The first comment is correct - this is the UK scene more than the european scene.
My real problem with the UK scene is the relative lack of talent available to startups. Where do talented graduates from the UK want to work? Banks, consultancies and accountancies. How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please.
With the cost of living being so high in London, why wouldn't they?
Unless you can raise enough money to pay these people, your chances are far more limited. And London VCs are still far more risk-averse than SV VCs. To my mind that makes entrepreneurship in London a rich (and older) man's game compared with SV.
Of course there are counter-examples, but I think they've succeeded despite London. I'm sure this situation will improve (it has already been doing so), but in the meantime I plan to move to SV. I just think it will improve my odds.
I do get a fair amount of job offers from startups in London, but they are very inflexible about remote working (I'm in Scotland). Want me to move to London ? Sure, double whatever salary you're offering and I might consider it. Otherwise it would be a big drop in my standard of living - nice big apartment up here for cardboard box down there.
There is a lot of good talent in the UK, the problem is we have a massively over-centralized economy, which is bad for London (way too expensive to live for average workers, and infrastructure straining under excess population) and bad for the rest of the UK (no jobs). Contrast with Germany, which has a more distributed (and far healthier) economy - Berlin, Munich, Hamburg etc.
Remote working would help redress the imbalance but some startups for good and bad reasons are reluctant. And no, I could care less about twin monitors or aeron chairs.
How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please.
Best of luck to them. I know few (non-contractors) who pull in even 90% of that with substantial experience.
Idle wandering of mind a while back, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to do a startup I'd base it in Northampton. Relatively cheap area by UK standards but livable, hour by train to both central London and Birmingham/West Midlands (about half the size of London so a substantial catchment area in its own right), good N/S and E/W road transport links and if I advertised for experienced devs at USD50k (equivalent) I'd be beating them away with a stick. I don't have any plans in that direction mind you, but it's that sort of thing that makes me wonder why anyone bothers setting up in London.
From personal experience, talent is to be found outside of London. But it's difficult to get them to move to London, they just don't think it's worth a hassle.
There is a reason why so many successfull UK hardware companies are based in Hampshire, Oxford or Cambridge.
And London VCs are still far more risk-averse than SV VCs.
This is the real problem. Most US startups pay considerably more than 40k GBP = $63k USD. $63k USD would be considered laughably low for anyone besides perhaps a middle-of-the-pack recent graduate.
So it seems that startups need to either generate revenue quickly move to where the money is (NY and SV, apparently).
I live in Silicon Valley but organize an incubator in Paris (with other branches in other European cities). I argue these issues daily with our founders.
To hire someone in Silicon Valley, plan on spending a minimum of $80K. A senior engineer will cost you $130K easy. So I don't understand why salaries would be a barrier to hiring in Europe, people work for cheap there.
One of the barriers I see is the lack of super-angels. I don't want money from dentists and doctors, I want to raise money from entrepreneurs who know what it's like to start a company. The problem is that in France (and Europe in general), even the successful entrepreneurs tend to hide, because it's not polite to talk about being successful/rich.
In Silicon Valley, there is an endless stream of entrepreneurs with serious cash who are interested in hearing your story.
In my opinion one thing that is very different from the US compared to Europe is that labour laws here are pretty favorable to employees. This has the downside (from a start-ups perspective) of having a workforce that is mostly happy.
Happy people are in a strong position to negotiate and will also not easily go and leave their happy well paying jobs in order to be 'repeatedly punched in the face' (that's not mine).
So besides the obvious advantages that an ecosystem like Silicon Valley offers you can bet that if you see a European start-up that the people behind it are extremely well motivated and probably have some funding. As opposed to the 'throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks' strategy employed in Silicon Valley. Typically European start-ups have a higher rate of success than their American counterparts but the magnitude of the individual successes is lower.
This is all from my limited perspective so apply salt liberally.
Go to Portugal.
Great weather with amazing beaches and country side, low cost of living and lot's of engineers that can speak fluent English. Also the government has subsidies for tech companies, specially in the IT sector.
Spain is ok as well, but I find that people there have a hard time with English and like to party a bit too much.
And the comments about London are true. It is very expensive to live here and the quality of life is appalling. Many people who start out in sexy industries ( games, web, etc... ) gravitate to finance because they can't afford to live an adult life here on the wages of those industries.
Portugal salaries maybe lower but if you have not lived in Portugal for 10 years you can apply for non-habitual status which means you pay a flat rate of tax of just 20%!
Actually I've worked both in Portugal and Spain, and I find the latter better than the former in many aspects. Never had a problem with English and Spaniards never struck me as party animals, at least no more than elsewhere.
Here in Ireland we're constantly hearing about "the knowledge economy" but I think it has yet to materialise. Ever since Intel set up shop here we've managed to attract the biggest movers in technology to set up their European HQ.
So much so in fact that the bigger European countries constantly bitch about us, citing our 12.5% corporation tax rate to mask their own failure in attracting these investments. The real reason probably has to do with the fact our spoken English is the best in the world and years of "free" fees for college places have resulted in a hugely educated population.
Producing indigenous firms which don't serve niche markets is still beyond us. This is probably due to a conservative funding community with the "spend way more than you need, we'll refund it after" model, as well as university students majoring in "safe" subjects like arts, languages or business rather than mathematics and computer science.
Even for those students majoring in compsci, they gear you towards getting a job, not starting your own company.
I dunno.. I think our corporate tax does have a lot, if not close to everything, to do with companies basing their European headquarters here (eg, see Double Irish/Dutch Sandwich [1]). Our spoken English isn't as amazing as you make it out to be (its certainly not bad, but best in the world?? besides, have you ever been to Cork ;-) or certain parts of Dublin for that matter...) and while the "free" fees certainly helped our education, I still feel our education is inferior to a lot of the rest of the world. For example, computer science-related courses are still not attracting as many students as it should, even though, here in Ireland, IT jobs are much more plentiful than others [2].
Of course, regardless of how great we think we are as a startup hub, I've seen very little focus on startups here. Besides the occasional startup weekend, nubie.ie and Enterprise Ireland (which, IMHO, isn't very useful to a lot of - if not most - Internet tech startups), I see absolutely nothing here that shows any kind of innovation or advancements in the way of startups. Which is a pity, because I think that would be a great start to improving the economic situation.
university students majoring in "safe" subjects like arts, languages or business rather than mathematics and computer science
Funnily (or sadly) enough, I think the "safe" subjects are the ones that are really feeling the full force of the economic problems, while jobs in sciences, from where I stand anyway, are reasonably plentiful (well, compsci anyway, I haven't paid much attention to others since they're not relevant to me personally).
Even for those students majoring in compsci, they gear you towards getting a job, not starting your own company.
Agreed. This is definitely the case here. I think its holding back our potential, but I don't know what could be done about it really.
> Producing indigenous firms which don't serve niche markets is still beyond us.
I'm not sure about that, I've been in Havok (http://www.havok.com/) for several years now, very successful Irish startup in the Games/Entertainment space (hardly a niche), acquired by Intel three years ago ($100m+). Granted there's room to improve in terms of the number of indigenous startups, but there are success stories out there.
People earn far too much in Germany to be attracted by startup salaries. Still, once I finish my part-time masters, and my wife goes back to work too, I wouldn't mind getting into the scene. Got a few ideas, but would probably rather be a technical co-founder alongside an ideas/business guy.
Still, if anything is happening in Cologne in the mean time, give us a holler.
He obviously has a vested interest in lauding his backers. If the European ecosystem is actually so great then why did it take the author three years to raise $1.3m?
[+] [-] ladon86|15 years ago|reply
My real problem with the UK scene is the relative lack of talent available to startups. Where do talented graduates from the UK want to work? Banks, consultancies and accountancies. How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please.
With the cost of living being so high in London, why wouldn't they?
Unless you can raise enough money to pay these people, your chances are far more limited. And London VCs are still far more risk-averse than SV VCs. To my mind that makes entrepreneurship in London a rich (and older) man's game compared with SV.
Of course there are counter-examples, but I think they've succeeded despite London. I'm sure this situation will improve (it has already been doing so), but in the meantime I plan to move to SV. I just think it will improve my odds.
[+] [-] zeemonkee|15 years ago|reply
There is a lot of good talent in the UK, the problem is we have a massively over-centralized economy, which is bad for London (way too expensive to live for average workers, and infrastructure straining under excess population) and bad for the rest of the UK (no jobs). Contrast with Germany, which has a more distributed (and far healthier) economy - Berlin, Munich, Hamburg etc.
Remote working would help redress the imbalance but some startups for good and bad reasons are reluctant. And no, I could care less about twin monitors or aeron chairs.
[+] [-] eftpotrm|15 years ago|reply
Best of luck to them. I know few (non-contractors) who pull in even 90% of that with substantial experience.
Idle wandering of mind a while back, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to do a startup I'd base it in Northampton. Relatively cheap area by UK standards but livable, hour by train to both central London and Birmingham/West Midlands (about half the size of London so a substantial catchment area in its own right), good N/S and E/W road transport links and if I advertised for experienced devs at USD50k (equivalent) I'd be beating them away with a stick. I don't have any plans in that direction mind you, but it's that sort of thing that makes me wonder why anyone bothers setting up in London.
[+] [-] bnastic|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|15 years ago|reply
This is the real problem. Most US startups pay considerably more than 40k GBP = $63k USD. $63k USD would be considered laughably low for anyone besides perhaps a middle-of-the-pack recent graduate.
So it seems that startups need to either generate revenue quickly move to where the money is (NY and SV, apparently).
[+] [-] bad_user|15 years ago|reply
Give me your email if you want my LinkedIn profile; all I want is £30k :-)
[+] [-] zumda|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alain94040|15 years ago|reply
To hire someone in Silicon Valley, plan on spending a minimum of $80K. A senior engineer will cost you $130K easy. So I don't understand why salaries would be a barrier to hiring in Europe, people work for cheap there.
One of the barriers I see is the lack of super-angels. I don't want money from dentists and doctors, I want to raise money from entrepreneurs who know what it's like to start a company. The problem is that in France (and Europe in general), even the successful entrepreneurs tend to hide, because it's not polite to talk about being successful/rich.
In Silicon Valley, there is an endless stream of entrepreneurs with serious cash who are interested in hearing your story.
[+] [-] jkaljundi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
Happy people are in a strong position to negotiate and will also not easily go and leave their happy well paying jobs in order to be 'repeatedly punched in the face' (that's not mine).
So besides the obvious advantages that an ecosystem like Silicon Valley offers you can bet that if you see a European start-up that the people behind it are extremely well motivated and probably have some funding. As opposed to the 'throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks' strategy employed in Silicon Valley. Typically European start-ups have a higher rate of success than their American counterparts but the magnitude of the individual successes is lower.
This is all from my limited perspective so apply salt liberally.
[+] [-] yalforreca|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fun2have|15 years ago|reply
Portugal salaries maybe lower but if you have not lived in Portugal for 10 years you can apply for non-habitual status which means you pay a flat rate of tax of just 20%!
Also you have the sun!
[+] [-] jcoen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] echubb|15 years ago|reply
So much so in fact that the bigger European countries constantly bitch about us, citing our 12.5% corporation tax rate to mask their own failure in attracting these investments. The real reason probably has to do with the fact our spoken English is the best in the world and years of "free" fees for college places have resulted in a hugely educated population.
Producing indigenous firms which don't serve niche markets is still beyond us. This is probably due to a conservative funding community with the "spend way more than you need, we'll refund it after" model, as well as university students majoring in "safe" subjects like arts, languages or business rather than mathematics and computer science.
Even for those students majoring in compsci, they gear you towards getting a job, not starting your own company.
[+] [-] dkersten|15 years ago|reply
Of course, regardless of how great we think we are as a startup hub, I've seen very little focus on startups here. Besides the occasional startup weekend, nubie.ie and Enterprise Ireland (which, IMHO, isn't very useful to a lot of - if not most - Internet tech startups), I see absolutely nothing here that shows any kind of innovation or advancements in the way of startups. Which is a pity, because I think that would be a great start to improving the economic situation.
university students majoring in "safe" subjects like arts, languages or business rather than mathematics and computer science
Funnily (or sadly) enough, I think the "safe" subjects are the ones that are really feeling the full force of the economic problems, while jobs in sciences, from where I stand anyway, are reasonably plentiful (well, compsci anyway, I haven't paid much attention to others since they're not relevant to me personally).
Even for those students majoring in compsci, they gear you towards getting a job, not starting your own company.
Agreed. This is definitely the case here. I think its holding back our potential, but I don't know what could be done about it really.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho...
[2] for example, http://irishdev.com/Home/News/1403-The-State-of-Play--IT-Gra... though from personal experience I know this to be true for all kinds of computer/programming related jobs
[+] [-] fedd|15 years ago|reply
better than in England? :)
[+] [-] nfg|15 years ago|reply
I'm not sure about that, I've been in Havok (http://www.havok.com/) for several years now, very successful Irish startup in the Games/Entertainment space (hardly a niche), acquired by Intel three years ago ($100m+). Granted there's room to improve in terms of the number of indigenous startups, but there are success stories out there.
[+] [-] zeemonkee|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notahacker|15 years ago|reply
Possibly our very European sense of perspective is what's holding us back...
[+] [-] StudyAnimal|15 years ago|reply
Still, if anything is happening in Cologne in the mean time, give us a holler.
[+] [-] thisisfmu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ig1|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] estrelinya|15 years ago|reply
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