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Five startups from Norway
- jacquesm 10y agoAlternative title: The situation is improving, 5 start-ups from Norway
- dang 10y agoWe were going to go with "The Norwegian Startup Scene", helpfully provided by the URL slug. (Those often contain a more neutral title, as if they feel guilty for the clickbait excesses of the headline writer). But your phrasing is more concrete, so let's try that.
- flaviuspopan 10y agoAnybody have some insight on what it usually takes to qualify for landing a startup gig in places like Norway/Amsterdam? (With regards to language requirements/work permits/referrals/etc.) With each passing day I find myself more interested in European startup scenes.
- Arnt 10y agoI've sat on the receiving end of such applications in Norway. Find some companies you like and send them mail. There's paperwork, but the paperwork is easier when the employer wants you, so defer it for now.
- flaviuspopan 10y agoThat simple huh? That's pretty motivating.
- Arnt 10y agoWell, depending on where you are the paperwork may not be simple or quick. But it's quicker and simpler when you have a would-be employer.
- flaviuspopan 10y agoThanks Arnt, I appreciate the advice. I'll start scoping and see where I end up.
- lagadu 10y agoIf you have an EU nationality the paperwork (getting a SS number, a tax card, registered residence) will take maybe 3 hours of work once you have a signed contract. I've been through it and it's surprisingly agile. I don't know about non-EU nationals, though I know people from the US and Canada who managed to get an EU nationality because of their grandparents and simply used that to avoid worrying about visas and all. That said, the companies will be very helpful if you need assistance with paperwork so you should be fine when it comes to it, though I doubt you'll need the help. About the language, English will be fine for nearly any tech company. That said, I'd also check out Berlin and Copenhagen; big startup scenes there. Never worked in The Netherlands so I can't speak for Amsterdam, sorry.
- flaviuspopan 10y agoI truly appreciate the guidance, thank you. I'm originally from Romania and speak English, Romanian, Spanish, and some French. Multiple people have been mentioning Germany as an alternative so I might look into that more as I have family there.
- woodcut 10y agoThere's something called the european blue card which is equivalent to a US green card, if you can get a job offer >€38,688 a year and you work in tech then the blue card entitles you to work anywhere in the Schengen area. You'd need to work for about 18 months in the first position and after 3 years you can apply for permanent residency.
- jacquesm 10y agoGermany is easy to get into and Berlin has a pretty good start-up scene.
- flaviuspopan 10y agoI appreciate the tip, thank you! Do you have any first hand experience in the German startup scene? I have family in Germany and am certainly open to the idea.
- jacquesm 10y agoYes, a friend has immigrated into Germany and has set up shop in Berlin (and has found some grants to support his fledgling business), and I spend quite a large number of days per year in Berlin, Hamburg or Munich evaluating start-ups. Of all the countries in Western Europe I think it is by far the best right now to jump to from outside of the EU.
- flaviuspopan 10y agoJust did a quick search on what's available in Berlin; I like what I see :) Thank you!
- kmfrk 10y agoIf you're American, the US has a special arrangement with the Netherlands that should make it significantly easier for you to get to Amsterdam. At least there used to be one - try contacting your embassy in the Netherlands or the Dutch one in the US.
- Maultasche 10y agoThere is a special arrangement, but it's for people with their own businesses. It's fairly easy to start your own business in the Netherlands as a US citizen. Great if you're a startup founder. Employment is something else entirely. Skilled migrants can come under the knowledge worker program ("kennismigrant") or the European blue card program. There are a number of websites where you can read about this. You do have to find a company that will sponsor you, but that's the main barrier to entry. Some Dutch companies want people who speak Dutch, but many will be happy to hire those who speak English. The Dutch government also offers incentives to people coming from abroad where the person pays 30% fewer taxes for the first 8 years in the country. As an American who's looked into the possibilities, I'd say that the Netherlands is probably the friendliest country in Europe to migrate to. The Netherlands is welcoming to migrants (at least the skilled type), it has a healthy IT sector (with a good number of startups in the Amsterdam area), and English is widely spoken. I'd still advise eventually learning Dutch, but you can at least get along with just English.
- lsseckman 10y ago"Go huge" for some reason sounds like incorrect grammar. Is it correct?
- cariaso 10y agoit's not proper english, but it is common real world vernacular. 'go big, or go home' being a very common phrase. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=go%20big%20or%20go%20home https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=go%20big%20o...
- maaaats 10y ago> (...)and seeing the government working with the startup scene (...) is refreshing I've always felt jealous on the US startup culture, where you get investments. In Norway, I feel it's more like you apply and get small grants. But looking at this article things have gotten better. What concerns me the most about our startup scene, is the scale. A successful startup in Norway can only reach 5 million people before it has to be modified to fit a new country with different language, regulations and customs. In the US, you can reach tens of millions, and when the app has grown big enough us Norwegian will accommodate and get used to the app, not the other way around.
- Arnt 10y agoSome people argue the other way around, and tell stories about e.g. American startups that never got around to supporting addresses in non-US formats. Companies in a small country have to face the world and can't stick their heads in the sand.
- kuschku 10y ago> What concerns me the most about our startup scene, is the scale. A successful startup in Norway can only reach 5 million people before it has to be modified to fit a new country with different language, regulations and customs. In the US, you can reach tens of millions, and when the app has grown big enough us Norwegian will accommodate and get used to the app, not the other way around. And that’s one of the biggest advantages the EU is supposed to bring, but which several countries are still blocking. You can read over 200 million people in the EU just with an English product, and if the single market was done better, it’d be very competitive with the US. Instead, we’re seeing Britain leaving, and potentially the EU breaking apart completely.
- toyg 10y ago> potentially the EU breaking apart completely. You can see it like that, or you can see it the other way around. This is pretty much make-or-break, put-up-or-shut-up time for EU integration. The Lisbon treaty is finally biting. You can't be "mildly pro-EU" or see it as "simply a trade union" anymore; you either go all-in with fiscal and legislative harmonization, or you go home. Italy and Greece were the first to go all-in; Britain might be the first to go home. The next decade is a tipping point one way or another, and it might actually be the beginning of the "real" federal EU a lot of people have been asking for 40 years.
- lagadu 10y agoAs someone from the industry living in the north, I get the impression that the biggest obstacle to this is the seemingly much larger startup scene just ~500km away in Copenhagen. It's likely my experience is biased in some way but I seem to have a lot more contacts and startup job offers from companies based in Copenhagen than anywhere else around here, and I have lived in both places in the past 3 years. I get the definite impression that its proximity is pulling a lot of resources away from mostly Oslo.
- jkot 10y ago> that its proximity is pulling a lot of resources away from mostly Oslo I can confirm that, some companies I interviewed with in Sweden had Norwegian roots/owners. Two reasons: Sweden is cheaper and is part of EU.
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- Illniyar 10y agoFrom the article it seems more like "go somewhat bigger but still tiny" then "go huge". Government aid programs have failed to generate startup scene basically everywhere they were used. I think buulding a real startup scene is a long process, starting with a few companies that breakout, a good culture and the willingness of private capital to invest. It is layers and layers that build upon eachother until a critical mass is reached.
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- audunw 10y agoDidn't Silicon Valley grow out of a collection of companies doing defense contracts and research grants? Regardless, you're right that it does take a lot of time. For Silicon Valley it took multiple decades. But it does seem to me that the nordic startup communities are growing very rapidly. There's cause to be optimistic. For Norway one of the problems is that the vast majority of new investment is still in oil and gas. And I suspect that community of engineers and investors are more likely to grow into a community centered around subsea and other marine activities even after oil becomes unprofitable. What nobody has mentioned yet is that Norway has a healthy semiconductor and electronics design industry. There are some exiting startups there that people often forget about.
- collyw 10y agoOne thing I always wonder is why startup cities always seem to be so bloody expensive. SF is the classic case looking at Europe, London is probably the biggest center, and the wages / costs there are close to twice of many parts of the UK. Norway ain't cheap either. I suppose Berlin is relatively cheap and has a big startup scene. All those costs must make it far more expensive to build something.
- Kalium 10y agoA number of the factors that make startups more likely also contribute to high cost of living. Areas with top-flight schools and significant amounts of money available for high-risk investment are rarely places you can rent 2000 square feet for $200/mo.
- rdtsc 10y agoAs a rule every time a piece comes in the news about some place being "the next startup scene", it usually doesn't work out that way. It is usually driven by PR due to some tax advantage being put into law or local municipality providing grants or something like that.
- xiaoma 10y agoI dunno. I read an awful lot of articles in 2011 saying that SF was the next startup scene and that soon it wouldn't be about the valley anymore. Those articles were all right.
- kmfrk 10y agoI remember this with Barcelona (or somewhere in Spain) which was building some kind of Silicon Valley hub that was supposed to be the startup capital of Europe.
- cplanas 10y agoI can remember at least 9 different cities that have been called "the startup capital of Europe".
- msvan 10y agoIt's a shame that Barcelona isn't the startup capital of Europe. Amazing weather, beautiful streets, close to other major European cities, lots of great food. SV will always win on weather against other cities.
- legulere 10y agoWhy should people move to Norway? Software developers don't really earn more than elsewhere in Europe while the cost of living is drastically higher.
- adrianN 10y agoIt's a beautiful country full of happy people. It's #3 in the Where-to-be-born index [1] and ranks really high when you ask people about general satisfaction with their life [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index [2] http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/norway/ http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/norway/
- superswordfish 10y agoProgrammers (and their children) don't really have to be born in a particular country to have good quality of life. That sort of ranking is more useful if you're poor. There is the "safety net" factor, but again, less important when you have skills that pay well.
- jakub_h 10y agoIf you can migrate, you don't have to be anything in particular. Otherwise, the place of birth is perhaps the strongest "macroscopic" predictor of your income.
- superswordfish 10y agoSure, but it's a bit odd, in the context of startup centers, to mention a place's ranking as one of the best places to be born -- most people in a position to relocate themselves to work at a startup are already fairly secure, and their children will be too.
- uola 10y agoI agree it's not perfect but it is proxy for life style. The US or UK is great if your want to have a career, work for (or trying to sell to) a big company and be part of something bigger than yourself. Southern Europe is has sunshine, good food and social life. Germany or France is good if you want to work for a family business. The reason the Nordic countries top these list is because they have things like good working conditions, time for yourself, overall decent education systems, relativly low bureaucracy, universal healthcare etc. If you're in the US you can change jobs until you find one where they respect you, pay for extended vacations yourself, move to a good school district, pay lawyers to handle things for you and have private health insurance. What you can't buy is not having to care. That's what the Nordic countries are good at. You can focus your energy on the things that matter. You'll find a disproportionate amount Nordic people in almost all "digital subcultures", from e-sports to systems programming to startups. This is changing in some ways. The Nordic countries are becoming more like the rest of the world with health care systems that are hard to navigate, high private debt and valuing status over substance. But it's still a very good place to live.
- aavotins 10y agoNorway has one of the highest taxes in the world. Combined with labor laws that are somewhat biased in favour of the employee. Wouldn't it be hard to create a scene like that in a socially developed country. Large wages would mean ridiculous taxes, so it would be very expensive to attract talent and workforce, based on wages alone(think Bay Area in the US). What about iterating quickly, which involves hiring and firing people quickly as well? If I'm not mistaken, in the US you can fire people on the spot, but that's not the case in Europe and Norway. You have strict labor laws, notice periods, the whole shebang. Won't that be an extra burden for startups? edit: spelling
- vidarh 10y agoNorway's taxes on personal income are just marginally above the OECD average [1], which places it somewhat above the US, but not particularly high for a developed country. The idea that Norway is particular high tax tends to come from the marginal tax rate, which indeed is higher than the US, but the threshold is also high. Norwegian corporate taxes are low, at 25% corporate income tax [2], well below the OECD average, while US corporate taxes are one of the highest in the world and by far the highest of any OECD country [2] [3]. > What about iterating quickly, which involves hiring and firing people quickly as well? Then hire people on contracts. Nothing in Norwegian law prevents you from hiring and firing at will as long as you don't make people think you're hiring for a position that is meant to last. [1] http://taxfoundation.org/article/comparison-tax-burden-labor-oecd http://taxfoundation.org/article/comparison-tax-burden-labor... [2] http://stats.oecd.org//Index.aspx?QueryId=58204 http://stats.oecd.org//Index.aspx?QueryId=58204 [2] http://taxfoundation.org/blog/us-has-highest-corporate-income-tax-rate-oecd http://taxfoundation.org/blog/us-has-highest-corporate-incom...
- JPKab 10y agoSo the solution is to contract instead of hire? That's no good. If contract workers were as ideal as employees, then everyone would do it. But they don't, for a multitude of reasons.
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- doktrin 10y agoSpeaking as a Norwegian living abroad, I feel like one of the most important barriers (more important even than capital) to domestic startup success is a failure-averse culture. We have a ways to go before we're on par with the US in this regard.
- danielskogly 10y agoCool to see some focus on the Norwegian startup scene ! We just delivered a new site for Oslo Innovation Week, and are currently working on the new Staaker website, who is mentioned in the article. I'd say Flare (http://iamflare.com http://iamflare.com) and Unacast (http://unacast.com http://unacast.com) is worth keeping an eye on as well.
- reitanqild 10y agoWork in a startup around here. Will try to be back to this thread a couple of times tonight if anyone has general questions. (it's 17:24 around here now.)
- diyseguy 10y agoWhat will they call it? Silicon Fjord? Silicium Dal?
- bhouston 10y agoToronto last week -- so a new plce featured each week: https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/12/toronto-is-poised-to-become-the-next-great-producer-of-tech-startups/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/12/toronto-is-poised-to-becom...
- wangchow 10y agoHonestly, the "startup scene" for tech companies is everywhere. You can start a company anywhere so geography isn't wholly relevant.
- PhillyPhuture 10y agoTechCrunch has become the in-flight magazine of technology. How many of these marketing pieces are meaningful for anyone involved in the technology community? Moving on...
- lervag 10y ago> Leveraging the luxury of having a small startup scene — necessarily so, the whole country only has a population of 7m Not quite: The population is closer to 5,215,000 [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Norway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Norway