Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Swedish tech startups and scaleups

swedishtechnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 116 posts

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#81

Post by mrweasel »

mongol wrote: post #3

Fun list to scroll through. I had no idea about most of these startups, although some where familiar. For example, I saw Grafana Labs in the list. And Klarna is not exactly a startup any longer...

That's okay, many of them aren't tech companies either. I didn't scroll past C, and I already seen a transport company, a car rental company and a fitness subscription.

Just because a company uses computers in some form, doesn't make them a tech company. I know many retailers who are just that: retailers, who use pretty sophisticated software and employ a ton of developers, but they aren't tech companies and would never claim to be one.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#82

Post by Shaanie »

pazx wrote: post #67
cpach wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a point – however, do you know what SWEs in the big US cities earn theses days, working for “FAANG”? (Or Stripe, Square, etc.) It’s not very uncommon to have a yearly compensation of 500-600k or more (USD). In Sweden, very very few SWEs earn more than 80k/year.

I live in Sweden and most SWEs I know earn 6000usd or 72k/year after only 5 years. Earning above 100k is not uncommon.

Earning over 80k SEK per month is uncommon. Not unheard of, but uncommon.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#83

Post by RestlessMind »

kkielhofner wrote: post #52
INTPenis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just a layman when it comes to all that but as someone who was raised in Sweden and lived here all my life I feel like the safety net that the government provides plays a huge role in people feeling free to start their own business, or their own band. When you know you won't become homeless due to a failed venture it becomes easier to take a chance on something.

This is very accurate. While other Nordic and European countries also have strong social safety nets (certainly compared to the US) Sweden seems to have captured something special. For a country with roughly the population of the Chicago metropolitan area Sweden punches well above their weight in everything from startups to pop culture influence[0] to the point where the referenced article calls Sweden "the unofficia…

> Turns out when you have a safety net it's a lot easier to make the jump to forming your own startup

I think you are overindexing on the safety net part. Here[1] is a chart of startups per capita in Europe. Looking at "startups per 1M inhabitants", Estonia has 1100+ while Germany has only 250 in spite of having a great safety net (apparently).

Same article also shows that Sweden has 1769EUR VC funding per capita, when Finland has only 854EUR and Denmark/Norway don't even show up on the chart. All 4 countries have similar cultures, no?

And let's not even talk about Saudi Arabia which spends a lot on social safety net but I haven't seen much entrepreneurial or artistic exports from that country (oil doesn't count).

I believe "forming your own startup" requires a lot of ingredients - ecosystem or flywheel (see: Silicon Valley), funding for risky bets (see: USA), a bit of hunger, education levels, culture of risk taking etc etc.

[1]

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#85

Post by petestream »

archydeb wrote: post #28

I heard that Sweden's high income tax actually incentivised startups, because the only way to get _seriously_ wealthy was through capital gains. Does anybody know whether that's true? If so, it really undermines the narrative that is somewhat dominant in Britain, that high income tax will disincentivize entrepreneurship and innovation etc etc

I would say it is true but more the entire environment. ~15 years ago in Sweden it was relatively easy to become middle class. It was for its time accessible and affordable to have things like education, housing and a family. At the same time it was relatively hard to become upper-middle class because of progressive income taxes, career paths and overall competition. That meant there were a relatively large number of people capable of starting and joining startups with low opportunity cost of doing so. Which also meant there were more startups who were interested in building something that is viable long-term rather than to cash out quickly.

(This isn't really true anymore but that is a different story)

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#87

Post by hoschicz »

catears wrote: post #45
archydeb wrote: post #28

I heard that Sweden's high income tax actually incentivised startups, because the only way to get _seriously_ wealthy was through capital gains. Does anybody know whether that's true? If so, it really undermines the narrative that is somewhat dominant in Britain, that high income tax will disincentivize entrepreneurship and innovation etc etc

My understanding, as a Swedish native, is that income from labour is taxed rather high (i think 70%+ for income over a certain amount). However, capital gains are taxed comparatively low. The two most common ways tax either 30% of the profit, or 1-3% of the annual total value (ish, I don't know the exact numbers and they are probably changing from year to year). How the incentives play out you have to ask someone els…

You can't add 55+25 like that; VAT is 25 % of the 45 % left over. So maximum total marginal tax rate is 66.25 %

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#88

Post by waspight »

kkielhofner wrote: post #52
INTPenis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just a layman when it comes to all that but as someone who was raised in Sweden and lived here all my life I feel like the safety net that the government provides plays a huge role in people feeling free to start their own business, or their own band. When you know you won't become homeless due to a failed venture it becomes easier to take a chance on something.

This is very accurate. While other Nordic and European countries also have strong social safety nets (certainly compared to the US) Sweden seems to have captured something special. For a country with roughly the population of the Chicago metropolitan area Sweden punches well above their weight in everything from startups to pop culture influence[0] to the point where the referenced article calls Sweden "the unofficia…

I have heard that Stockholm is the Silicon Valley of Europe as well so Sweden is going strong I guess.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#89

Post by petestream »

junofan wrote: post #39
archydeb wrote: post #28

I heard that Sweden's high income tax actually incentivised startups, because the only way to get _seriously_ wealthy was through capital gains. Does anybody know whether that's true? If so, it really undermines the narrative that is somewhat dominant in Britain, that high income tax will disincentivize entrepreneurship and innovation etc etc

The only thing that incentivizes startups is access to capital. You need rich people.

Most of the inherent cost of a startup is salaries (offices usually second). Most of salaries goes for paying for housing (with market rate and education usually being the other major costs).

Say you have two startup environment. One where it is affordable with housing, education and most people could try to start a startup and another where those things are expensive and few can. Which one requires more capital and which one is more successful?

Investments are something you get when attractive companies are being created. Not something that creates attractive companies in itself. Plenty of countries have plenty of rich people but most don't stand out in terms of successful startups.

Re: Swedish tech startups and scaleups

#90

Post by robalni »

What's up with all these two-dimensional solid color people graphics that often have unrealistic colors or body shapes? I see them everywhere. Here are a few examples from the list:

* https://metry.io/img/metry-product-information.png

* https://norban.se/assets/img/front-page/section-1/room_7@1x....

* https://nordtechgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/undrawd...

* https://www.nuvoair.com/_nuxt/img/home-enterprise-img.97f461...

* https://sanitation360.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/puff_pro...

* https://securifid.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/kvinna-locki...

* https://www.sinch.com/sites/default/files/styles/medium_hq/p...

* https://workamo.com/img/hero-image.png

* https://www.airmee.com/images/icon_airmee_delivery-fresh.png

* https://www.budid.se/images/video-min.png

Post reply on HN