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The European startup ecosystem arrived

eu.techcrunch.com

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Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#21

Post by borism »

fedd wrote: post #18
zeemonkee wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do get a fair amount of job offers from startups in London, but they are very inflexible about remote working (I'm in Scotland). Want me to move to London ? Sure, double whatever salary you're offering and I might consider it. Otherwise it would be a big drop in my standard of living - nice big apartment up here for cardboard box down there. There is a lot of good talent in the UK, the problem is we have a massivel…

watching The Social Network , i saw some wordless hackers that were happy to work for early facebook when they only had $1000 in bank to pay for servers. is it something different in American climate?.. :)

is it something different in American climate?.. :)

one can live in a cardboard box in California but not in Scotland?

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#22

Post by arethuza »

fedd wrote: post #18
zeemonkee wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do get a fair amount of job offers from startups in London, but they are very inflexible about remote working (I'm in Scotland). Want me to move to London ? Sure, double whatever salary you're offering and I might consider it. Otherwise it would be a big drop in my standard of living - nice big apartment up here for cardboard box down there. There is a lot of good talent in the UK, the problem is we have a massivel…

watching The Social Network , i saw some wordless hackers that were happy to work for early facebook when they only had $1000 in bank to pay for servers. is it something different in American climate?.. :)

"work for" != "full time salaried employee"

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#23

Post by dkersten »

nfg wrote: post #17
dkersten wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, Havok is an outlier success story though. Sure, there are a few other Irish startups that achieved phenomenal global success, but they are relatively few and far between when compared to the more startup-focused places like SV.

True, I was mostly responding to the notion that: > Producing indigenous firms which don't serve niche markets is still beyond us It certainly isn't "beyond us", but as you say it's not happening as much as one would hope.

Ah, I agree. Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant the first time around.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#24

Post by fedd »

arethuza wrote: post #22
fedd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

watching The Social Network , i saw some wordless hackers that were happy to work for early facebook when they only had $1000 in bank to pay for servers. is it something different in American climate?.. :)

"work for" != "full time salaried employee"

i meant that - is that true that in America there are more risky, romantic hackers that would be happy to work for a promising startup for nothing, than in Europe, where too much people want to be full time employees?

without any critics, just wondering.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#25

Post by patrickk »

dkersten wrote: post #16
nfg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Producing indigenous firms which don't serve niche markets is still beyond us. I'm not sure about that, I've been in Havok ( http://www.havok.com/ ) for several years now, very successful Irish startup in the Games/Entertainment space (hardly a niche), acquired by Intel three years ago ($100m+). Granted there's room to improve in terms of the number of indigenous startups, but there are success stories out there.

In my opinion, Havok is an outlier success story though. Sure, there are a few other Irish startups that achieved phenomenal global success, but they are relatively few and far between when compared to the more startup-focused places like SV.

What about Stockbyte? Sold for $136m in 2006.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0406/stockbyte-business.html?rss

Also, Jerry Kennelly (who sold Stockbyte), is running a seed capital program somewhat similar to YC, called the Endeavour program: http://www.endeavour.biz/ application date was yesterday. I posted a comment here the other day that we need to stop this Irish attitude of moaning about everything, and start doing stuff.

Another funding program:

http://www.ndrc.ie/

From what I've heard also, the banks are being forced to provide funding to startups, but that there isn't enough demand as of yet.

Check http://siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/ regularly to see what's going on in Ireland in relation to startups.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#26

Post by zeemonkee »

fedd wrote: post #18
zeemonkee wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do get a fair amount of job offers from startups in London, but they are very inflexible about remote working (I'm in Scotland). Want me to move to London ? Sure, double whatever salary you're offering and I might consider it. Otherwise it would be a big drop in my standard of living - nice big apartment up here for cardboard box down there. There is a lot of good talent in the UK, the problem is we have a massivel…

watching The Social Network , i saw some wordless hackers that were happy to work for early facebook when they only had $1000 in bank to pay for servers. is it something different in American climate?.. :)

If I'm going to work for nothing, I'll work for myself, or as a fully-vested partner.

If I'm going to work for a salary, I'll work for at least the going market rate for my skills. I don't care if you're Joe McStartup or IBM. It's your dream, not mine.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#27

Post by fedd »

zeemonkee wrote: post #26
fedd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

watching The Social Network , i saw some wordless hackers that were happy to work for early facebook when they only had $1000 in bank to pay for servers. is it something different in American climate?.. :)

If I'm going to work for nothing, I'll work for myself, or as a fully-vested partner. If I'm going to work for a salary, I'll work for at least the going market rate for my skills. I don't care if you're Joe McStartup or IBM. It's your dream, not mine.

this is what i understand.

so, that guy in the movie, that won a drunken coding contest, must have been a fully vested partner.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#28

Post by dkersten »

patrickk wrote: post #25
dkersten wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, Havok is an outlier success story though. Sure, there are a few other Irish startups that achieved phenomenal global success, but they are relatively few and far between when compared to the more startup-focused places like SV.

What about Stockbyte? Sold for $136m in 2006. http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0406/stockbyte-business.html?rss Also, Jerry Kennelly (who sold Stockbyte), is running a seed capital program somewhat similar to YC, called the Endeavour program: http://www.endeavour.biz/ application date was yesterday. I posted a comment here the other day that we need to stop this Irish attitude of moaning about everything, and start doing…

Regarding Stockbyte, I never said there wasn't any other successful Irish startups besides Havok, just that they are few. We can hope that this is improving though.

Thanks for the links, though. Very useful. Hopefully the two funding programs are better than EI and the other ones I've seen in the past. I definitely see the startup situation improving here, its just happening very slowly and I think a greater focus on startups would be good for our economy (though I don't know what more can be done to help that along).

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#29

Post by zeemonkee »

echubb wrote: post #11

Here in Ireland we're constantly hearing about "the knowledge economy" but I think it has yet to materialise. Ever since Intel set up shop here we've managed to attract the biggest movers in technology to set up their European HQ. So much so in fact that the bigger European countries constantly bitch about us, citing our 12.5% corporation tax rate to mask their own failure in attracting these investments. The real re…

Best in the world ? Try Inverness, Scotland.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#30

Post by barrkel »

narag wrote: post #20
zeemonkee wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do get a fair amount of job offers from startups in London, but they are very inflexible about remote working (I'm in Scotland). Want me to move to London ? Sure, double whatever salary you're offering and I might consider it. Otherwise it would be a big drop in my standard of living - nice big apartment up here for cardboard box down there. There is a lot of good talent in the UK, the problem is we have a massivel…

I've been planning to move from Spain to London for some months. You're scaring me. Is £40.000 not enough for a decent flat and once a month flight back home?

Assume about 1000 GBP/month if you want somewhere half-decent to live. If you want accommodation to be 30% of your before-tax salary, then you need to make 40K per year.

If you're willing to compromise - live in a room in a shared house, almost like a student, or somewhere dodgy (e.g. tower block with lifts that smell like piss) or with poor transport links, you'll be able to reduce that by 50% or more.

Between myself and my GF, we make about 90K GBP, and we're fairly comfortable. But we live in Bow in the East End, don't have kids, and barely feel middle class.

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