6 ms·
London Is Gonna Be Pissed, But We Prefer Berlin for Startups
- hugh3 15y agoThis sounds right. Berlin, unlike London, has the right vibe for doing creative work. In London nowadays it feels like the three choices for your role in life are "banker", "football hooligan" or "curry shop owner". It's also, though it's not mentioned in the article, much cheaper -- I think you'll pay about one third as much for your apartment in Berlin as you would in London.
- beavershaw 15y agoNot sure which London you've been living in (or visiting) but I would say there are many more choices than the three you outline above. I know many people here who work in startups/online media/web dev etc. The one thing I will agree with is that it's not cheap. I think it is fair to say London is probably 3X more expensive than Berlin.
- hassy 15y agoYou forgot another popular choice: "consultant".
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- sjtgraham 15y ago> 'In London nowadays it feels like the three choices for your role in life are "banker", "football hooligan" or "curry shop owner".' This is actually the most ridiculous things I have read in a while. There is so much opportunity in London right now, it's a great place to be even for those whose aspirations differ from "banker", "football hooligan" or "curry shop owner".
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- johnmossel1 15y agoIt still makes more money than the rest of England put together and has the largest GDP in Europe, not bad for a bunch of curry shop owners.
- msy 15y agoI'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about. London's stuffed to the gills with media companies doing interesting work. This article exists because it's accepted orthodoxy that London is the capital of tech and media in Europe.
- thomasgerbe 15y agoA lot of contemporary artists and designers have come out of London in the last ten to twenty years. And a lot of the stellar agencies that have international locations usually choose London for at the very least, a satellite office.
- adaml_623 15y agoHow many karma points do I need before I can downvote stupid and slightly racist comments? We keep the bankers trapped in the square mile; the football hooligans are generally not even in London and the curry shop owners are just part of the landscape. There's a lot of bright people doing a lot of cool things in London albeit under the smoke screen of the financial industry. Rents may be cheaper in Berlin but I believe that salaries are also less. So that might be good for a founder but only _IF_ they can convince good developers to work for less in Berlin. (Can't believe I'm replying to the troll)
- radiosnob 15y agoAs someone who just dipped their toe into the startup scene, the number of networking groups in the city is amazing. But it seemed very chaotic. the entire time, I was trying to figure out who I should talk to, and where to find them. Its a great place to try and start something though. The creativity, along with the cheapness of this city is fantastic.
- mooism2 15y agoWhich city? Berlin?
- calpaterson 15y agoIt seems unlikely that he would be referring to the Silicon Roundabout crowd by "they city", so I assume so.
- patrickg 15y agoI'd love to find a nice overview of Berlin networking groups. Can you recommend one? I've just entered Berlin as a (not that young anymore) startup.
- radiosnob 15y agoGetting an over view was the problem. The groups seemed to be isolated from each other, with their own agenda our theme. Maybe that's how it usually is. To start with, maybe check "Silicon Allee". I think that is one of the biggest. They meet once a month in mitte.
- tpatke 15y agoTo summarize: Berlin has a lot of weird people and it is cheap to live there. Therefore, it will the next startup capital of Europe. Hmmm... Sounds like the author had a good time in Berlin and wanted to say something nice. Don't think I will pack my bags just yet though.
- jinushaun 15y agoBerlin reminded me a lot of Seattle/Portland while I was there three years ago. I can see a start up culture happening there.
- Luyt 15y agoWhat? An European San Francisco? I'm off in the bus to Berlin! Taking my laptop with me, see you there. And summer is coming! Yahoo!
- FrojoS 15y agoOther than in SFO, there will be a really nasty winter afterwards. At least in Munich we get powder to ski!
- jase_coop 15y agoWho decided that the number of hipsters in a concentrated area correlate with successful tech companies? These 'cool', 'creative' pockets within cities such as San Francisco, London and Berlin that the article suggest as a vital ingredient for developing the perfect startup environment are merely the result of artists after cheap spaces to work, exhibit and live. After time, cool-hunters follow, prices go up, locals are pushed out, companies move in. London, particularly the East, is full of areas such as this.
- olavk 15y agoPresumably the same things that makes an area attractive to artist and hipsters makes it attractive to start-ups: Cheap spaces to work and live. At least if you are bootstrapping, that is a big deal.
- te_chris 15y agoI come to the startup world as someone who's also a musician - and music will always be my first love - and I don't think the two worlds are necessarily that far apart. Obviously not everyone wants to hang out at cool gigs and art galleries, but generally startups are started by people who are younger and more energetic and like to hang out in those areas where the artists are. In my experience those areas are normally the fun parts of town.
- dreamdu5t 15y agoThis is just vein. London and Berlin are both great cities, both conducive to urban living and both offering what you need to run a startup.
- fbailey 15y agoWhat's lacking in Berlin is technology. There are a lot of interesting startups when it comes to commerce or media but not many who can you impress you with their technology. And it lacks the investors that will invest in a high risk technology venture.
- alain94040 15y agoWe just held our European Founder Institute bootcamp in Berlin end of March. We had an amazing time: 100 founders from all over Europe, mix with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and lock the building for 48 hours. The only reason I never talked about it is that there are no words to describe how great it was. EDIT: link to event: http://www.founderinstitute.com/posts/297 http://www.founderinstitute.com/posts/297
- icedpulleys 15y agoI've never stopped reading something faster than I did after I got to "'Feels like' is an important disclaimer here." and glanced up to see that it was written by Sarah Lacy. Dear Sarah: don't worry, I think that London will not be that pissed.
- maxklein 15y agoI live in Berlin. It's a pretty good place to work on a startup - great transportation, excellent & cheap infrastructure and cheap apartments/office space. Also, a lot of universities with cheap students to work. Another advantage is that a lot of european young people go to berlin, for example from france, U.K, holland, poland and so on. It's a city that draws the young upwardly mobile crowd, rather than the working class. So there is the sense of a diversity of ideas, and many different people doing different things. It's a city that does not feel very "german", it feels very european. Berlin is not so great for people looking to work in the tech industry because there is no concentration of tech companies. But for self-starters, it's quite conducive. I doubt that Berlin will really become the mecca for technology though, because I do not think it's easy to learn the german language, and in the end, Berlin is in Germany, and Germany is not very multi-cultural. London feels much free-er, English laws are much more conducive to small companies, and people already speak english. Berlin imposes berlin on you, you have to kind of be the berlin type to like berlin, but I get the feeling, you can just be yourself in London.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- DavidMcLaughlin 15y ago> Berlin imposes berlin on you, you have to kind of be the berlin type to like berlin, but I get the feeling, you can just be yourself in London. I was with you up until here. I've lived in Berlin for nearly two years and the number one thing I like about Berlin is that it's hard to stand out because there is no one culture or "thing" that defines what Berlin is. My girlfriend and I live very different lives here and enjoy it both the same.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- patrickg 15y agoAgree. Also the thing I am missing in Berlin (and mostly eastern Germany) is industry. There is no significant concentration of industry around here, which makes it harder for those startups that need this. All my customers are > 300 km away and in "West Germany". I know that is not a "all or nothing" choice, but that's the tendency.
- erikstarck 15y agoUhm... "Berlin feels like a European Portland or an Austin or a Boulder" Austin: 785'000 people. Portland: 570'000 people. Boulder: 94'000 people. Berlin: 3.4 million people. We must be doing something wrong here in Europe.
- fedd 15y agoi like how they compare... btw, those who want to become the second San Francisco, will always be the second. better to be first yourself. when people say, like, Chicago is an American Berlin or like that
- whakojacko 15y agoThat's not quite a fair comparison since the area of Berlin is well over double that of Portland, for example. Those 3 US cities are all still noticeably less dense, however.
- lucasjung 15y agoI grew up in Berlin, starting a few months after I was born up until the summer between the fifth and sixth grades. When we moved back to the states, I was completely shocked at how the cities felt, because they didn't feel anything like Berlin. Since Berlin was the only city I really knew well, I had naively assumed that all cities were like Berlin; it took me a while to realize that Berlin was the exception, not the normal case. But there were places in America that reminded me of Berlin: places right on the line between "large town" and "small city." Not exactly like Berlin, but a very similar feel. Of course, all of this was from the perspective of an eleven/twelve-year-old, so I could have been missing a lot of stuff that an adult would have noticed. Also, for almost the entire time I lived there, the wall was up and I would imagine that things have changed significantly since then. We left after the wall came down but not long enough after for things to have changed significantly yet--the summer before official re-unification, IIRC.
- djhworld 15y agoI'm not sure what the cost of living is like in Berlin but here in London it's astronomical. People might have some degree of infrastructure to build a start up down here (especially around the Old Street area) and there's plenty of office space but the problems lie in the fact that if you want to employ young graduates (or people with a few years of experience) you're going to struggle to pay them without adequate investment. A 1 bedroom property down here will cost you roughly £1200 a month + bills (£1300 - £1400 in total) and then travel in zones 1 and 2 will cost you £106 a month for a travelcard If you're going to pay a youngster £30k a year then they're going to be forking out 70-80% of their income on accommodation which is absurd.
- wheels 15y agoIt's about a third of that in Berlin. I have a (nice, freshly renovated, wooden floors, high ceilings, new appliances, balcony) two bedroom place about a 5-10 minute walk from our office in one of the cool parts of town (dozens of restaurants and bars within a 15 minute walk) and pay EUR 580/month. My co-founder and I shared the place for a couple years when we were getting going.
- biafra 15y agoTo give you an example of rent related to income: I live and work in Berlin and my rent is about 25% of my income after taxes. I have about 100 square meters, two balconies and a lift (third floor) in a quiet pre-war (Altbau) building (redeveloped 2005) with a big playground right in front of it. It's about 6km to my work (20 minutes by bicycle) in Berlin Mitte (the east center of Berlin).
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- blumentopf 15y agoHere's the "Mietspiegel" for Berlin (geographic overview of cost of living, click download link on the right to retrieve as PDF): http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/wohnen/mietspiegel/ http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/wohnen/mietspiegel/ People who want to avoid getting fleeced by landlords should consider becoming a member of the local "Mieterverein". It usually costs around 60 Euro per year to be a member and they will give you free legal counsel whenever you have trouble with your landlord: http://www.berliner-mieterverein.de/ http://www.berliner-mieterverein.de/ Berlin's advantage is not just the rents but also the law of tenancy. Germany's laws are tenant-friendly, whereas British laws are -- from what I've read -- landlord-friendly. That's helpful if you're a young person looking for accomodation or office space to found a company and want to avoid taking too many risks. In example, period of cancellation may not be more than 3 months in Germany, security deposit may not exceed 3 months' rent, etc.
- pimeys 15y agoWe've been planning to move to Berlin this autumn with my girlfriend. The last barrier I need to cross is to find a programming job from there. I've sent several applications and some of the companies have already answered. I think I'm a good programmer and I hope I'll find a job. Berlin seems to be the perfect place for a couple like us. There's cheap and excellent food, cheap and beautiful apartments, lots and lots of culture, lots of DIY attitude and so many abandoned warehouses for underground raves... :)
- rmoriz 15y agoAfter living in Munich - the self proclaimed (former) IT capital of Germany - for over 10 years I'm planning to move to Berlin, too. For several years I've tried to build a community around Ruby/Rails but looks like people don't care and all the cool stuff is made in Berlin anyway...
- agaton 15y agoI actually agree with Sarah/Paul. OK, London will still be THE European centra for startups because the VCs, successful companies and a lot of great people from all over the world + the English language. But... Berlin has a great international atmosphere, a lot of talented people and people really love startups. But the most important thing is that startup people actually moving to Berlin from all over the world to start their startups or to join others. When people want to move to a city because of the startup scene there... that's a sign of that something great is happening there.
- JCB_K 15y agoTo what degree is the tech scene in Berlin international? My German isn't bad, but I'm definitely not fluent. Are there so many internationals that tech meetups etc. are usually in English, or is German still dominant?
- biafra 15y agoAt tech meetings usually if there is at least one person not speaking english everyone switches to english. In all companies I have worked for this was the same. If you tell us you want to learn german we will talk german to you :-)
- speedracr 15y agoSign up for the Berlin StartupDigest - about 90% of the events are in English (ruby UG, up.front.ug, ...) and most of the time, there's at least one person presenting in English that can't speak a single word of German. Of course, ze Germans will converse in German amongst themselves afterwards but choose English whenever it's a mixed crowd. Very easy to get by, imo.
- fdiotalevi 15y agoDon't agree at all, having lived 4 years in Germany. Certainly it's cheap, dirty cheap compared to London; certainly it has a good, creative vibe; certainly it's a awesome city. But that's all. Facts I learnt in 4 years in Germany: - it's very difficult to conduct business in Germany (with German customers) if you aren't fluent in German. And while people correctly says it's not difficult to pick up some German, proficiency requires at least 9 months of full time study - taxes are prohibitive - setting up a Gmbh it's expensive, and requires a lot of paperwork. The mini, entrepreneur-friendly UG (aka mini-Gmbh) it's a laughable joke, just political propaganda with so many limitations (number of founders, need to save 25% of profits to build the reserve fund, ...) that's hardly usable for a startup - tax authorities are, as a matter of fact, going after (I'd like to say, persecuting) contractors, especially those coming from abroad or working for foreign companies. I have a dozen of stories of people asked to pay undue VAT, or asked to provide proofs that their employer are conducting business legitimately in Germany, asked to explain why some months they didn't earn any salary, ...
- evangineer 15y agoWhen my business partner told me about the cost and effort in setting up a GMBH I was shocked. In London, we got our Ltd company registered with Companies House for well under 100GBP in about 3 hours. We were registered the same day we submitted our application. I like Berlin, but I wouldn't incorporate over there and the winters in that part of the world are too cold for me!
- eru 15y agoYou can use British Limiteds in Germany as well. It's all part of EU goodness.
- fdiotalevi 15y agoThat's true, you can. On the other side, tax authorities actively try to punish foreign companies operating in Germany with taxes like the Außensteuergesetz (AStG); applicability varies from country to country, from case to case, and in my experience if you ask two accountants whether your Ltd is subject to AStG, you'll get 2 opposite answers.
- FrojoS 15y agoI would love to know which form they will choose or have chosen. A UK inc. or a German GMBH or mini-GMBH?
- davej 15y agoThe usual needlessly controversial headline from TechCrunch. In my opinion it really undermines the content which is actually quite interesting.
- dualogy 15y agoBerlin is awesome, beautiful, lovely -- in the summer, for tourists / temporary guests / foreigners. BUT... being an ex-local -- in the cold season (that lasts 8-9 months out of 12 per year) and for locally-registered sole traders or companies or employees, it's not THAT outstanding. Since I do the "lifestyle business" thing for now, as a German citizen I chose to de-register with the tax authorities and from other registers and stay out of the country except for 2-4 lovely summer months (just arrived back a few weeks back) where I stay here as a long-term "tourist" in holiday flats. Need to socialize with Hacker types? In any place with at least 100k population, you'll find a few. And how many do you need really? My hometown Potsdam had enough of them to have a fun social life. I happily geeked out and co-worked with Hacker Newsers on Malaysian islands. If Berlin really does attract "more of them", how much value does that really add if 1-5 cool people is all that's needed? It's a groovy place for sure for Indie hackers and creative types. But my "company" is registered elsewhere: the authorities here just simply get in the way too much, obstruct your core business with mindless pointless bureaucracy and take WAY too large a cut of your turnovers. I understand when locals or citizens who get together to form a company register it here and suffer through taxes, forms and labour regulations simply because they, their co-founders, employees and clients were born here or are locals too. But US/UK startup founders moving to Germany to set up their company here? I don't see it. Spend your first 3-6 months pre-incorporation product building here on a Ramen basis on a tourist visa, sure, OK. But don't set up shop here unless you have to. If you want to head offshore from the US or the UK, then either Chile or Asia could prove much more worthwhile. And I cannot reiterate enough: geeks and more specifically talented enthusiastic hackers -- they're really everywhere on the planet, not just in SF, Berlin and London. You'll find them wherever you go, as soon as you figure out how and where to look.
- relix 15y agoWhere are you incorporated?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ig1 15y agoAs much as I love Berlin as a city, Germany's legal system is very much focused on protecting employees rather than helping small businesses. Starting a business and dealing with employment law is much easier in the UK than it is in Germany. Beyond that Berlin does have the developer talent pool nor the access to finance that London does.
- darklajid 15y agoActually this doesn't apply to very small companies as far as I am aware. Don't just take my word for it, but I believe companies up to ~7 employees are treated differently..
- dagobart_ 15y agoA former employer of mine stretched that even further by employing interns and freelacers, so he had about two dozen people employed.