3 ms·

Hum, I think there are many factors to that. Just a couple who come to my mind: -The population is way smaller than USA even if you regroup all countries of the

by Sytten 9y ago

Hum, I think there are many factors to that. Just a couple who come to my mind: -The population is way smaller than USA even if you regroup all countries of the Nordic area. It would be nice to have a number per capita which would paint a better picture. -I believe the right conditions for a tech scene to emerge were recently met in most of those countries. I see a lot of nordic fintech and fintech is a relatively recent phenomena. -I think that there were not many VC around a couple of years ago. Even though it is better now, it might not be as easy to get founding than it is in the Valley. -Regulation is way more restrictive in those countries. You can't just arrive and break what I would call the social contracts (like Uber is doing for example). - etc etc

rdtsc 9y ago
Thanks for replying and for your perspective. > I see a lot of nordic fintech and fintech is a relatively recent phenomena. Yes I have seen that too. Talked to someone in a fintech startup. They were even using Erlang to do all the math, which surprised me, but it totally made sense after they explained their use case. So perhaps maybe there is a startup culture and but maybe the focus is on slightly different market and not necessarily on the same old social / messaging / uber for X problems that are common in SV startups. > You can't just arrive and break what I would call the social contracts (like Uber is doing for example). Unfortunately I think at lot of the conditions to make startup appealing are predicated on breaking social contracts. The concept of a "company" > "individual" basically. A startup can hire quickly, try something, fail and lay everyone off, within a year. Or playing in the gray area like Uber with regards to its markets. "Is it a taxi, is it a limousine service, etc."

3 ms·

Hum, I think there are many factors to that. Just a couple who come to my mind: -The population is way smaller than USA even if you regroup all countries of the

by Sytten 9y ago

rdtsc 9y ago
Thanks for replying and for your perspective. > I see a lot of nordic fintech and fintech is a relatively recent phenomena. Yes I have seen that too. Talked to someone in a fintech startup. They were even using Erlang to do all the math, which surprised me, but it totally made sense after they explained their use case. So perhaps maybe there is a startup culture and but maybe the focus is on slightly different market and not necessarily on the same old social / messaging / uber for X problems that are common in SV startups. > You can't just arrive and break what I would call the social contracts (like Uber is doing for example). Unfortunately I think at lot of the conditions to make startup appealing are predicated on breaking social contracts. The concept of a "company" > "individual" basically. A startup can hire quickly, try something, fail and lay everyone off, within a year. Or playing in the gray area like Uber with regards to its markets. "Is it a taxi, is it a limousine service, etc."