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You have to be aware that Skype was a Swedish-Danish startup (according to Wikipedia), those countries have a bit longer history of capitalism and entrepreneurship than ex-Yugoslavia (which was socialist less than 25 years ago) countries.

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Agreed. Also in Balkans, due to weak economy and lack of state support, devs won't easily risk giving up their jobs in order to run a full-time startup (no VC's to fund projects there).

That's not really true, there are VCs. Crane [1], for example, is a network of angel investors in Croatia.

[1] http://www.crane.hr/

The two founding partners at Skype were Swedish and Danish, but the company also started with three engineers in Estonia, and the company still (judging by their jobs page [1]); the company still has an engineering presence there. That model (foreign entrepreneurs getting it started, but based/staffed locally) may be the most likely one for a big consumer-facing company in the former Yugoslavia, but it would still be a major achievement, and could build that startup tradition locally.

[1] http://www.microsoft-careers.com/go/skype-tallinn/332461/

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