Bounce is the largest network of luggage storage and locker providers worldwide. It’s popular with travelers or people going to events who want to leave their luggage on arrival or departure day, instead of dragging their bags around the city. In 2023, Bounce made the decision to base their HQ out of Lisbon, a move which Cody Candee was kind enough to discuss with Portugalist.
James: I’m curious why you chose Lisbon over cities like Berlin, Paris, London, or other European cities that are more established for startups?
Cody: Great question. First, let me explain why we chose Europe. We’re building a global marketplace, and Europe was going to be a giant market for us. We had competitors here that we needed to outpace. So we decided to go all in on Europe to make sure we win and really serve Europeans all over the continent. Now we have probably 10 times more employees in Europe than in the US, and we’re bigger than all of our European competitors combined.
As for why Lisbon specifically:
- It’s an up-and-coming city with great talent and still relatively untapped compared to other markets.
- The time zone works well for collaborating with California.
- There are direct flights to San Francisco.
- People love coming to Lisbon year-round, making it easier to relocate talent to live here permanently.
- There’s a lot of energy behind making Lisbon a better place for startups. Other locations, like Berlin, felt like they had plateaued.
We saw an opportunity to be a standout company in Lisbon, attracting top talent in a way that would be harder to do in more saturated markets. After our first couple of engineering hires, I felt very confident we could build an incredible team here.
James: Often, people stay in places like San Francisco because they feel leaving will limit their talent pool. Has that been your experience?
Cody: There are different types of talent. For very seasoned executives who have built tech marketplaces before, San Francisco is still unmatched. We’ll hire some people in San Francisco, but Lisbon is where we do the majority of our hiring.
Lisbon has been a home run for roles where we hire many people of the same type, whether it’s sales or engineering. We pair this talent with executive leaders from Silicon Valley who have decades of experience. This combination of European talent and Silicon Valley experience is perfect for us.
For ambitious folks, we offer the benefits of living in Europe with the career upside of working for a Silicon Valley company.
James: Is it difficult to coordinate between your top people in Silicon Valley and your main team in Lisbon?
Cody: Right now, we have zero employees in San Francisco, though we’ll probably have a few in six months. I go back and forth a lot, and we bring people over frequently. We’ve had advisors and executives come to Lisbon for extended periods, which has been great for knowledge sharing and community building.
James: When you speak about the talent pool in Lisbon, is it primarily coming from Portugal or other EU markets?
Cody: We’ve relocated people to Lisbon from probably more than a dozen countries. We have a lot of Portuguese folks, many Europeans, and some North Americans as well. Our goal is to be the standout company in Portugal, and eventually in Europe, for fast-growing startups where you can really grow your career.
James: And are you able to attract that talent?
Cody: One of the great things about Lisbon is that it’s so international. We have been able to hire sales people from all over the world because Lisbon is such an international city. And because English is so widely spoken, it makes it less intimidating to move here compared to, say, Paris, while you’re still getting to grips with the language.
James: One of the big things that always comes up with Portugal is bureaucracy and visas. Has it been easy to get those employment visas processed for people?
Cody: No, it’s been a pain in this ass. It’s actually really terrible, and I think if they could make that easier, it would benefit the community and the country in a big way. We’ve learned the hard way that certain visas are easier (e.g. the D7) and some lawyers are better, but we’re starting to have a sharper playbook to make it easier for candidates. Nobody that has immigrated from the Americas has been impressed so far, but we’re hoping to remove some of that friction.
James: So many people from the US want to move to Portugal but because of the challenges of getting a company to hire them are unable to do so unless they’re a retiree or have a remote job.
Cody: We’ve sponsored a number of people and will continue to sponsor many more. We’re happy to talk to those folks.
James: Have you moved the entire HQ and all the legal side to Portugal, or is it still primarily based in the US?
Cody: We have two entities: a US entity and a Portuguese entity. The US entity is critical for attracting Silicon Valley investors, who don’t want to invest in a non-US entity. The Portuguese entity is necessary for hiring Portuguese employees with local employment contracts.
James: Was starting a new entity in Portugal straightforward?
Cody: Creating the entity itself was pretty easy, but then simple things like setting up a bank account was where things fell apart. They kept wanting us to go into the bank in-person in Portugal, which is crazy when you’re trying to run a company. It took months to get set up compared to a five-minute process in the US. So yes, creating an entity was easier, but there’s more work to be done to make this process smoother for new businesses.
James: Have you received any support from incubators or people in the startup community in Portugal?
Cody: Yes, absolutely. We met with Startup Lisboa, and they’ve been a great community for us to land in. Gil Azevedo runs that program and has been very supportive. I was also lucky enough to meet with Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas, who has prioritized making Lisbon an innovation hub for Europe. Seeing his team put emphasis on making things easier for entrepreneurs like me to build a company here is amazing.
James: It does feel like that’s the direction Portugal wants to go in.
Cody: It’s funny because San Francisco it’s the opposite. A lot of companies get started there, but often it’s the mayor’s office that often adds friction.
James: Besides bureaucracy, another thing that often scares people about Portugal or Europe is taxes. Was that something that made you nervous?
Cody: To some extent. The NHR (Non-Habitual Resident) program made things easier on the personal side. On the business side, we have a good grasp now, but I always have sticker shock when I see the 23% VAT added to things. We didn’t bake that into our initial financial planning due to my American naivety from not ever seeing taxes that high. The same is true with employment taxes. If you hire someone for €100k, it ends up costing a lot more than €100k.
James: And there’s more to hiring people in Europe versus the US.
Cody: The biggest downside is actually the employment laws and if I could I would like to make a new class of contracts that mirror the very successful contracts in the US. European employment laws are very protectionist, which can make it harder to take a bet on talent you’re not sure about. It also makes it more difficult to be as generous with salaries as companies might be in the US.
In Portugal, there are stipulations like mandatory meal cards, mandatory 22-day minimum vacation time, etc. In California, the contracts are way simpler and you don’t have any of that but in practice, it’s very common to have free lunches or unlimited vacation policies. There companies have to take really good care of people to keep them. Here, companies can’t afford to be as generous with salaries due to these laws and although these laws are meant to protect employees, I think they’re detrimental.
The notice periods are crazy too. In the US, people normally put in 2 weeks notice whereas in Europe it can be 1 or 2 months. It’s bizarre to me that people stay for that long after they’ve quit and their head is already in the next job.
James: On a more personal level, how have you adapted to moving to Lisbon and Portugal?
Cody: It’s been great for me. I enjoy lots of weekend trips to great places. I frequently have friends visiting, so much that I got a new place with a guest bedroom. I’ve enjoyed learning Portuguese and getting to know the country more deeply. The cultural nuances, like navigating the formal and informal forms of address, have been fascinating to learn about.
James: Are there any exciting plans for Bounce in the coming months?
Cody: Absolutely. We have 18 roles open right now, most of them in Lisbon. We’re really expanding the team a lot. Bounce has generated millions of dollars into Portugal through taxes and small business income. We’ve created more than 50 jobs here.
We have some exciting new product launches coming up, especially in October. We’re expanding Bounce to more European cities, not just the major ones like Lisbon and Porto but also to smaller cities like Évora and Braga. Our goal is to be in pretty much every destination with a reasonable number of tourists.