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Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

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Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#11

Post by dejv »

galfarragem wrote: post #4

Fortune cookie: a niche IT job in Eastern Europe will, with high probability, grant you the best life standards available worldwide.

Yes, if you can manage to find even some 40k or 50k/year contract it will put you into about 5% of top earner in population in many central/east european countries.

Prices are not as low as you might imagine, but it will give you a very nice life standards. You are not going to be able to afford luxury cars or other luxury items (those costs the same everywhere), but otherwise you would be set.

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#12

Post by Kaizeras »

paganel wrote: post #8
expertentipp wrote: post #6

> only a handful of our tech-oriented students had participated in hackatons, contributed to open-source software, had started a personal blog or answered questions in online help communities such as StackOverflow It's Eastern Europe, so those even marginally competent who haven't left are employed for peanuts in outsourcing centers, working on brain-numbing projects 9-5 or even 8-6. Ain't nobody got time for that.

It depends, there are quite a number of exceptions. Yeah, if you're going to get yourself into a farm-like outsourcing company as a fresh CS graduate then you'll have a pretty numb programming life in front of you. But there are also lots of start-ups/small companies which do really interesting stuff (some of them have been acquired by Western companies for quite a lot of money or have grown into "middle" companies).…

> But, yeah, Eastern Europe (and Europe in general, with the possible exceptions of London, Berlin and maybe Dublin) will never get even close to the "feeling" one gets as a programmer in SV

That's exactly the thought that hits me every morning I wake up. That "feeling" that you're in the right place and in the right time to build some truly revolutionary technology. I hope that I start getting this feeling here, in Bulgaria, soon. Otherwise I'll have too many reasons to emigrate for a few years.

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#13

Post by fest »

baybal2 wrote: post #10

Bulgaria has low income tax, but a monsterous social security, EI and pension payments as is with most formerly red countries. This gives self employed people, or people leaving their profits on a company account an ennormous, unfair advantage

That is, until those people realize that they most likely will need that assistance at some point of their lives (child birth, major health issues).

EDIT:

To expand a bit, my wife is currently in one of those situations. A government program allowed reduced social taxes for small businesses (Now, with a child underway, we came to realize, that the social benefits she will be getting before and after birth will amount to maybe few tens of EUR/month (compared to 60% of previous wage when full social taxes are being paid).

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#14

Post by mgkimsal »

Kaizeras wrote: post #12
paganel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, there are quite a number of exceptions. Yeah, if you're going to get yourself into a farm-like outsourcing company as a fresh CS graduate then you'll have a pretty numb programming life in front of you. But there are also lots of start-ups/small companies which do really interesting stuff (some of them have been acquired by Western companies for quite a lot of money or have grown into "middle" companies).…

> But, yeah, Eastern Europe (and Europe in general, with the possible exceptions of London, Berlin and maybe Dublin) will never get even close to the "feeling" one gets as a programmer in SV That's exactly the thought that hits me every morning I wake up. That "feeling" that you're in the right place and in the right time to build some truly revolutionary technology. I hope that I start getting this feeling here, in…

> That "feeling" that you're in the right place and in the right time to build some truly revolutionary technology.

How many of the people in SV have that 'feeling' yet are completely wrong? Or... maybe a better question - how many actually build that 'truly revolutionary technology'?

There's a chance you'd get such a great 'feeling' every morning you wake up in SV, but there's more chance you can have an impact on the lives of people in your country by working with others and expanding the pool of opportunity right there.

You're in a position to help create a revolution in your geographic area, vs just sharecrop on someone else's revolution plantation.

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#15

Post by baybal2 »

fest wrote: post #13
baybal2 wrote: post #10

Bulgaria has low income tax, but a monsterous social security, EI and pension payments as is with most formerly red countries. This gives self employed people, or people leaving their profits on a company account an ennormous, unfair advantage

That is, until those people realize that they most likely will need that assistance at some point of their lives (child birth, major health issues). EDIT: To expand a bit, my wife is currently in one of those situations. A government program allowed reduced social taxes for small businesses ( Now, with a child underway, we came to realize, that the social benefits she will be getting before and after birth will amoun…

The issue there is that: A. Those people will get all of that anyways B. Paying more towards you EI, SI, and pensions there gives very little additional benefit C. Truckloads of people still in productive age are dependent on cash payouts from the state. You can imagine those are the ones who make the majority of the electorate of most Eastern European nutjob political parties

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#16

Post by Kaizeras »

dejv wrote: post #11
galfarragem wrote: post #4

Fortune cookie: a niche IT job in Eastern Europe will, with high probability, grant you the best life standards available worldwide.

Yes, if you can manage to find even some 40k or 50k/year contract it will put you into about 5% of top earner in population in many central/east european countries. Prices are not as low as you might imagine, but it will give you a very nice life standards. You are not going to be able to afford luxury cars or other luxury items (those costs the same everywhere), but otherwise you would be set.

You will be rich in Eastern Europe but you'll still be considered average/poor in the developed world. Doesn't sound like a huge bargain to me.

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#17

Post by icebraining »

baybal2 wrote: post #10

Bulgaria has low income tax, but a monsterous social security, EI and pension payments as is with most formerly red countries. This gives self employed people, or people leaving their profits on a company account an ennormous, unfair advantage

What values are we talking about? From a few sites, it seems ~31% (employer + employee), which doesn't seem that high relative to other European countries.

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#18

Post by vminkov »

paganel wrote: post #7
galfarragem wrote: post #4

Fortune cookie: a niche IT job in Eastern Europe will, with high probability, grant you the best life standards available worldwide.

A great number of my Romanian programmer friends have already started to realize this and have stopped emigrating to other European countries. Yeah, moving to a place like London would most probably get you 2 or maximum 3 times the salary you are now getting, but you'd also have to pay rent which is 8 to 10 times higher in London, going out is outrageously expensive (7 pounds for buying a beer in a pub after a day's…

Private health care is very neat and relative to your paycheck it's as affordable as in the Western world

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#19

Post by expertentipp »

paganel wrote: post #8
expertentipp wrote: post #6

> only a handful of our tech-oriented students had participated in hackatons, contributed to open-source software, had started a personal blog or answered questions in online help communities such as StackOverflow It's Eastern Europe, so those even marginally competent who haven't left are employed for peanuts in outsourcing centers, working on brain-numbing projects 9-5 or even 8-6. Ain't nobody got time for that.

It depends, there are quite a number of exceptions. Yeah, if you're going to get yourself into a farm-like outsourcing company as a fresh CS graduate then you'll have a pretty numb programming life in front of you. But there are also lots of start-ups/small companies which do really interesting stuff (some of them have been acquired by Western companies for quite a lot of money or have grown into "middle" companies).…

For each success story I'll give you a failure counter-story. To engage in such project one needs funding, hardware, spare time, some decent side income. These are very difficult or even impossible to obtain over there.

Re: Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23

#20

Post by psvx »

Kaizeras wrote: post #5
norswap wrote: post #2

> The economy is not developed, making it extremely difficult to convince anybody to buy anything you try to sell them. People are pessimistic and desperate, most of the rich make money through corruption and criminal activities. There is little support or financing for running a legitimate business. Talent is scarce. There is nothing to compete over and nobody to compete with on a local level. Away with the violins…

> Bulgaria may not be entrepreneur friendly or corruption free, but it is not a misery cesspool I absolutely agree with your opinion. There are companies like Telerik (acquired by Progress Software) and Chaos Group which have earned our country a formidable reputation on the global tech scene and it's relatively easy to get recognized. The overall ennvironment is good too - the country has grown a lot since it became…

I'am an ex ChaosGroup employee and I can tell you that if there's one thing I learned while working there, it's that all these constraints are in your mind. You can find talent here. You can create a product here and sell it worldwide and be successful. You can be competetive or better than your western competition. In some ways, doing this is even easier than in the west. My view is that in order to be greatly successful, you need 3 things, no matter in what part of the world you happen to be:

1. Great idea.

2. Great timing.

3. Lots of work.

(besides the companies you listed, I could also mention coherent-labs.com, which are also global leaders in their market).

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