After Silicon Valley, Stockholm produces highest number of “unicorns” per capita
forbes.com
forbes.com
Stockholm is so over-hyped. Yes, there is a lot of engineering culture, but there is so little risk capital available at the bottom is it truly laughable.
Furthermore, I don't see many of these unicorns putting a lot back into the ecosystem in terms of investment, social capital, or outreach.
Sweden's needs her of "Paypal mafia [1], Facebook Mafia [2], Trilogy Mafia, and Dellionaires [3] if this startup startup ecosystem is to really thrive.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia
[2] - https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/facebook-mafia/
[3] - http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/dell...
(edit) so more thoughts
Compared to where? The days where you get funding based on an idea is over. I don't think the funding situation is particularly bad "per capita" [0]. There are other problems with Stockholm of course, but that's another story.
[0] http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2013/11/11/how-entrepreneur...
Secondly, I have issues with the whole "per capita" comparison. It is an important and often over-looked detail when looking at these ecosystems.
> raise money across borders
Tell that to any number of seed-stage, bootstrapped companies in Stockholm. A fund-raising "roadshow" from Stockholm to London can be very costly -- especially if it is unsuccessful.
[1] - https://www.cbinsights.com/reports/CB-Insights-KPMG-Report-Q...
As I said, you don't get funding for an idea anymore so being bootstrapped is becoming the norm. The presentation even says that "all in all, Q3 was a quarter for big, big deals. Less so for seed-stage and Angel financing, both of which were down for the fifth consecutive quarter on a global basis". Fundraising is never easy, but having more and more eyes on Stockholm helps.
There's plenty of super early stage money you can get (i.e. up to $100k) from government grants etc. so that part isn't that hard.
What's lacking in Stockholm is a strong angel scene, and what's especially lacking are larger angel investors that does investments of $100k-$500k. I.e. investments that are too small for a fund, but a bit too large for someone that just does investments as a hobby.
However, one of the things I'm doing right now is helping some of the local venture funds and some UK based ones to scout for investments, and the perspective from the other side of the table is that there's currently a shortage of fundable projects that are raising $500k-$2m. Also there's a new monster fund being announced soon. Rumours on the street (i.e. drunk people at startup events who let their mouths slip) is that it's going to be the largest first time fund globally so the competition among VCs for investments in that size will increase.
If you are doing something interesting but lack connections to VCs or angels, ping me (email in bio) and I'd be more than happy to make introductions.
You really just have to try and raise money there to realize how bad. Most of Scandinavia are still in many ways caught in the idea of loans rather than risky investments.
And most investors in Europe are very risk averse.
What I do know is that if you play your cards right you can make your own seed funding in a year, even if the housing market is making this slightly harder these days.
Not only is he largely based in London, he is not making seed stage investments [1]. The Atomico website does not list Stockholm as a city where they have an office. Very telling...
[1] - "Niklas Zennström’s Atomico leaves early-stage focus behind with new $476m fund" - http://venturevillage.eu/atomico-476m-fund -
On the technical side, I've not seen anything very impressive about their games, and their business practices seemingly consist of ripping off (later settled out of court) an indie developer who built a game in memory of his late mother, and dragging him into a protracted legal battle.
Edit to include sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_(company)#Trademark_and_c...
Point being, unless you want to call gamification design, their success was far more based on engineering and business. Like you said it wasn't an original idea, but they could relativly quickly produce a clone of something and monetize. I'm not claiming that this is a particularly great way of doing business, just that it's inaccurate to say that it was design.
Someone said something about old-school tech and it is true, I rarely meet anyone who is on the edge on new technology. I find myself always explaining what something is, but regardless of tech there are some talented people here.
There is also some serious tax problems, long over 50% in tax. People think they only pay around 23% in tax since the government splits up the tax in two parts, one for the company (around 32%) and one for the employee but money that would have been yours. Then you have tax on items and for example gas tax. Everything is very subtle and perhaps why they get away with it.
This is similar in the US. There are lots of additional costs beyond the salary for an employee. It's just never really advertised to the employee how much money the company actually puts up to pay the salary in your offer letter.
That said, it's still pretty remarkable how high US salaries are even with all these costs.
Yep, employers aren't realy interested in profits
Is that much worse than Silicon Valley (legitimately curious, I've never looked into the housing situation in Stockholm)? 1brs go for nearly $3k (if not more) in many of the more populated parts of the peninsula and SF.
Median rent for a 1-bedroom in SF hit $3600 in October -> http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/10/09/the_median_rent_for...
Stockholm is piss dark and cold 8 month a year, in Silicon Valley not so much right? All the big boys are in SV and you earn more and pay less in taxes. You also get other perks from living in the USA.
So you are a talented guy, Stockholm or SV? The choice is obvious, SV. So I don't see the point in trying to fight for a place to stay in Stockholm when you can go somewhere else better.
Not only that, just the last 5 years have done much harm to the housing in Stockholm due to mass immigration and now immigration peaks at 2000 people per day so expect it to get even worse.
So you have to buy. Which is very expensive. Not sure how it compares to SF very expensive.
For some reason the swedes think it's a good idea to have insanely long mortgage terms, if they don't just pay interest. Prices in Stockholm proper is around $950 per square feet, which I guess is comparable to SF [0].
[0] http://www.maklarstatistik.se/ [0] https://www.google.com.mt/search?q=86304+sek+per+square+mete... [0] http://my.paragon-re.com/Docs/General/SixtyFortyImages/Avg-D...
Not only do you pay tax on both sides of your income. But we have moms on everything. Essentially you pay more than 50% tax.
In Singapore, restaurants will usually show prices excluding tax, forcing you to see the direct impact of tax added on the total sum.
Swedish receipts do contain the amount of tax, but it's never as apparent as they always include the sum into everything you buy - thus normalising the concept and make it easier to melt down and eventually accept.
Sure, it sucks to split bills with an explicit tax added on, but I rather do the math than having the government normalise taking tax. Very few Swedes are aware of how much tax they actually pay when you go beyond your side of the income tax.
40% loan of GDP doesn't mean jack when the GDP includes a housing bubble about to burst.
EDIT: I am not arguing against taxes here, I am just pointing out the differences on how taxes are presented to you.
// Linköpings-lantis
[0] https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/346637405668925440 [0] https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=language%3AGo+loc... [0] http://www.meetup.com/sthlmrb/ [0] etc.
To add some counter-anecdata to yours, I find there's plenty of Rails/jQuery/Go/Rust/Cloud people here in Sweden/Stockholm and that there's quite many using cloud services and what not. I find it a bit hard to digest that any of those languages or techniques are perceived as "new" here. Perhaps by some, but then that would apply at any place around the globe to some extent.
This is all anecdotal evidence from having lived in the city for not even a full year, so not saying I know something. It just seems like friends and acquaintances seem less inclined to try out the new stuff than in the US.
Sweden in general is weird though: there's like this stark difference between a smaller group of very competent people and a herd that seems to be pretty much stuck in its ways. The difference between the best and the mainline is greater than in other places. (or so it seems to me)
Yes, of course with regards to Erlang, C and C++ - but Ericsson is far from everything in the Stockholm region and in Sweden. That said, Ericsson is enormous and there are bound to be plenty of former Ericssoners in many other companies. But I find it a lot more diverse than stated in the original comment none the less. Especially if you're looking into start-ups, SME and up - as well as with the meetup.com/HN-crowds.
Perhaps even more significantly most of the USA is nowhere near as entrepreneurial as places like SF, LA, and NYC, despite many places having lower taxes and less regulation. There's lots of states that are more business friendly than California that have far less entrepreneurship.
Taken together these two things argue strongly against the "entrepreneurship comes from having small government" right-wing thesis. Don't get me wrong-- too much government meddling can sink business. But this argues strongly against the hard-line rhetoric that we often hear.
Edit: It does not however support the inverse thesis -- that more government is better. I personally think it is mostly cultural and all government has to do is not bork things too badly and keep the lights on and the barbarians out.
Entrepreneurship is definitely culturally engrained in the US. Starting a business although risky is generally lauded. I think Entrepreneurship is a very accessible concept to most Americans - most people in the US know someone that has started their own business.
The large market drives the entrepreneurial culture, because the stakes are so big if you "make it" here, and market sizes for even the most niche things become viable for an entrepreneur to chase with investors in tow. Not so in smaller markets.
Most success is in spite of our poor government, inefficient land use, and entrenched inequality. Chapter 11 is fascinating, I studied it extensively in school. I would not say it drives entrepreneurship but rather large corporate risk taking maybe. Startups aren't thinking about restructuring options. Besides, startup investors are after equity, not debt; Chapter 11 is about reorganizing debt, with secured debt the higher priority, at the expense of equity holders.
This would support your thesis. However the US is also more entrepreneurial in other areas as well and its large government budget as well as domestic market helps indigenous large manufacturing (e.g. aerospace) in a way that few other countries can match.
Or you know.. in any historically communist country.
On the other hand, historically communist countries currently span a range of left/right cultural tendencies, from the Baltics to Russia, to Azerbaijan, to Georgia, etc, etc...
In the end the equation may consist of: culture, weather, big markets, limited regulation (non-compete not enforceable), free enterprise, proximity to certain institutions (Bell labs, NASA, Stanford), rich people (angel investors), hackers
Houston is the energy capital of the world -- and it is quite conservative in comparison to California.
Though we don't see it discussed here on HN that often, but Texas is home to a lot of innovation, both in Energy, Petroleum, and Medical.
Austin as a liberal island is also a bad Texas stereotype. I live in Austin now but was born in El Paso which has been an entrenched democratic stronghold for decades. San Antonio, Houston(most diverse city in the US), and Dallas are all also blue-voting urban areas. The Texas state constitution is just notorious for giving rural districts a lot of power and blatant gerrymandering.