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The European startup ecosystem arrived

eu.techcrunch.com

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Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#41

Post by patrickk »

dkersten wrote: post #28
patrickk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"....though I don't know what more can be done to help that along"

Both my parents are secondary level teachers, yet I hold the controversial opinion that we should put a huge emphasis on teaching the basics of computing and programming to children at the primary school level. I remember doing some light programming in BASIC on a toy VTech "computer" when I was about ten, but I would have progressed far quicker and learned "skillz to pay teh bills" if there was someone who could've opened my eyes to the possibilities of programming at a younger age.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#42

Post by ig1 »

barrkel wrote: post #30
narag wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mysel…

You say that as if living in a shared house was some sort of social stigma.

Most single young (under say 35) professionals in London share flats, and I'm including lawyers, investment bankers, doctors, etc.

One reason is that price drops disproportionately with the number of rooms, for example for a 1-bed flat you might pay £200/week but for a similar 2-bed you'd pay only £240/week. You could pay 1000/month for a "half-decent" 1-bed flat, or alternatively you could share a great 2-bed flat for the same price. And many people chose to make the second decision. Also it makes much more sense in terms of buying household products and makes "luxuries" such as hiring a cleaner much more affordable.

If you really want to live on your own it makes more sense to live in one of london commuter belt suburbs where you can get a flat for 600/month.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#43

Post by yummyfajitas »

ladon86 wrote: post #2

The first comment is correct - this is the UK scene more than the european scene. My real problem with the UK scene is the relative lack of talent available to startups. Where do talented graduates from the UK want to work? Banks, consultancies and accountancies. How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please. With the cost of living being so high in London, why wouldn't they? Unless you can raise enou…

And London VCs are still far more risk-averse than SV VCs.

This is the real problem. Most US startups pay considerably more than 40k GBP = $63k USD. $63k USD would be considered laughably low for anyone besides perhaps a middle-of-the-pack recent graduate.

So it seems that startups need to either generate revenue quickly move to where the money is (NY and SV, apparently).

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#45

Post by ig1 »

SimonPStevens wrote: post #19
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 totally empathise with this. When I'm looking for work I see lots of firms in London hiring, but I have no interest in moving there, and although commuting is just about doable for the very short term, it totally ruins my out of work life. I would happily work remotely, but no one ever offers this. I'm not sure I quite understand the obsession companies have with London. There are plenty of talented people around t…

There are various reasons, but one of the big one is because the talent pool isn't large enough in most places.

It's hard to get someone to move to London for a job, but it's even harder to get someone to move to a smaller city, so you get much more restricted to the local talent pool.

You see hubs of companies around university towns with good CS programs (Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Edinburgh) as universities draw talent in from a wider area, but for most cities there simply aren't enough people in a concentrated area.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#46

Post by narag »

barrkel wrote: post #30
narag wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mysel…

Thank you and of course also to the rest of people that answered. It seems I'll be sensibly better than now. Madrid accommodation is shockingly expensive (~900€ a decent flat half an hour from the centre, I live now much farther), considering the much lower salaries... I can't find anything above €30k right now, with 15 years experience!

A funny thing is that yesterday I was thinking of emailing (or should I say spamming) you to ask for advice. I have your address from some conversation we had long time ago over bpd.non-tech, and I don't know anybody in UK.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#47

Post by arethuza »

borism wrote: post #21
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?.. :)

is it something different in American climate?.. :) one can live in a cardboard box in California but not in Scotland?

Scotland would probably be one of the worst places to try living in a cardboard box - cold enough to be dangerous if you are outdoors but not cold enough to be dry. Combine that with rather unpredictable weather and rapid temperature changes (we've had temperatures changing 20C in a few days recently) and you would have a pretty miserable time in a cardboard box.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#48

Post by tomh- »

zumda wrote: post #3
ladon86 wrote: post #2

The first comment is correct - this is the UK scene more than the european scene. My real problem with the UK scene is the relative lack of talent available to startups. Where do talented graduates from the UK want to work? Banks, consultancies and accountancies. How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please. With the cost of living being so high in London, why wouldn't they? Unless you can raise enou…

Out of curiosity, what do you consider the other startup hubs in Europe? Guessing from your comment that this is the UK scene, there should be others.

There is a lot going on in Copenhagen, Denmark is also often ranked as the best country to start a business as the costs of starting one are low (living there is not) see http://www.prosperity.com/entrepreneurship.aspx.

In my country, Holland, many people mention Amsterdam, I don't agree with that in the sense that it is a hub. The up and coming region here is Utrecht, it has a province and university backed business incubator Utrecht Inc. and a government backed gaming incubator, which both enabled some startups with national or global impact. The startup scene is still behind that of other countries and the numbers of 'me too', 'Y for X', 'X for social media' or 'X which doesn't suck' ideas are huge.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#49

Post by david927 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #43
ladon86 wrote: post #2

The first comment is correct - this is the UK scene more than the european scene. My real problem with the UK scene is the relative lack of talent available to startups. Where do talented graduates from the UK want to work? Banks, consultancies and accountancies. How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please. With the cost of living being so high in London, why wouldn't they? Unless you can raise enou…

And London VCs are still far more risk-averse than SV VCs. This is the real problem. Most US startups pay considerably more than 40k GBP = $63k USD. $63k USD would be considered laughably low for anyone besides perhaps a middle-of-the-pack recent graduate. So it seems that startups need to either generate revenue quickly move to where the money is (NY and SV, apparently).

Or consider alternate compensation, such as alternating remote work. London is a cheap hour flight away from most countries in Europe. Most big companies in London simply don't allow, say, a week remote and a week on-site. Be flexible and you might find a much bigger talent pool.

Re: The European startup ecosystem arrived

#50

Post by Isofarro »

zeemonkee wrote: post #6
ladon86 wrote: post #2

The first comment is correct - this is the UK scene more than the european scene. My real problem with the UK scene is the relative lack of talent available to startups. Where do talented graduates from the UK want to work? Banks, consultancies and accountancies. How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please. With the cost of living being so high in London, why wouldn't they? Unless you can raise enou…

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…

"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."

I think this gets to the heart of the cultural difference between the UK and California in terms of startups. I get the feeling that people working for / running Silicon Valley startups are living extremely cheaply (hence references to Ramen profitability), sharing places with groups of people, working long hours with very little time off, sometimes sleeping over in the office instead of going home.

I don't get the feeling that attitude happens within London, so working for a startup isn't much more different to a desk job in a big company - salary, set working hours, regular vacation time. Maybe a slightly better options/share stake in the company.

Also the business infrastructure of London doesn't facilitate a lean startup environment. Registering a company with Companies House is cheap enough, but running it is quite costly for a group of people who are trying to build something that might pan out later. It's like London only wants organisations with existing revenue streams, not startups with potential.

And there's the expectation of potential employees for London startups, they want the benefits of working for an established business. Silicon Valleyers seem more inclined to be involved with something interesting, and live a minimalist life outside of that role.

Am I completely wrong here? (Would be interested in hearing back from people working in startups in Silicon Valley and London, but also elsewhere in the world - how is your organisation legally registered, do you pay salaries or offer compensation in stock ownership, are you living comfortably, or living off ramen noodles until you've created a decent income stream?)

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