Starting and self-funding a software business in Eastern Europe at the age of 23
hackernoon.com
hackernoon.com
Away with the violins already. Bulgaria may not be entrepreneur friendly or corruption free, but it is not a misery cesspool (source: my friends there).
> Unlike the people I met in the Silicon Valley, only a handful of our tech-oriented students had participated in hackatons, contributed to open-source software, had started a personal blog or answered questions in online help communities such as StackOverflow.
This is classical Silicon Valley fetichising. Some wannabe entrepreneurs have it too, here in Belgium. But if you want that mindset, you better look at the rest of the ideology that comes with it. Personally I want no part in it.
Nevertheless, the rest of the post shows that it is in fact easier to start a business in Bulgaria. The relative immaturity of the tech scene means it's actually much easier to make a splash and find opportunities. Better be self-taught in the land of opportunity then well-schooled in a saturated market.
And at the end of the day, that's also what entrepreneurship is: doing your own thing, with no one holding your hand.
I absolutely agree with your opinion. There are companies like Telerik (acquired by Progress Software) and Chaos Group which have earned our country a formidable reputation on the global tech scene and it's relatively easy to get recognized. The overall ennvironment is good too - the country has grown a lot since it became member of the EU. Despite all this, it doesn't have the extremely competitive atmosphere, the "evolve or die" mindset of the more developed markets. There is nobody who's going to push you out or take you over. Personally I think such type of atmosphere would have let us grow much faster and innovate quicker.
> Nevertheless, the rest of the post shows that it is in fact easier to start a business in Bulgaria.
I'm not implying the opposite. It's easy to start a run-of-the mill software development outsourcing business and sustain it, but with such "immature tech scene", it's very difficult to evolve it in something bigger, and that's a big problem.
p.s I'm the author of this article
1. Great idea.
2. Great timing.
3. Lots of work.
(besides the companies you listed, I could also mention coherent-labs.com, which are also global leaders in their market).
I mean, there are great people in pretty much in every country, and if the alternative is, say, (boring) outsourcing development work, shouldn't you be able to convince people with above average (local) pay and offering them a great place to work, etc?
With hardly any VC money around, you don't really have a way to pay for those.
But there's probably a place for both.
Without this, all you have is just time to tinker about on an idea.
People do it mostly because they feel employees expect if of them. I guess employees in Bulgaria have different expectations, so students adjust accordingly.
It just boggles my mind why a young person (like the article author) would choose to think in such a lazy manner and beat that narrative to death -- corruption, local economy, the struggle to run legitimate business, etc.
With all due my respect and w/ the risk of being downvoted -- that is BS; and completely opposite of the SV mindset.
It just shows that the author haven't been exposed to the actual environment (i.e. not the university) in Bulgaria -- there are numerous large-scale companies w/ strong regional presence, as well various small outsourcing shops and at least 5 co-working spaces, where you can find lots of very capable people working in very healthy environments; anecdotally, for the last ~13 years I haven't heard even one founder/c-level exec of being asked to pay anything under the table.
Author here. Perhaps I put a little bit too much drama in the classic Eastern European issues. I'm not complaining, I do acknowledge the advancement of Bulgaria's economy (it's definitely not like the 90s as far as the narratives go), but I'm not very satisfied with the competitiveness of our country on the global scene. Take Singapore for example - it's more deprived than Bulgaria in numerous aspects, yet it is one of the technological powerhouses of Asia. I'm not focusing on the problems; I'm focusing on what could be improved and leveraged from the current situation.
> ...there are numerous large-scale companies w/ strong regional presence, as well various small outsourcing shops...
True, but for how long have the co-working spaces been around? Around 5 years. Healthy companies? Since we joined the EU (~10 years). All the companies before that period (Sciant, Telerik, Chaos Group etc.) were made of a bunch of extremely talented young people willing to work almost for free in order to gain reputation and recognition from outside. Plus, the working conditions you mentioned apply only for no more than 20,000 people employed in the tech industry in Bulgaria. The majority of the population is in survival mode.
There is much to be improved.
It's Eastern Europe, so those even marginally competent who haven't left are employed for peanuts in outsourcing centers, working on brain-numbing projects 9-5 or even 8-6. Ain't nobody got time for that.
I for example have started doing Django-based projects back in 2006, me and my other programmer co-worker were at the time I think the only Django programmers in our Eastern European country. We had also done some quite cool map mash-ups. But pretty soon after that people around us also started doing Ruby stuff, Plone/Zope (maybe not so cool, but interesting nonetheless), we had a local site that had done street photos the same as GStreetView 2 or 3 years before Google started covering our streets, some Information Retrieval/AI projects, it was not all a technological desert. And in recent years things have started becoming even more dynamic, but I have to admit I stopped paying that much attention to the local IT scene.
But, yeah, Eastern Europe (and Europe in general, with the possible exceptions of London, Berlin and maybe Dublin) will never get even close to the "feeling" one gets as a programmer in SV. In my mid- to late 20s I was pretty well aware of that I and was kind of let down, I was feeling that I was losing out by me not being in SV, but now, that I've grown a little older, I feel like I didn't lose that much by staying here.
That's exactly the thought that hits me every morning I wake up. That "feeling" that you're in the right place and in the right time to build some truly revolutionary technology. I hope that I start getting this feeling here, in Bulgaria, soon. Otherwise I'll have too many reasons to emigrate for a few years.
How many of the people in SV have that 'feeling' yet are completely wrong? Or... maybe a better question - how many actually build that 'truly revolutionary technology'?
There's a chance you'd get such a great 'feeling' every morning you wake up in SV, but there's more chance you can have an impact on the lives of people in your country by working with others and expanding the pool of opportunity right there.
You're in a position to help create a revolution in your geographic area, vs just sharecrop on someone else's revolution plantation.
Yeah, moving to a place like London would most probably get you 2 or maximum 3 times the salary you are now getting, but you'd also have to pay rent which is 8 to 10 times higher in London, going out is outrageously expensive (7 pounds for buying a beer in a pub after a day's work is pure robbery), the general geographic area is quite nice around these parts (we have mountains, seaside, nice rivers for fishing), all in all they're doing quite ok. They won't ever be able to buy a $100,000+ car, a small boat or a small air-plane, like I see many of the SV engineers doing, but that's not that huge of a sacrifice to make. What's letting me down, personally, and what would convince me to finally take the plunge and emigrate to a Western European country is the health and the education system, which right now is in shambles in Romania (and I guess in Bulgaria, too).
7 pounds beer is shi£ there, normal beers start at double that price
Except for the few lucky ones in SV who cash(ed) out in time, these toys are mostly bought on credit. Salaries are high, but so are the costs.
An Indian friend who lives in London (this was some years ago) told me that a single naan in London cost about 3 pounds then. Anecdote, of course; how well you manage there will also depend on how much pay you get.
Prices are not as low as you might imagine, but it will give you a very nice life standards. You are not going to be able to afford luxury cars or other luxury items (those costs the same everywhere), but otherwise you would be set.
The fact that you would not have the same position abroad (i.e. your cash savings are large locally but small if you lived in a rich country) is not a loss of any kind, it's just a fact that has no bearing on daily life.
You can afford none of these earning $100k in SV, but most of these earning $30k in Bucharest or Minsk.
Of course if you are after material goods, the opposite is true - if you don't care about a nice house but want a new Tesla, a new iDevice every year, Hermes bags and a Cessna instead, then you are better of living in a flatshare or a shoebox in San Fran or the Valley.
Yeah, except that the going rate for a good junior developer in SV is about $150k (Google, Facebook) and in Romania it's $20k. I recently moved away from Romania because while I could find a job in Western Europe paying more than $100k, there was no way to find something in Romania (or remote) paying even 30% of that. And not for lack of trying.
Also, $300k a year in SV is much more achievable than $100k in Romania or Bulgaria, and with that sort of money you start caring about other stuff than housing (luxury goods, exotic vacations, investments etc.) whose stuff doesn't depend on location.
It might not be much by SV standards, but in my neighborhood (which is a capital city of one of CE countries) it is top 2% income. It's enough that after maybe 5 years of saving I'm now able to buy 1 bedroom apartment in the city center WITH CASH. Buying 2-3 bedrooms would also be possible if I needed it and decided to live further from the city center. Add cheap healthcare, free education, overall low living cost and that's really hard to top.
I get job offers from UK on regular basis, but never seriously considered it for that reason.
I was an expat in Poland for some years (unfortunately non-STEM job) and with that money your only limit is yourself.
I'm also dreaming of doing this, though currently on the other side of the world.
Yes, retiring in Poland. My plan is to go broke at 90-95.
I'm thinking 5000-6000 PLN per month ($1300-$1500), plus owning a property, will allow for a great living. This should even cover a very good nursing home (well as far as these places can ever be very good) when I'm unable to take care of myself. (I dont' and won't have children).
BTW there seems to be plenty of people from the UK who moved permanently to SE Asia (I imagine it can be cheaper than Poland + no winters) and who are sustained via rent from their London flat/house.
I would like to retire in Europe. Thanks for your answer, it's nice to have a realistic ballpark figure.
Yes. There are accounts in Poland which pay around 0-2% post-tax above inflation (the number vary year-to-year, depending on current economical conditions), which will help the capital still earn a bit of money.
Most of my Polish friends working in Poland as programmers(ranging from C++ to Web development) make about ~$2500-3500/month, and that's considered extremely good for where they live(Krakow and Warsaw).
But still, you can work remotely for a US company and make that kind of money. That's pretty realistic and was probably the source of the fortune cookie wisdom.
How does one do that, except by working for infamous Crossover company?
Interesting. Is this working for a Western European or US company, or a local one (CE - assuming it means Central European)?
2. One big advantage of Bulgaria which is often overlooked, if you do make it: the corporate tax rate is 10%. Meaning you get to keep most of your profits.
> Most of the rich make money through corruption and criminal activities
Is this the case? Could you give an example?
You easely get the same thing on the opposite end. In countries where people are used to buy a lot of stuff, people are constantly bombarded with advertisements and drivel.
In a poor country, it is hard to convince anybody that stuff you sell is good. In a rich country, it is hard to make people buy your stuff, even when they know it is good enought.
The overwhelming majority --by a huge margin-- of entrepreneurs have never done any of this.
Your perception is skewed by reading HN and following the Silicon Valley "culture". That isn't at all a reflection of the majority. In Silicon Valley and in politics there are certain things you might have to do to signal club membership.
In the case of starting and running a business none of the items you list are a necessary part of success at all. I know people who are doing multiple millions of dollars a year in revenue who have never gone to hackathons, contributed to OSS, started a blog (that one is particularly funny) or spent time answering questions on SO.
The shadows you are looking at are not reality.
Note: Before anyone thinks that's an insult, google "Plato cave" and read it.
This gives self employed people, or people leaving their profits on a company account an ennormous, unfair advantage
EDIT:
To expand a bit, my wife is currently in one of those situations. A government program allowed reduced social taxes for small businesses (<5 employees, <720EUR/month wage). The place my wife has worked for the past 5 years has been like that (her first workplace).
Now, with a child underway, we came to realize, that the social benefits she will be getting before and after birth will amount to maybe few tens of EUR/month (compared to 60% of previous wage when full social taxes are being paid).
It wouldn't really bother me if so much of it wasn't wasted, though.