One piece of advice from an Italian, who was born and grew up there: It's a suicide, absolutely do NOT do this.
We have the best weather, culture, food, wine, beaches, etc, you name it. But opening a business in that dysfunctional country? RUN and don't look back.
Between fiscal pressure, crazy laws and compliances, the effective presumption of guilt, completely broken or unavailable infrastructure in the hand of monopolists, it's outright suicide. Companies will favor "friends" and deny you a chance even if you're competitive.
Oh and we haven't touched the criminal issues at all. I was lucky not have the pleasure of such acquaintances but don't worry, if you become large enough or successful enough, they will come to you.
Italia Startup Visa
11–20 of 214 posts
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#12One of my Italian friends isn't really encouraged by this. And I quote: "I think that I close already 2 business in Italy due to the economic crisis, the fiscal pressure when I left Italy was about 65% (not it is more) and in the first year I went there the 30% of the shop in my city have closed (now it would much more) Even without reading I can tell you that opening a business there now is a suicide. "
I agree with your friend. Avoid Italy.
There's no good reason to open in Italy, especially when in EU you can open in many other places which are much cheaper and easier to deal with.
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#13One of my Italian friends isn't really encouraged by this. And I quote: "I think that I close already 2 business in Italy due to the economic crisis, the fiscal pressure when I left Italy was about 65% (not it is more) and in the first year I went there the 30% of the shop in my city have closed (now it would much more) Even without reading I can tell you that opening a business there now is a suicide. "
I fail to see the connection between opening a startup and the current crisis, honestly. Or with the closure of 30% (?) of the local shops.
Also, there are a few interesting tax incentives that are finally available. For example, a law passed last month introduced 25% and 50% tax credits (depending on the expense category) on R&D investments, including labour costs for "highly trained" (MSc or PhD) workers.
Sure, Italian bureaucracy is not straightforward for a foreigner and you'll need to speak the language, but generalisations like that quoted above are misleading exaggerations.
Italians, especially expats (I am one), tend to victimise themselves and to reason with stereotypes. The "even without reading" part sounds like that.
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#14Russia tried to open Skolkovo, Italy tries to do this. These are nice attempts, but the best way to attract startups is to first reduce government corruption that would pressure businesses that do well.
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#15Ndrangheta.....
It's not like they'd have to settle in Naples. Many people dream of living in Italy but jobs being short, this may be an alternative where you make your own job --and of course, the expectation if you create more jobs and value for Italians. [addendum]Besides, most likely Italy would be your 'base' and Europe, NAmerica, etc your market --so the poor state of the Italian economy may not enter much into the equation ab…
Ndrangheta is not in Naples, organized crimes has different names in different parts of the southern Italy.
That unfortunately doesn't change the fact that we have organized crime in Naples (Camorra).
And I'm sorry and sad to say it but northern Italy has been reached by organized crime a long time ago (they have different businesses, they work in different ways, but they are there).
Disclaimer: I'm Italian, and I'm from Naples.
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#16One piece of advice from an Italian, who was born and grew up there: It's a suicide, absolutely do NOT do this. We have the best weather, culture, food, wine, beaches, etc, you name it. But opening a business in that dysfunctional country? RUN and don't look back. Between fiscal pressure, crazy laws and compliances, the effective presumption of guilt, completely broken or unavailable infrastructure in the hand of mon…
Regarding this statement:
"if you become large enough or successful enough, they will come to you"
I wonder how you can back it up with data (see also my comments below regarding stereotypes).
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not like they'd have to settle in Naples. Many people dream of living in Italy but jobs being short, this may be an alternative where you make your own job --and of course, the expectation if you create more jobs and value for Italians. [addendum]Besides, most likely Italy would be your 'base' and Europe, NAmerica, etc your market --so the poor state of the Italian economy may not enter much into the equation ab…
Ndrangheta is not in Naples, organized crimes has different names in different parts of the southern Italy. That unfortunately doesn't change the fact that we have organized crime in Naples (Camorra). And I'm sorry and sad to say it but northern Italy has been reached by organized crime a long time ago (they have different businesses, they work in different ways, but they are there). Disclaimer: I'm Italian, and I'm…
Point taken and thanks for the correction. I would have to ask however, would mafia tentacles reach into software based businesses if it's basically a development office?
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#18If I remember correctly, Peldi Guilizzoni (Balsamiq) highly discourages against starting a company in Italy. Something about how taxes are collected...
"Italy tax collectors took millions for parties, yachts" http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2012/10/03/20255286.html
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#19One piece of advice from an Italian, who was born and grew up there: It's a suicide, absolutely do NOT do this. We have the best weather, culture, food, wine, beaches, etc, you name it. But opening a business in that dysfunctional country? RUN and don't look back. Between fiscal pressure, crazy laws and compliances, the effective presumption of guilt, completely broken or unavailable infrastructure in the hand of mon…
"the best weather, culture, food, wine, beaches, etc, you name it."
Hmm. Why not go there, write some code for the broader world, start the business somewhere else?
Re: Italia Startup Visa
#20Ndrangheta.....
Organized crime has nothing to do with the issues of opening a startup in Italy! What is missing is an ecosystem for startups: no VCs, fair amount of bureaucracy and challenging employment laws. However, you get great engineers, passionate, inventive and hard working for a pricing that is competitive with India. (Sad but true).
I agre with what you say except for the salary comparison with India. Even though salary are low in Italy compared to various other countries, in IT too, according to payscale[1] the average salary of a developer is 340k Rupie per year, that is around 4.7k Euro. The average salary in Italy for IT should be at least 25k-30k Euro.
But to be fair it would be interesting to compare it to cost of living, because as Italian I know for sure that IT guys are not paid better than others in Italy, while I have no info about India (it could be that they are pay not too much, but really well compared to other workers and local cost of living).
Having said that, I agree with many others saying that it's not a great idea to go to Italy for startups.. things are moving and are improving compared to 5 or 10 years ago but in no way comparable to other places in UE (let's compare for example Berlin, London or Paris with Milan or Rome...)
[1] http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Software_Developer/S...