EUR in 2024. Funds like Market One Capital, Inovo, Tar Heel Capital, and Smok Ventures are active at seed and Series A. The angel community has expanded. Warsaw alone has several organized angel groups.

But the capital stack is thin compared to the US. A seed round in Poland is typically 500K-1.5M EUR. A seed round in Silicon Valley is 2-5M USD. Series A in Poland is 2-5M EUR. Series A in the Valley is 10-20M USD.

This is not inherently a disadvantage. Smaller rounds mean less dilution. Less capital means you have to be more disciplined about unit economics early. The founders who treat this as a constraint to work with, rather than a limitation to escape, build stronger businesses.

The disadvantage appears at growth stage. If you need 20M EUR to scale internationally, Polish funds often cannot lead that round. You need a London, Berlin, or US-based growth fund. This is possible. Many Polish companies have raised international growth rounds, but it requires building relationships outside Poland before you need the money.

The market size problem

Poland has 38 million people. That is large enough for local service businesses. It is too small for venture-backed SaaS.

Every Polish founder who succeeds at scale thinks globally from day one. Not after proving the model in Poland. From day one. The local market is a testing ground. The product should be built in English. The pricing should be set for global customers. The sales process should target the US, UK, DACH, or Nordics.

PizzaPortal was a local business — food delivery is inherently geographic. But it was acquired by Delivery Hero precisely because it had proven the model in a market where the economics were harder. Polish consumer spending is lower than Western Europe, so proving unit economics in Poland means they almost certainly work in Germany or the UK.

For B2B SaaS, there is no reason to start local. Your first customer can be anywhere in the world. Build in Warsaw. Sell to San Francisco.

The culture difference

Silicon Valley has a culture where ambition is assumed. Nobody blinks if you say you are building a billion-dollar company. The infrastructure of ambition (mentors, investors, media, peer founders) is designed to support that scale of thinking.

Poland has a culture where ambition needs to be proven. Saying you are building a billion-dollar company without evidence gets skepticism, not support. The upside of this: Polish founders who succeed tend to be more rigorous. The downside: founders with genuine potential sometimes think too small because nobody around them is thinking big.

The practical impact: in Silicon Valley, founders over-pitch and under-deliver. In Poland, founders under-pitch and sometimes under-build. If you are a Polish founder, practice talking about the global opportunity with the same comfort that an American founder would. Not because you should be louder, but because your investors and customers need to believe in the scale you are targeting.

The playbook

1. Build in Poland. Keep your engineering team local. Use the cost advantage to extend runway and iterate faster.

2. Sell globally from the start. If you are B2B, your first customer should be in your target market, not Poland. If you are B2C, build the product in English first.

3. Raise locally for pre-seed and seed. Polish angels and micro-funds are well-suited for early stage. Save the international fundraise for when you have data.

4. Hire go-to-market in the target market. Your first sales hire should be where your customers are.

5. Build international investor relationships before your Series A. Attend events, get warm introductions through your seed investors, and start conversations 6-12 months before you need the money. The European fundraising playbook is different from the US one, and the earlier you understand this, the better.

/Lech