8 ms·

Any thoughts from people on the ground in those areas?

daliusd 14y ago
I'm from Lithuania (that is Baltic state, but http://www.arcticstartup.com/ http://www.arcticstartup.com/ includes Baltic states in their news coverage). I'm constantly getting offers from various startups without looking for them. EDIT: basically if you want to start company here you can get help from forming team, getting training, getting a little bit money and etc.
- bjelkeman-again 14y ago
  Yeah. I just posted a devops position there. :)
vukk 14y ago
I'm a student at Aalto. There is promise, there are some communities with really, really smart people. But this article feels like it hypes the government. Personally I do not agree with the government throwing a bunch of money at things, it creates a loop of nonsense, people milking the cow while the fun lasts. This can be seen and heard on the ground level here. Throwing money at companies is something Tekes has done for ages with established companies in Finland, like Nokia. The startups are just the hot thing now so money is flowing there. This leads to the fact that the startup scene is hyped in general. Please note that this comment is quite specific to Finland.
- smcl 14y ago
  I've heard bad things on HN (possibly from yourself) about government startup funding in Finland - something along the lines of there are a small number of entrepreneurs favoured by the government who receive investments and produce some mediocre product doomed to fail and repeat semi-regularly. Is this anything close to the truth or did I misunderstand/mis-remember this?
  - enra 14y ago
    As far as I know there is no "favoritism" for goverment grants . Like any fundraising, there are those are better / more experienced with it and those who aren't. But the real problem is that the government officials are not investors. Steve Blank said this well on his visit: Ironically one of the things that’s holding back the Finnish cluster is Tekes, the government organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland. It’s hard enough to pick which existing companies with known business models to aid. Yet Tekes does that and is trying to act like a government-run Venture Capital firm. At Tekes, government employees (and their hired consultants) – with no equity, no risk or reward, no startup or venture capital experience – try to pick startup winners and losers. http://steveblank.com/2011/10/07/the-helsinki-spring/ http://steveblank.com/2011/10/07/the-helsinki-spring/
  - slash-dot 14y ago
    I'm from Finland, from what I have heard and seen about the government funding companies is that they usually fund companies with a clear plan and with founders with a lot of experience in their field (that is have worked their whole life in the field/phds).
    - smcl 14y ago
      So it sounds like I'm mistaken then, hmm in that case I wonder what I was reading on this topic.
INTPenis 14y ago
Sweden here, I feel like we have a startup scene just like California these days. It's fun. Students are clearly influenced by what they've heard and seen from the states. And the technology around them is making innovation easy.
meriksson 14y ago
Running a software company in Stockholm, Sweden is a blast. It is a great place to live, plenty of good people to recruit, a decent domestic market, e.g. many big companies willing to try out services from startups. There is a vast number of small tech companies here, most of them completely unknown. Every week I learn about some cool new company doing their thing just around the block from us, without ever having heard of the people involved. There are some major caveats: Income taxes are extremely high and tax rules makes it almost impossible to share ownership in a rational way, e.g. it is very hard to setup stock option programs etc. Also, the domestic venture capital market is extremely underdeveloped - a great opportunity for foreign investors! I am a firm opponent of all government programs to stimulate entrepreneurship. My view is that the government should simply get out of the way. And in fact, except for the taxes, this is by and large what the Swedish government is doing. For example, there is very little bureaucracy around running a business, e.g. starting an incorporated company is now done easily over the internet, often the whole process can be completed in a matter of days.
- robin_reala 14y ago
  Out of interest, do you think it’d be easy to get into the startup scene with minimal Swedish? My wife is Swedish and we have in the past considered a move to Stockholm but my Swedish is absolutely not fluent (although were we to do it I’d enrol in an evening course as soon as we moved).
  - Matti 14y ago
    Getting by in Stockholm won't be a problem: you can safely assume that people within the start-up scene are fluent in English. You'll be met with a slightly different kind of problem: as communicating in English is so effortless, you'll have few opportunities to really practice your Swedish.
    - robin_reala 14y ago
      Hah, yeah, I know the Swede’s proclivity for English :) Just wasn’t sure that it’d be acceptable to speak it in a business context. That’s interesting for sure.
maggit 14y ago
I'm involved in the startup scene in Norway, and it seems to me that there are mainly two sources of real money; oil (gas/offshore/etc) and fish, considering both private and public funding. It doesn't look to me like unrelated tech startups gain any special advantages by being in Norway. I think we are still fighting the unfortunate culture of the Law of Jante: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
- arethuza 14y ago
  I grew up in a community in the North of Scotland that was dominated by fishing (more oil these days) and most boat-owning skippers were pretty much risk-seeking entrepreneurs - with pretty big rewards possible (certainly well into F-you money). The chapter on Iceland in Boomering Michael Lewis where he describes how the risk seeking fishermen were maybe not the best choice to become investment bankers reminded me a lot of people I knew when I was younger.
- larsmak 14y ago
  I partially agree. Norway is a pretty small country - and folks here, it's seems, would rather sit on cafés drinking coffy and "solving the problems of the world" rather than getting into the hard world of entrepreneurship. There's just not that many good ideas to fund here (?) There's some gov. initiative, and now they are also open sourcing more (of our) data (and even throws in a competition: www.apps4norge.no) Also IMHO, Scandinavians needs to stop blaming the "law of Jante" all the time - maybe we should take a look at ourself instead? :)
skarmklart 14y ago
Lund, Sweden, here. Currently doing a SaaS mobile project in my startup. Malmö has a great startup scene with Foo Cafe and other gatherings. In Lund you have LTH, Ericsson, Ideon, etc so there's a lot of tech talent there as well. Anyone, feel free to hit me up for free coffee in our Malmö office :)
Geee 14y ago
There's one anecdote I can share from Finland: 'startup' is now an actual word used in mainstream media. http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup-yritys http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup-yritys
enra 14y ago
I've been around the scene about 5 years (one of the founders of ArcticStartup which was mentioned in the article). I think the Economist is pretty accurate on the fact that there is lot of bubbling but takes time and experience to actually build something big and successful. SV has had the mindset, experience and infrastructure for decades. We are just starting now. PandoDaily about Helsinki: http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/20/welcome-to-helsinki-home-of-the-sauna-supercell-and-some-angry-birds/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/20/welcome-to-helsinki-home-of... & http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/22/out-of-the-fire-into-the-sauna-how-students-power-finlands-startup-ecosystem/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/22/out-of-the-fire-into-the-sa...

I'm from Lithuania (that is Baltic state, but http://www.arcticstartup.com/ http://www.arcticstartup.com/ includes Baltic states in their news coverage). I'm constantly getting offers from various startups without looking for them. EDIT: basically if you want to start company here you can get help from forming team, getting training, getting a little bit money and etc.

bjelkeman-again 14y ago
Yeah. I just posted a devops position there. :)

vukk 14y ago

I'm a student at Aalto. There is promise, there are some communities with really, really smart people. But this article feels like it hypes the government. Personally I do not agree with the government throwing a bunch of money at things, it creates a loop of nonsense, people milking the cow while the fun lasts. This can be seen and heard on the ground level here. Throwing money at companies is something Tekes has done for ages with established companies in Finland, like Nokia. The startups are just the hot thing now so money is flowing there. This leads to the fact that the startup scene is hyped in general. Please note that this comment is quite specific to Finland.

smcl 14y ago
I've heard bad things on HN (possibly from yourself) about government startup funding in Finland - something along the lines of there are a small number of entrepreneurs favoured by the government who receive investments and produce some mediocre product doomed to fail and repeat semi-regularly. Is this anything close to the truth or did I misunderstand/mis-remember this?
- enra 14y ago
  As far as I know there is no "favoritism" for goverment grants . Like any fundraising, there are those are better / more experienced with it and those who aren't. But the real problem is that the government officials are not investors. Steve Blank said this well on his visit: Ironically one of the things that’s holding back the Finnish cluster is Tekes, the government organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland. It’s hard enough to pick which existing companies with known business models to aid. Yet Tekes does that and is trying to act like a government-run Venture Capital firm. At Tekes, government employees (and their hired consultants) – with no equity, no risk or reward, no startup or venture capital experience – try to pick startup winners and losers. http://steveblank.com/2011/10/07/the-helsinki-spring/ http://steveblank.com/2011/10/07/the-helsinki-spring/
- slash-dot 14y ago
  I'm from Finland, from what I have heard and seen about the government funding companies is that they usually fund companies with a clear plan and with founders with a lot of experience in their field (that is have worked their whole life in the field/phds).
  - smcl 14y ago
    So it sounds like I'm mistaken then, hmm in that case I wonder what I was reading on this topic.

INTPenis 14y ago

Sweden here, I feel like we have a startup scene just like California these days. It's fun. Students are clearly influenced by what they've heard and seen from the states. And the technology around them is making innovation easy.

meriksson 14y ago

Running a software company in Stockholm, Sweden is a blast. It is a great place to live, plenty of good people to recruit, a decent domestic market, e.g. many big companies willing to try out services from startups. There is a vast number of small tech companies here, most of them completely unknown. Every week I learn about some cool new company doing their thing just around the block from us, without ever having heard of the people involved. There are some major caveats: Income taxes are extremely high and tax rules makes it almost impossible to share ownership in a rational way, e.g. it is very hard to setup stock option programs etc. Also, the domestic venture capital market is extremely underdeveloped - a great opportunity for foreign investors! I am a firm opponent of all government programs to stimulate entrepreneurship. My view is that the government should simply get out of the way. And in fact, except for the taxes, this is by and large what the Swedish government is doing. For example, there is very little bureaucracy around running a business, e.g. starting an incorporated company is now done easily over the internet, often the whole process can be completed in a matter of days.

robin_reala 14y ago
Out of interest, do you think it’d be easy to get into the startup scene with minimal Swedish? My wife is Swedish and we have in the past considered a move to Stockholm but my Swedish is absolutely not fluent (although were we to do it I’d enrol in an evening course as soon as we moved).
- Matti 14y ago
  Getting by in Stockholm won't be a problem: you can safely assume that people within the start-up scene are fluent in English. You'll be met with a slightly different kind of problem: as communicating in English is so effortless, you'll have few opportunities to really practice your Swedish.
  - robin_reala 14y ago
    Hah, yeah, I know the Swede’s proclivity for English :) Just wasn’t sure that it’d be acceptable to speak it in a business context. That’s interesting for sure.

maggit 14y ago

I'm involved in the startup scene in Norway, and it seems to me that there are mainly two sources of real money; oil (gas/offshore/etc) and fish, considering both private and public funding. It doesn't look to me like unrelated tech startups gain any special advantages by being in Norway. I think we are still fighting the unfortunate culture of the Law of Jante: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

arethuza 14y ago
I grew up in a community in the North of Scotland that was dominated by fishing (more oil these days) and most boat-owning skippers were pretty much risk-seeking entrepreneurs - with pretty big rewards possible (certainly well into F-you money). The chapter on Iceland in Boomering Michael Lewis where he describes how the risk seeking fishermen were maybe not the best choice to become investment bankers reminded me a lot of people I knew when I was younger.
larsmak 14y ago
I partially agree. Norway is a pretty small country - and folks here, it's seems, would rather sit on cafés drinking coffy and "solving the problems of the world" rather than getting into the hard world of entrepreneurship. There's just not that many good ideas to fund here (?) There's some gov. initiative, and now they are also open sourcing more (of our) data (and even throws in a competition: www.apps4norge.no) Also IMHO, Scandinavians needs to stop blaming the "law of Jante" all the time - maybe we should take a look at ourself instead? :)

skarmklart 14y ago

Lund, Sweden, here. Currently doing a SaaS mobile project in my startup. Malmö has a great startup scene with Foo Cafe and other gatherings. In Lund you have LTH, Ericsson, Ideon, etc so there's a lot of tech talent there as well. Anyone, feel free to hit me up for free coffee in our Malmö office :)

Geee 14y ago

There's one anecdote I can share from Finland: 'startup' is now an actual word used in mainstream media. http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup-yritys http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup-yritys

enra 14y ago

I've been around the scene about 5 years (one of the founders of ArcticStartup which was mentioned in the article). I think the Economist is pretty accurate on the fact that there is lot of bubbling but takes time and experience to actually build something big and successful. SV has had the mindset, experience and infrastructure for decades. We are just starting now. PandoDaily about Helsinki: http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/20/welcome-to-helsinki-home-of-the-sauna-supercell-and-some-angry-birds/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/20/welcome-to-helsinki-home-of... & http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/22/out-of-the-fire-into-the-sauna-how-students-power-finlands-startup-ecosystem/ http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/22/out-of-the-fire-into-the-sa...