Entrepreneurship in Italy from a non-Italian’s perspective | Hacker News Reader

Entrepreneurship in Italy from a non-Italian’s perspective

thestartup.eu

61 pointsdavidw46 comments

In Italy there's always been the dream of the "posto fisso," the fixed position. Families celebrate when their son or daughter find a job in a bank or some other big companies, because with the actual laws, firing people is almost impossible. I remember when the insurance company where my mother was working part-time had to reduce their workforce, they gave her 3 years of salary in advance for her to quit, because there was no way to fire her.

Of course not everyone is the same. I know personally great guys who decided to step out of the grid and launch their company, or leave the country for better shores, like myself. If you want to work in the web industry the only two ways to make moneys are services (web agencies, consulting, etc.) or ads. In Italy debit cards can't be use for online transactions, and most of the italian population doesn't have a credit card. Some to purchase online uses prepaid credit cards, but even those, aren't really common. And there is a trust issue. People in Italy don't like to buy stuff online. And because of all these reasons, it's really hard to just create a product charge people for it. My Christmasfy Me iPhone app was a freemium application I made last Christmas, and was ranked among the top downloaded apps in Italy, but still, while in the US my conversion rate was close to 5%, in Italy was around 0.2%.

I love Italy, it's where I come from and where all my family is, but what do you expect from a country where if you want to buy an internet domain, you still have to send a fax...

> And there is a trust issue.

There is a huge trust issue. People spend a lot of time and energy trying to ensure they won't get ripped off, and a minority that is still too large spends a lot of time and energy actually trying to rip other people off. As a consultant, I've sometimes found it easier to deal with customers who I have never met in the US, rather than Italian firms (although at the moment I'm working remotely with some pretty good people in Milan, which is a nice change). Ultimately, all this is energy lost to actual productivity.

And if you try and go through the justice system, it can be expensive and slower than in other places (although not always - my wife recovered some unpaid wages pretty quickly and easily several years back).

So yeah, that's a big issue with doing business in Italy, and not an easy one to fix.

> if you want to buy an internet domain, you still have to send a fax.

I think they finally changed that, or so I heard. Here's my account of trying to register welton.it:

http://padovachronicles.welton.it/2007/08/18/confronting-the...

I had to do that few months ago when I bought a .it domain, but good for them if they finally changed it. Now they should start accepting CC from abroad, so I can stop asking my dad to use his for my italian domains...

I didn't expect something so painful... and a few posts below i've noticed you had also an pleasant discussion with the national tv guys too. That could have been waaay worse :)

The problem is that almost no-one today is offering the posto fisso. None of my employees has a contract like that, for example.

Two sides of a medal:

-people with a degree need to do 1 or 2 unpaid stages to get to a contract position. After that there's still a lot of uncertainity about if your job will last or what, and you might be paid not enough to go outside your parent's house until 30 or so.

-i really have trouble finding someone with a clue to hire. either they want too much (like 2K/month right out of school) or they don't know shit about the job, don't want to work hard and generally have no clue ("oh you mean i'm supposed to solve problem and you won't just tell me what to do?").

It drives me mad, we're full of young without an idea of what it takes to survive in life - they take everything for granted and expect to land a good job without doing nothing. But they only find people that wants to exploit them as bad as they want to exploit employers - this isn't functional at all.

that's why we have A LOT of small businesses in Italy and that's why I didn't even bother looking for a job after getting my undergraduate degree, I just opened my firm (consulting web agency), went out and sold a couple of websites.

What's wrong with 2k/month right out of school if they are good enough? Most of my employees are still in college, but they literally kick ass, so why not to give them what they are worth, independently of their age. We think salaries are based on age and experience and not skills.

I moved to the US right after school in Italy, I was making way more than that, I was able to rent a place, buy a car (a used one) and live what is considered a sweet life in Italy. And I'm just a designer... developers would make way much more right after college...

I'm not saying it's not fair, I'm just saying that they aren't going to find a job with a salary like that in Italy. This was also why I started my company, mind you.

I think "right out of school" means youngsters without hands-on experience. Of course I think the poster would pay more for experienced teenagers.

> It drives me mad, we're full of young without an idea of what it takes to survive in life - they take everything for granted and expect to land a good job without doing nothing. But they only find people that wants to exploit them as bad as they want to exploit employers - this isn't functional at all.

Are you wrestling with Millennials? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y#Workforce

Great article, the whole analysis is spot-on. In a country where risk-aversion is intrinsecally rooted in the business culture, it's difficult to be serious about any business plan that dosen't lie in a well established market, but not impossible. Unfortunately, the university system (engineering, for my experience) is focused on producing well-manned corporate consultants whose main goal is to get an open-end contract, climb the ladder and wait for a bigger paycheck. Entrepreneurship isn't considered a prerogative for the 20-something 'kid', that's why it isn't taught or discussed in university classrooms. There is lots of room for improvement, David's petition could be a first little step in the right direction.

(This is a comment I originally posted on Jesper's blog)

"... Unfortunately, the university system (engineering, for my experience) is focused on producing well-manned corporate consultants whose main goal is to get an open-end contract, climb the ladder and wait for a bigger paycheck. ..."

Yet it's the Italian firm http://www.arduino.cc is powering the open source hardware, "Can Open Source Hardware Work?", Clive Thompson ~ http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_open...

interestingly enough, massimo banzi used to be a teacher in a grad school in italy that is now disappeared (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_Design_Institute_Iv...).

Massimo Banzi is a great guy and a true visionary. Incidently he gave a speech in one of my classes and explained that the purpose of Interaction Design Institute Ivrea was to create an Italian verison of MIT's famous Media Lab.

Typically, he said that when it was recognized for its excellence world wide, Telecom Italia decided to shot it down.

>there is only one elective in English at Bocconi focused on entrepreneurship and having taken that elective it leaves a lot to be desired.

Even in the U.S. my impression is the majority of universities don't teach entrepreneurship or teach it poorly. I think for within an engineering college (not b school) the technology entrepreneurship center at UIUC is great http://tec.illinois.edu/ and other universities probably have similar programs, but nothing that compares to Mixergy + Hacker News.

As a side node if someone is interested, some recorded lessons of that should still be available on youtube, completely agree, it leaves a lot to be desired.

I took entrepreneurship and classes at UNC Chapel Hill for my undergraduate and it was a great experience taught by former entrepreneurs and PE-people. My point is not so much that there are only few classes in Europeean b-schools but that these courses get a lot of things wrong, that they do not prepare people to become better entrepreneurs.

I think that the biggest obstacle to the startup scene here in Italy is the risk aversion mentality and the idea that if your venture fails banks can take everything you own.

True, cause unfortunately with an srl they almost can. We have very ineffective company structures, that are a big handbreak for innovation, but that's not the sole cause. It's the mix of factors that makes it hard, the challenge is in finding which one is the core one.

Wait, when did SRL become not-limited-liability companies?

When the banks ask the owners to back the funding to the company with personal liabilities.

For example I've seen in a case where for a € 100K line of credit the bank asked to all three the founder to back this with 100k liability EACH ONE, for a total of 300k. The banks wanted just to be sure to find someone to goto if they want the money back. <g>

That sort of thing can happen anywhere. Indeed, someone close to me in the US went bankrupt, despite having a C corporation, because a supplier required signing off personally, and things went south...

By the way, do you guys know about the milan startupnights? http://www.google.com/search?q=mikamai+startupnight&ie=u...

Usually held 3-4 times a year, organized by Mikamai with the aid of others like Startupbusiness.it (which also organizess percorsi dell'innovazione at SMAU)

A bit off-topic, but what would be an ideal way to teach entrepreneurship at colleges and universities ?

Perhaps a common, cross-discipline, elective course would be the way forward. It could cover the nuts and bolts (basic marketing, company law, financing, etc) as well as practical "brainstorming" sessions and projects to complete (think of the Apprentice, but tailored to a more educational environment). Bring in local entrepreneurs to give lectures and Q&A sessions.

Cross-discipline would mean you don't just get the business students, but engineering/comp-sci, humanities, and so on. Students from different backgrounds will be able to contribute different viewpoints and ideas - you might even get some real-world startups coming out of it.

Heck, make it a night school class for those of us long since passed college age.

I'd say: give students two months and a legal entity, and they pass the class only if they make $10.000 in profit (legally and with all due restrictions given by their area of study).

I'd love a course like that. But I don't see many people completing it...

Ultimately though, you can read and study and talk until you are blue in the face, and until you actually try your hand at it, you won't have many of those lessons sink in.

I think

I particularly think the importnat part is making it cross-disciplinary. As somebody who has studied business I would have liked much more interaction with engineering/humanities discipline etc. If universities trust each others quality, cross-registering for courses shouldn't be difficult to execute.

I'd love to hear if someone else is trying to start something in Italy, either to target the italian market or as an offshoring strategy.

> offshoring strategy.

When I worked at Linuxcare, we had a reasonably successful time doing just that. We had an extremely bright group of people (including antirez and several others of that caliber) that didn't cost all that much, all things considered.

I still wonder why more foreign shops don't set up some of their operations in Italy - there are a lot of bright people willing to work for a lot less than they would get abroad. Sure, it is bureaucratic and run in an illiberal way, but it's not so different from other continental European countries. And the climate is nicer, with great food and a stunning amount of natural variety. The important thing is to avoid Milan:-)

I think less capital-intensive activities like R&D are best. If you're running your money through Italy via sales or something, that's probably not an ideal strategy (Google is in Ireland in Europe for a reason). However, having a bunch of smart people working on a project that requires some ingenuity and hard work is perfect for Italy.

Fabrizio Capobianco has more to say on the subject:

http://mindthebridge.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-italy-see-fabr...

Although based in the UK I used to do a fair amount of work in Milan - why would you avoid it? I thought it was a pretty nice place, although even when I dressed smartly I still felt pretty scruffy compared to most of the locals. :-)

It's relatively expensive, big, crowded and polluted, and yet wages are still not that high for programmers. I like living in Italy, but if I wanted a big city, I'd rather go back to the US where I'd make more money in a place like San Francisco, which is a nicer city than Milan.

My opinion is that you get a good mix of "things going on" and "Italian lifestyle" in the mid-sized northern/central towns like Padova, Pavia, Verona, Trieste, Bologna, Firenze, and so on. But that's just my bias in life...

You forgot the hideous weather, winter in Milan, especially if commute is involved, is something that should be avoided at all costs...

One of the first times I went to Milan from Scotland (about 20 years ago) it was December and I got a rather nasty shock as to how cold it was!

As an Italian currently living in Milan and planning my escape, I agree. Also, as a southerner, I recommend you avoid South Italy, because there is less support for entrepreneurs.

I agree that one of the most untrue stereotypes of Italians is that they do not work hard, because most people I have met are willing to put in very long hours.

Unfortunately I have also found the "Italians are not that effective" stereotype to be somewhat true. In a university context people are willing to meet and study all day long but often there is no agenda, no direction poor preperation and people being late. Basically I think Italian systems should focus more on brevity and precision, then they could also take some more time off and get the same amount done :)

Disorganized? Maybe in some situations. Of course, that could also be an advantage for those who can manage to work with a bit of chaos, because what startup isn't chaotic at the beginning?:-)

Regarding R&D, there was a time before the bubble burst when that happened and some US companies had R&D centers here. Now there is not much left (various reasons involved), there is a cisco's r&d center for optical networking gears in Monza where i work atm, but i can't think of any other similar places.

I definitely agree that this is the perfect place for offshoring, especially for smaller software shops. The bureaucracy will seem a bit intimidating at the beginning but in the long run it will be worth it.

About the market, offering an innovative product (especially if it targets end-users) here feels like a sure-failure strategy. If it's some free toy like facebook it could work, but don't expect to have a meaningful number of paying customers if you are selling something/offering a service.

In Monza there're some other R&D center, left behind by the old Philips R&D of the 80s. First that come to mind in my field (embedded) is the Flextronics Medical Division.

A lot of people is currently consulting and building "dinamic-teams": one small srl take the work and the team grow as needed with consultant.

Startups? I joined one in 2000 (ubiquity, in milan) they are still around but they changed their DNA.

www.sitopro.it is our project, that looks like a consulting agency but it's not like that. Actually we're building a very code-heavy platform based on WordPress that will have a lot of other services (like mailing lists, adwords/seo integration) other than the really cool integrated wp-based CMS.

we (http://cascaad.com) do. Albeit admittedly I live in hungary :)

If you want to start a startup in Italy, checkout h-farm, which is a startup incubator near Venice.

I've been told they take the majority of your company upon funding.

I don't know, I work for a startup funded by them, but I have no idea about that. It's still something if you live here and you need funding.

This is a valid suggestion, Oscar, but I suggest you disclose your affiliation.

also dpixel and italian angels for grow

Too much text, needs editing.

TLDR: tldr

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