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Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

novobrief.com

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Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

#21

Post by josu »

joeyspn wrote: post #8

This just scratches the surface of what could really be. Spain still is in general a hostile country for entrepreneurs with an anti-innovation government famous for awful decisions like: - Regulating heavily crowdfunding rendering it unusable - Eliminating stock options' fiscal incentives [0] - Taxing the sun in order to protect energy lobbies from solar energy. [1] - Trying to get a cut from Google News because they…

And let's not forget that one of the biggest (post dot com bubble) Spanish statups, Gowex, which was valued at 1.9B at some point, turned out to be a big fraud, a la Enron. [1]

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-07-17/spains-lets-...

Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

#22

Post by adventured »

hibikir wrote: post #19
scalesolved wrote: post #3

I think the startup scene is growing quite rapidly here (Barcelona) however from my perspective it seems that a lot of founders are from abroad and it saddens me a little as there is a great wealth of talented people here that could be founders or technical founders they just don't seem to realise it!

Many of us just left, when we saw the difference in salaries between Spain and the alternatives, and the difficulty of marketing products for Spaniards: For instance, I'd not touch the B2B business in Spain, given the way people choose vendors. In my case, I realized that US salaries were on a different level, for a very similar cost of living when outside of NY and the Bay area, and left. Every time I go back home,…

> Very different from the idea of companies with venture capital that try to take off before running out of runway that you see in the US.

That's how an extremely small number of businesses are started in the US. It represents such a tiny fraction of the total, as to be meaningless outside of half a dozen cities that dominate VC start-ups. 0.05% of businesses in the US get started via traditional venture capital.

Most software companies in the US are bootstrapped and funded from personal savings, or from small angel investments from family & friends. That goes the same for most of the successful software companies, they're not VC darlings (venture capitalists have absolutely no interest in your typical, small to mid-size software start-up).

Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

#23

Post by 6t6t6 »

hibikir wrote: post #19
scalesolved wrote: post #3

I think the startup scene is growing quite rapidly here (Barcelona) however from my perspective it seems that a lot of founders are from abroad and it saddens me a little as there is a great wealth of talented people here that could be founders or technical founders they just don't seem to realise it!

Many of us just left, when we saw the difference in salaries between Spain and the alternatives, and the difficulty of marketing products for Spaniards: For instance, I'd not touch the B2B business in Spain, given the way people choose vendors. In my case, I realized that US salaries were on a different level, for a very similar cost of living when outside of NY and the Bay area, and left. Every time I go back home,…

I am in the same situation as you but what keeps me from going back to Barcelona are not the salaries, but the kind of uninteresting jobs that are offered.

I would go back home for the quality of life, not for the salary. But only if I could join a company that is actually creating something, instead of just using products created by others.

Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

#24

Post by soci »

6t6t6 wrote: post #23
hibikir wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us just left, when we saw the difference in salaries between Spain and the alternatives, and the difficulty of marketing products for Spaniards: For instance, I'd not touch the B2B business in Spain, given the way people choose vendors. In my case, I realized that US salaries were on a different level, for a very similar cost of living when outside of NY and the Bay area, and left. Every time I go back home,…

I am in the same situation as you but what keeps me from going back to Barcelona are not the salaries, but the kind of uninteresting jobs that are offered. I would go back home for the quality of life, not for the salary. But only if I could join a company that is actually creating something, instead of just using products created by others.

Have you taken a look at www.jobsbcn.com ? More than 250 startups are "creating something" right now in Barcelona.

Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

#25

Post by scalesolved »

6t6t6 wrote: post #23
hibikir wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us just left, when we saw the difference in salaries between Spain and the alternatives, and the difficulty of marketing products for Spaniards: For instance, I'd not touch the B2B business in Spain, given the way people choose vendors. In my case, I realized that US salaries were on a different level, for a very similar cost of living when outside of NY and the Bay area, and left. Every time I go back home,…

I am in the same situation as you but what keeps me from going back to Barcelona are not the salaries, but the kind of uninteresting jobs that are offered. I would go back home for the quality of life, not for the salary. But only if I could join a company that is actually creating something, instead of just using products created by others.

Have you ever considered remote work? I moved to Barcelona to work for a few companies but after a couple of years I wanted different challenges but still to stay here so I looked into remote work and it's the best of both worlds!

Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

#26

Post by collyw »

lleims wrote: post #9

For those interested, here's another article with average salary for engineering jobs in Barcelona: http://novobrief.com/tech-developer-jobs-salaries-barcelona/

I might need to change my title from Software Engineer to Back End Developer.

Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

#27

Post by collyw »

scalesolved wrote: post #25
6t6t6 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in the same situation as you but what keeps me from going back to Barcelona are not the salaries, but the kind of uninteresting jobs that are offered. I would go back home for the quality of life, not for the salary. But only if I could join a company that is actually creating something, instead of just using products created by others.

Have you ever considered remote work? I moved to Barcelona to work for a few companies but after a couple of years I wanted different challenges but still to stay here so I looked into remote work and it's the best of both worlds!

I have been trying to get remote work, but its difficult. Especially as a back end dev, with little to show off.

Re: Investment in Spanish startups to surpass $500M in 2015 for the first time

#28

Post by 6t6t6 »

soci wrote: post #24
6t6t6 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in the same situation as you but what keeps me from going back to Barcelona are not the salaries, but the kind of uninteresting jobs that are offered. I would go back home for the quality of life, not for the salary. But only if I could join a company that is actually creating something, instead of just using products created by others.

Have you taken a look at www.jobsbcn.com ? More than 250 startups are "creating something" right now in Barcelona.

I didn't know about this site. Thanks! Definitively, is a really good place to research about interesting startups.

King are hiring like crazy! I am curious to know how good must be working with them.

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