121–130 of 143 posts
Well the main issue in italy is not lack of funding or lack of talent but rather the amount of taxation companies had to go through and the uncertainty behind a big and complex legal system which makes an average of 8 years for civil processing . these two things alone and the fact there are better places in europe to make a startup (hint: netherlands, germany, france, czech republic, romania, poland) makes me wonder…
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The sum of these affordances adds up to a market for lemons. A startup can hire Italians anywhere, certainly anywhere in EU, so the benefit of pair-for education doesn't require Italian jurisdiction. Everything else sounds really handy if your company is destined for failure, since there are so many ways to get a bailout or take a "loan" with no interest which, hey, you also don't have to pay it back! That's a grant…
You kind of missed some of my crucial points: starting a business on low budget in Italy is possible. People with the right ideas and knowledge can start ventures easier than they would elsewhere in the world, especially silicon valley where you're much more dependent on (important) private capital. In Italy, that's not really the case, between lower salaries, no interest loans and government funding we have had many…
In SV you can get 10M+ in capital pretty easily - close relative with one prior startup did just that recently. It's VERY low overhead, you can hire (and fire) folks pretty simply. The due diligence on that $10M didn't even require audited financials or anything.
I don't know anywhere in italy even close to that.
In Stockholm, where I am now, there has been reasonable progress. But it feels like we are nearly where the Valley was in 2000. (That is exaggerated, it is better)
A key takeaway for me from efforts like what the article describes is that a lot of it feels like cargo culting. “If we are more like Y-Combinator (replace with suitable other aspect of the Valley) we will succeed.” Where what is missing are things that are hard to bootstrap: large amounts of capital, capital willing to take risks, investors that invest in bold efforts, experienced and successful investors, successful entrepreneurs that go another round, a common market with similar rules, regulations and language; and more things I am missing (much mentioned in other comments).
Things are getting better, but it is still a challenge in the EU. However, looking at some of the valuations I see in the US, it appears there are bargains to be had in the top EU startup spots, where Stockholm is a good candidate.
I’ve thought of setting up a retreat center in southern Italy for tech teams. Like: take your team and work together remotely for a week. The center will have high end equipment, good furniture, whiteboards etc. Why southern Italy? The climate is great, there are lots of subsidies available, land is cheap and cost of living is low. I’d call it Sicilian Valley.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You kind of missed some of my crucial points: starting a business on low budget in Italy is possible. People with the right ideas and knowledge can start ventures easier than they would elsewhere in the world, especially silicon valley where you're much more dependent on (important) private capital. In Italy, that's not really the case, between lower salaries, no interest loans and government funding we have had many…
> People with the right ideas and knowledge can start ventures easier [in Italy than Silicon Valley] Would you be so kind as to provide a metric, so I can demonstrate conclusively that this isn't true? I'm basing this on intuition, which is in turn based on numerous Italian software developers I've met in California. Do they have the wrong ideas and knowledge? Of course not, they went where they could run a business…
I'd imagine it is easier to start a tech venture in the valley than Italy, but that's just because there's an established ecosystem for it and you're not blazing new ground. The various particularities of government are relatively insignificant in comparison. That's why you can have similarly vibrant startup scenes under political environments as different as the US, China, and Israel.
Well the main issue in italy is not lack of funding or lack of talent but rather the amount of taxation companies had to go through and the uncertainty behind a big and complex legal system which makes an average of 8 years for civil processing . these two things alone and the fact there are better places in europe to make a startup (hint: netherlands, germany, france, czech republic, romania, poland) makes me wonder…
> the amount of taxation companies had to go through and the uncertainty behind a big and complex legal system which makes an average of 8 years for civil processing . It's the big, complex legal system that gets me, and the mentality that keeps it in place. There's some sort of minimum required level (countries with too little don't thrive either) but when I think of Italy or India I think the complexity of simply g…
[0] https://www.exor.com/pages/companies-investments/companies/f...
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Yeah like I am not sure, when I was living in London, not being Schengen, at a certain point I got in mind to just go to "Questura" and make my electronic passport so that I could go through the fast automatic gate, I went there, paid the "Bollo", and I explained that I had to depart in a couple of days, and I just got the e-passport the morning I had to depart.. like it was blazing fast, I mean for my experience, ge…
Some things have been sped up a lot (thanks to the EU), however in some cases bureaucracy still slows down even the simplest document request. Personal experience: I want to relocate, so last summer I found a new home and quickly paid a 20K Euros non refundable (in case of withdraw) deposit upfront. Unfortunately I later discovered that my own home can't be sold at market value, or to be more accurate to be purchased…
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https://www.google.com/search?q=fiat+lays+off https://www.google.com/search?q=fiat+subsidies I don't think so, if I am honest when I was young the few things I remember hearing continuosly from news was fiat laying off and fiat getting money
Yeah, but isn't related to this initiative. You are referring to something happened in the past for another company. It doesn't make sense.
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Yes, doing business in Italy is hard, but when your company is doing poorly financially or is having issues it's the government that is going to pay your worker's salaries. Do places with low taxes have this? And the education of your worker's is paid by the government, so you don't get employees that are desperate to pay their student loans. And so is healthcare, so you don't have to pay no insurance (you may, but y…
The sum of these affordances adds up to a market for lemons. A startup can hire Italians anywhere, certainly anywhere in EU, so the benefit of pair-for education doesn't require Italian jurisdiction. Everything else sounds really handy if your company is destined for failure, since there are so many ways to get a bailout or take a "loan" with no interest which, hey, you also don't have to pay it back! That's a grant…
I have witnessed this first hand in Finland where government grants can generate a lot of inflow for early startups. Because bureocrats cannot judge which companies should stay alive or not, everyone gets money resulting to zombie startups that have not managed to scale even after 10 years.