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Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
41–50 of 74 posts
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#42These hyperbolic articles about places that are "the best place in the world for a startup" need to stop. For a creative and smart founder, any place in the world will be a fine spot to start up, and might even be better than silicon valley. But if you're going to make a generalization like that, then the bay area is the best place to be. Any article arguing otherwise is doing so purely for the sake of defying conventional wisdom.
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#43What I've learned from the valley is that there are three tests:
1. Do you embrace failure and those who fail? And are there local investors who think this way?
2. Can nerds bump into each other in a random manner in a central location on a regular basis?
3. Are nerds willing to travel there? So is a nerd from Scotland or Turkey thinking "I have to get to Ireland"
I'm not sure that Ireland has those three things yet. Although to be honest I'm in NYC and I'm not sure we have that yet either (or have it 100%).
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#44As an Irish CS student I wish this were true. I'd love to go into a startup.
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#45As someone who was recently in Ireland for an accelerator, and asked to stay by Enterprise Ireland, here are some of my thoughts:
1. Start-up Incubators - There are more in the US, that are on average, of higher quality. The incubator we went to was good, but still doesn't compare to YCombinator, TechStars or DreamIt in terms of mentorship and networks.
2. Talent - It's harder to find GOOD python and ruby developers in Dublin than say New York or Boston. Scores of average developers exist, but if you're hunting for extremely good coders, you will have a hard time.
3. Access to successful entrepreneurs - This is the one that annoys me most. Yes - Ireland is a small place. Networking can be done in a matter of weeks and you'll have hit the entire country's tech guys. However, the truth is there were only about 10 founders that really made money during the last tech bubble - the rest largely lost more than they made in the housing crash. That being said, older entrepreneurs may be helpful, but both the successful and now-bankrupt are often starting businesses of their own again. The article is misleading on this point.
4. State run organizations that help - This is true and they are largely referring to Enterprise Ireland. However, what they won't say is that the state money is contingent on the seed funds/angels investing first - they simply match. Raising money in Ireland takes 3x the effort, and 4x as long as it would in London, New York, Toronto, and especially compared with Boston and the valley. The major problem is that these investors are extremely risk-averse. I feel they want to get in on companies series B kind of stability, but at seed level prices. That being said, they are also more interested in better mousetraps than potentially disruptive ideas, in my opinion.
5. Community of like-minded individuals - The people are fine.
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#46I'd definitely question the talented labour available for work. There's nothing like the talent in SF and we're currently saturated with Google/Facebook/Amazon/LinkedIn/Zynga sucking up a significant chunk of the best talent here and also bringing people from the UK and mainland Europe. This would be a significant challenge for anyone looking to push the bleeding edge of technology. There aren't many brilliant young…
There's nothing like the talent in SF There is. Seriously. Travel outside of the west coast of the US a little- there are a ton of great developers that are either unwilling or unable (e.g. visas) to relocate to SF. And you sort of disprove your own point- there are no engineers available in SF because the big companies have hired them all. So surely that means that areas outside of SF have more engineers available,…
At first I thought he was referring to Ireland with the "Google/Facebook/Amazon/LinkedIn/Zynga" comment -- they're all here too. If you're at a tech event looking for a developer, the response is likely to be a chuckle and "good luck!"
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#47These hyperbolic articles about places that are "the best place in the world for a startup" need to stop. For a creative and smart founder, any place in the world will be a fine spot to start up, and might even be better than silicon valley. But if you're going to make a generalization like that, then the bay area is the best place to be. Any article arguing otherwise is doing so purely for the sake of defying conven…
Total agreement, everyone knows the best places are:
1. Bay area 2. New York City
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#48From a business perspective, everything the author says makes sense. From a human perspective, as someone who was born & raised in Ireland and subsequently left the country 6 years ago at the age of 24 I can promise you, Ireland is far from a vibrant, positive place to live. Every single element of the media is drowned in the desperation of the economic crisis, the cost of living is exorbitant and the weather is trul…
You can mostly ignore the media if you're in the tech industry because there's basically two economies here: one is fecked and the other is the tech industry, with tons of open positions. Re. the weather: yeah, it rains. And when it doesn't rain it's often cloudy. And sometimes it's inbetween (a "soft" day). But then the hills, fields and mountains look fantastic (unlike, say much of the UK) because it isn't being bu…
It's pretty much seattle weather then.
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#49As an Irish CS student I wish this were true. I'd love to go into a startup.
When you graduate I am confident there'll be plenty of opportunities to do so. If no, give me a shout and I'll help you find one[1]
[1] Assuming you're good.
Re: Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up
#50The article neglects to mention two of the primary reasons why it's good to do business here: - 12.5% corporate tax rate. Also if you are big enough to afford good tax advice, e.g. Google or Microsoft you can bounce your revenue from Ireland to the Netherlands and into the Caribbean tax-free islands - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho... - Young, native English-speaking workforce. For histo…
Also, A solid legal system. (which recently stopped 3 strikes rule from happening)