Ask HN: Best Startup City - Outside the USA?
But for many people, the US is not an option. These days you can't necessarily easily get a visa, especially if you're a young startup.
So, the question is, what location is the most like SF in all the ways that are beneficial for starting a startup but outside the USA?
We're a two person team. Founders have been together for a decade. One is engineer with deep experience, other is marketing and design expert. We're already slightly successful with our first product that has pointed the way to the Big Product for us.
We can relocate just about anywhere in the world, except the USA. Our passports will allow us to visit most countries without a visa and we should have little trouble getting work/residency visas in countries that welcome entrepreneurs.
So, where's the silicon valley besides silicon valley?
We've thought about: Toronto- seems to have a very strong startup scene, but this is just an impression.
Bratislava- Near vienna, but relatively low cost. Seems to be growing in leaps and bounds and has a well educated populace. Environment of low regulation and capitalism, so this could be the startup hub of the next decade. Might not be that now.
Big Cities in Asia- There are a number of candidates here, from Manila to Bangkok. Seems the creation of a middle class has unleashed a wave of creativity and desire to create internet startups amongst the youth in asia. Hong Kong is an obvious possibility.
But these are just impressions. We'd like to find a place where there is the possibility of having relatively low costs, since the access to venture capital will not be the same as it would be if we were in the Bay Area.
But access to talent, and more importantly, a startup culture seems like it would be really valuable.
But where can you find this best outside the US?
287 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 287 ms ] threadThere is also a pretty decent tech scene here with some good meetups (we just had a barcamp, ruby conf and Geeks on a Plane)
Living is inexpensive, you could live for about 250-500 USD fairly easily if you enjoy the local food and drink the $.5 Tsingtao beer.
The issue with Shanghai is it seems pretty tough to bring money in and out if you are focusing on Chinese Customers though and can be expensive to get work visas, offices (the gov makes foreigners get expensive offices), good workers. The labour can be cheap, but like everywhere you get what you pay for.
I am moving back to Vancouver, BC next month where there is also an epic startup culture growing, even with some past hiccups. But if it wasn't for the company I am with right now, I would be staying here and may still come back to start something in the next few months. I do recommend Shanghai for a good startup city for sure.
Bratislava should indeed be much, much cheaper, though.
Re: talent pool in Vienna, I can't say from personal experience, but I doubt it's better than London (though admittedly cheaper)
i wanted to keep a positive mood about the own home town berlin and london has surely more talent. but also more competiton in getting the talent. eg setting up a shoestring team in vienna should be easier than in london. the state funds help a lot in the first years. i spoke with people in berlin. recruiting there is currently very tough.
There are many startup and entrepreneur events on meetup.com, such as minibar, london bloggers.
Also, in terms of a geographical 'valley', there's Silicon Roundabout ( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=silicon+roundabout&... )
Ah, relatively low costs - that could be the kicker. London is an expensive place to live. That said, one can still live frugally by cooking for yourself rather than eating out, and the GBP has fallen in value so it's become a cheaper place for those dropping foreign currency.
Finally, GOOD LUCK in your venture - keep us posted on your unnamed product, and where you're heading, in whatever sense of the word :)
Is Vancouver really second best? Vancouver feels like it's got one twentieth the hacker/startup scene that the Bay Area has. If that's second best I'm not sure what third best would be. Or is that just a testament to how much of an outlier the Bay Area is?
Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, while there are home-grown VCs, a lot of investors were from the West Coast of the USA. So in a sense Vancouver, for startups, is just a really distant suburb of the Bay Area that has more liberal immigration and visa policies. And snowboarding.
That said, it's a lot easier to maintain an exercise routine in Vancouver.
There are other factors at play: you can bike regularly because it's much more prevalent and safer in Vancouver. In Toronto, you need to have a car or at least a TTC pass ($121.00 vs $81 in Vancouver, $70 in Montreal).
* The tax breaks for software/web/tech-type startups is huge, not only the federal SR&ED tax for tech & biotech research startups, but KPMG also rated Vancouver #1 for "tax competitiveness" because of all the breaks the city (and province) provides to businesses, particularly startups.
* The mix of Hollywood, Video Games, and little tech businesses gives the tech atmosphere a really eclectic mix to draw strengths and pluck skilled people. The energy is "west coast" paced (meaning fairly swift but casual).
* Along with the "young" startuppy atmosphere and skillset is the commensurate payscale. It's cheaper than other cities and provinces to hire people, especially programmers. From everything I've read so far about the city, I think starting out is around 45k, then sr. positions is 60, and tops right out at around 70k for level IV guru coders. So, it's definitely not the Valley in terms of developer salaries.
* The climate is 7 months of never seeing the sun ever + 5 months of the most gorgeous weather you'll ever see. That gives you a space of 7 months to hunker down and _seriously_ work on your startup and hacking and 5 months to play as if you're a kid outside in the forest, mountains, AND ocean. It's a one-of-a-kind place for outdoor recreation, unmatchable really.
* The cultural mix is one I've never experienced before. The racial breakdown is ~50% Caucasian, 30% Chinese, then a 20% mix of mostly South Asian (Indian, Indonesian, Pakistani, etc.), Filipino, SE Asian (Vietnamese mostly), African, and Caribbean.
* You will _never_ blank on exotic cuisine restaurants, and most of them are inexpensive (well, aside from 12% "harmonized" sales tax that was recently implemented). In fact, Vancouver was named by Conde Nast Traveler magazine as having the greatest Chinese food in the world (yes, better than China and Hong Kong). And, it seems every immigrant to the city has opened up a restaurant to hawk their native cuisine.
Hey, I vividly remember going outside on the day after Christmas in a short-sleeve shirt and sunglasses. Like many West Coast locations, the weather can be very random. Although it's dominated by drizzle and mist most of the year.
> The energy is "west coast" paced (meaning fairly swift but casual).
Have to disagree with you there. If you're from the east coast or the Bay Area you are going to feel like you're wading in molasses. People from Vancouver usually don't have that sense of urgency, perhaps because the lifestyle is so good. The startups I know that had real ass-kickers on staff tended to import them. ;) I'm not saying you couldn't build a team that moved quickly, but you'll have to spend time inculcating that as a value.
You're absolutely right about the weather, though I consider the winter to be playtime as well. At least when the slopes are open.
Vancouver is on the shortlist and will get further investigation.
The corollary is that the great programmers in Vancouver all move to the USA so that they can get paid effectively double what they would make in Vancouver. If you're good, it's also very easy on a TN-1. (I've worked with a couple dozen programmers from BC (Vancouver, Victoria) throughout my career)
(Currently I work remotely for a US company because I haven't found a decent job opportunity here)
If you care for frequent flights to US/Asia, but don't mind the language barrier, Amsterdam or Berlin would be good choices as well. (Living cost in Berlin is relatively cheap yet it's attractive enough to live in for people - Amsterdam is expensive but small enough to commute if you want to live someplace cheaper).
Amsterdam would be a very nice choice in many ways, and living in the country to save on costs would be a reasonable compromise.
Their residency permit requirements are reasonable as well.
I didn't think of Berlin as being cheap. Will have to look into that. Berlin is very appealing for a number of reasons as well.
Berlin is cheap, but hiring people is expensive, but there are loads of start ups there. German Tax laws account for 2/3rd of all tax laws in the world. Somewhere there are tax incentives for R&D investment.
For corporate structure you should look at using a Irish company, as this is far simpler than starting a company in the Netherlands or Germany.
It’s not easy to rebound from that (after 45 years), even when you become capital, pretty much all of Germany’s successful post-war industry established itself in western West Germany. And not just industry, Post and Telekom are both still in Bonn and will probably be forever.
Berlin is also in the middle of a huge sparsely populated area. If there are no companies in Berlin that have jobs to offer not many people are going to move there.
(By the way, looking at lists with the biggest German cities is a bit misleading. Sure, Berlin handily comes out top, but look at this map: [+]. That’s not a zillion different cities like those silly natives with their tradition would want to make you believe, that’s just one city with five million people in it.)
[+] http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Ruhr_area-ma...
I am partly living in Berlin for 4-5 years now and now moving there with my startup completely.
Throw in high-unemployment, a city which is huge physically compared to it's population (it's bigger than london with a third of the population), lots of low-income self-employed artists, writers, etc.
All of these factors combine to make it a cheap city. I'm currently staying in a 4 star hotel in a nice fairly central area for £35/night. You'd pay more than that for a smaller studio flat in london.
Nearly everyone is able to speak english.
Small disclaimer: I am living in cologne, germany
It was very surprising how cheap everything was. Also, Doner Kebab (Turkish/German fusion street food) is a reason to stay all in itself.
I can't speak to the availability of startup capital though, if that's important to you.
However, the last time I was there the soviet union was still in existence.
I'm glad to hear that reunification has resulted in cheap rents, even if it is only on the eastern side of the city.
I think think that means Berlin might be close to ideal.
If this is a major concern, it can also be found in Vienna :)
It's going to be high on the list.
Hong Kong, China
Sydney, Australia
London, yes; not exactly a cheap place to live but there is a huge local market you can tap into, immediately.
Hong Kong; hard if you're not a native. The place is geared towards old business. The expats are mostly either in finance, import export, or doing teaching. Really hectic and you can't put your guards down (i.e. you can't just leave the house in shorts and sandals to sit at an outdoor cafe.)
Sydney. Great place. But, fuck, it's expensive. My weekly "man money", just for drinks, lunch meetings and coffee, was $500. Rent is cheaper in the Western Suburbs, and still cheaper in far dodgy places like Paramatta, but IME, if you go anywhere west of Central you're entering a technological wasteland (except maybe for Newtown.)
Could you outline the steps necessary to start a business in Hong Kong? IIRC there was a requirement for a local "secretary", which sounded confusing.
You have very few options for living (there are no suburbs or neighboring towns.) You either hangout with the tourists and transients merchants in the southern tip of Kowloon, and get nickled and dimed by merchants. Or you can suit up and live somewhere "decent", HK Island side and live the spender life I described above. Or you can live in the fringes of HK, in the New Territories, Lantau Island or some other no-man's land.
The first thing anybody will ask you is "where do you live". The location of your office is of prime importance. You will see most HK companies have photos of their office buildings, that's because there are a ton of paper businesses there and people go overboard to establish their solvency, if not their legitimacy. Everyone has a business card too.
The business registration requirement for HK is essentially $1k. Their laws are so flexible as to be an informality. If you have the money, Hong Kong will accommodate all your wishes. You just pay any accountant or lawyer anywhere in Tsim Tsa Tsui and you get a folder the same day. Then you take $5k to HSBC and open a business account. You're done. You ring up your favorite credit-card processor and get an ACH.
So all you need is $1k and you're in business? But what would I be paying an accountant or lawyer for - handling the registration? Couldn't I just do that myself, and/or did the "secretary" requirement not exist after all?
I suppose $5k is the bank's only requirement for starting a business account then?
> If you have the money, Hong Kong will accommodate all your wishes.
Would "having the money" mean being rich, or just being able to pay whatever fees you come across?
But $6k to have a business and bank account and be set up, and it sounds like you can do it in a day, that is valuable. That is damn good compared to many parts of the world, especially if speed is important.
1. It is true that you can have only HKD 5k (~USD 650) to start a business up here. Something like HKD 5k (~ USD 650) to hire someone to help you do the company / business registration so you don't have to worry about. Every year you need to pay a small fee for the registration again and pay another HKD 5k for an certified accountant to do your audit report. That's all.
2. Frankly the government is not very "pro-technology" but there are still different programs from funding (such as SERAP) to cheap and nice office (Cyberport and Science Park). Plus you enjoy a nice but very cheap Internet and wireless network here in HK.
3. Lack of funding is probably the biggest problem for startups in Hong Kong, but since you've mentioned it is not that important… Otherwise a lot of local startup moved to ShenZhen or Guangzhou solely for better funding opportunities.
4. Startup Culture is becoming better here. Just take a look at Startups Saturday 2010 (a event for startups this Sat.) here: http://startupshk.com/sus2010/
There are about 4 - 5 different technology user-groups / web events every months..
5. Other factual information to share: 5.1. HKD have a linked exchange rate with USD for HKD7.75 - 7.85 : $1 5.2. Rent is about HKD 10k - 16k per month for a reasonable nice office for 5 man team. 5.3. Young programmer salary are about HKD15k - 20k per month
http://www.emigra.com.hk/hongkong/page76.php
On the other hand, if you can qualify for the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme, you have a year before you need to show them any of the above. But they only let in one batch a year, I think in June.
http://www.immd.gov.hk/ehtml/QMAS.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_Migrant_Admission_Schem...
As for the business climate: if you have a physical product, HK is still the world's greatest gateway to China. If you're developing webapps, the broadband is good here and there's enough coders floating around. Once you're profitable, the immigration department suddenly becomes much nicer to you and will let you sponsor whatever staff you need. Taxes are low and simple (BUT, if you're a US citizen, they're not, because the IRS treats any American who owns a company overseas as a tax evader and demands insane documentation. You will have to understand at minimum the IRS forms 5471 and 8832, or more likely hire a lawyer to understand it for you).
And, a final warning: if you're trying to do anything pertaining to real estate or telecoms (AirBnB, Renthop, etc.), bring a pair of brass balls and a copy of Alice Poon's "Land and the ruling class in Hong Kong", because you're up against monopolists who own the government and all the infrastructure and will use them to crush you:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1493290
the reason that many tech events in Israel are in English, is not because of it's serving as a "lingua-franca" of our diverse population, but because almost always we have foreign guests or foreign speakers. It's enough to have one high-profile foreigner in the audience, so the entire event will be in English. The small meetups with only Israeli attendants are held in Hebrew. Even if the lectures or talk are in Hebrew, slides most likely will be in English. Also I would not call Jewish immigrants from North America - "expats". Thought there is a big Anglo-Saxon Jewish immigrant community (US,Canada,UK,SA,Australia,NZ).
I'm from Israel (temporary relocated to Europe), but thinking about moving to SF Bay Area for number of reasons. I contacted by our local VCs once in a while, but still it's not the same scale as in the Valley. Also my product based on Erlang/OTP with virtually no experienced people in Israel in Erlang or functional languages at all. The last reason, I work in Semiconductors industry and it's only logical to move to Silicon Valley ;)
Regarding moving to one of European countries: I would be careful, if you planning to hire people there. Most of the countries has strict labor codes, limiting number of hours employees can work and large vacations. So it might be not a good fit for startup. One of the reasons, Intel Larabee project is failed, because large chunk of the project was assigned to Intel Germany ;) VC frequently use word "hungry". Like: "I will fund him, if he is hungry enough". I think for your startup you need to choose a place were people are hungry. Hungry for success, hungry for money, etc. Unfortunately, Continental Europe is not such a place ;)
I think the hunger for risk & success is a good point, and perhaps the main characteristic of Tel Aviv, from business to art to nightlife. Though it takes a certain kind of person, especially if you grew up in much safer Europe/North America.
Good luck with your startup! Will be happy to buy you a beer if you pass by NYC, en route to SF :)
Tel Aviv didn't really have much terrorist bombing recently - I wouldn't be surprised if more people (even per-capita) died in NYC, London or Madrid in the past 10 years than in Tel Aviv, and you'd never consider terrorism to be a reason not to move to either of these cities.
I tried searching for this question and turned up a lot of alarmed newspaper articles about a rising tide of non-Jewish immigration, and even government promises to do something about this.
Either way, it's tough to get a work visa, about as difficult as the US or Europe. If I were doing it, I'd go on a tourist visa. All in all Tel Aviv is a great place to hang for a while, but if you're looking to relocate somewhere for a year or so I'd look for a cheaper and easier places in South America or Asia. Even Vancouver might be cheaper. (Or if you're an EU member there's Berlin and possibly some Easter Europe cities?)
And Montreal is even cheaper (about 2/3 the cost of living).
If I were in the OP's position, I believe I'd incorporate (if I really need to at all) where I have citizenship, then work on the product wherever I choose.
If you're talking an office with employees etc, that's a different story, but if it's a couple ppl working from an apt or cafe, perhaps with other staff telecommuting from where they live, I can't imagine this would a problem anywhere.
* Good programming talent.
* Access to capital. (Yossi Vardi alone funds a lot of startups.)
* Great English skills.
And some downsides:
* Young tech people can be whisked away by the military in a heartbeat. (And the draft can go up to 40 years old I hear.)
* Not as cheap as it used to be. Talented people make only a bit less than they would in the US.
* The culture tends to be more argumentative than the US. You can find yourself spending too much time arguing about minor details and not building product.
* Design talent can be atrocious. They aren't as focused on aesthetics as Western Europe or the US.
* Ethnicity based immigration policies.
* Flying there is a nightmare for non-Jews (sorry to put it bluntly, but it's true, I know from first-hand experience). And if you hire a young male Arab in the US, they will probably refuse to go back after visiting the airport once.
another plus point - awesome beaches
* not just Bratislava but Vienna, I heard it is also great to startup there (Schnitzelconf. sept 7 there)
* Zürich (ETH university, many Google engineers there)
* and btw Chile offers you $40 000 to start there (not sure that is a very convenient location, but that's a bit of cash and the wine is good;) my2cts Good luck with your venture.
http://www.thisischile.cl/Articles.aspx?id=4387 http://www.startupchile.org/
London is really expensive to live and financial sector is sucking in programming talent with their lucrative pay checks. I lived in London for a year and I feel that many smaller cities in Europe have as vibrant startup scene as London.
Berlin on the other hand is the cheapest capital in Western Europe, startup scene is becoming more and more lively and it's location is great for moving around Europe.
Nordics are also an option: Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen all have quite lively startup scene. In Helsinki, where I live, early stage investing is improving with very fast pace. There are no VCs here, though, but almost anywhere in Europe, you have to take look for investors from abroad in any case. But granted, Nordics are pricier to live than Berlin, although not that bad as London.
I've been to Chile and I can say that the people there have a very can-do, capitalist attitude. I'll look into the startup program their doing.
Thanks very much!
While I was born and brought up in Bangalore, I moved away for five years to College. I decided to start up after and moved back here, only to discover a very vibrant culture around technical startups. Due to the very strong proliferation of the internet, a lot of people have been picking up some pretty good technology and development stacks, and are not afraid to network and interact.
Language:
Most of the population you run into have a basic working knowledge of English, and as far as communicating with potential employees goes, it's not going to be a problem. You're going to have to put up with the funny accent though :)
Government/External support:
While there aren't fast-track routes to quickly get started, and there'll be a bit of paperwork involved, for which you'll need to get a local's help (heck, even _I_ am finding it a little hard). But as for bootstrapping and for staying in stealth mode, there's no place like it.
Cost:
It's incredibly cheap here. Maybe not China-cheap, but cheap. I am staying with some friends in a very large luxury apartment in the center of this very large city, and the overall cost is near 480 USD a month(for 5 people). Programmers are cheap and widely available. The Experienced ones aren't as economic, but pack more bang for their buck. If you're willing to be a little flexible, it's surprisingly comfortable to bootstrap on <$400 a month.
Networking:
There are meetups and networking sessions almost every weekend [ for example - http://www.meetup.com/Mashable/16063/?a=bn5_l1 which is tomorrow). Within a month, I'm starting to meet familiar faces, and a lot of people are looking for co-founders or someone with a good idea.
I recently attended the Yahoo Open Hack Day, which attracted over 500 hackers - and was amazed at the number of people who worked nearly 40 hours nonstop to come up with some very impressive hacks.
Another great example is "Startup Saturday" - a monthly networking session held by Headstart - a company to help people startup. I went to the June 12th Meet:
http://startupsaturday.headstart.in/event.php?eid=43
And found nearly 180 people cramped into a little auditorium. Plenty of people from abroad, and lots of people moonlighting - trying to make connections.
Examples of startups:
Just off the top of my head. There are tons more but these are from people I know personally.
http://www.capillary.co.in/capillary/
http://c42.in/
http://www.notionink.in/
The Indians/Bengalis I know locally are really nice people (if a bit square :-). On the other hand, I've heard in third hand that people moving to work in India said it was no fun at all.
What gives?
OP was asking for relatively cheaper, still plausible cities to start up in (he/she mentioned Chinese cities), so I just pitched it as a viable alternative.
I wouldn't recommend it straight out, as the last thing you'd need to worry about while working on your startup is to fit in with the local culture. Still - if you stay indoors you should be fine.
Sure, the programmers are cheaper than in the USA (I could say the same thing about say Rio De Janeiro or Beijing). There are hundreds of thousands of programmers in Bangalore but the majority are numbingly incompetent and work for body shoppers of various kinds. The good ones are rare and expensive and already have very well paying jobs. Good luck persuading them to work on your unfunded startup ;-) Nutshell: The entrepreneurial and technically competent hacker is very much a rarity in Indian society.
If you don't already know the devs you are going to work with in your startup before you come here I for one would not recomend that you try to build a company here and hope to hire good people after you land.
Also, there are no government incentives or tax breaks for startups (vs yet another bodyshop/outsourcing centre/ call centre).
Minor factual error: C42 (quoted in the post above) for example is a Rails consultancy (Yes I know the people who work there too. Ex ThoughtWorkers mostly). They might be a software startup (as the term is understood on HN) some day, but they are not one today.
There aren't any universities doing pioneering/cutting edge research (no not even the IISc, their research quality is at best mediocre) which might form the basis of a successful startup.
"There are tons more" (startups)
No there aren't. At least not as startups are understood on HN. There are a few startups and a lot of frothy talk. The number of people attending "startups meets" are not a good metric for "best city for startups outside the USA". Successful startups that have changed the world/been acquired for large sums of money, extensive angel funding and VC funding networks, top class universities doing cutting edge research etc, are. Bangalore lacks most of these or have only rudimentary stubs of all the above.
That said, the parent post makes some good points. Bangalore is cheaper than the USA (hardly surprising) and it has the potential for some good startups to emerge. That potential is, as of today, deeply buried. Vancouver or London or Tel Aviv or even Vienna blows Bangalore out of the water as a "city for startups". Things are changing in Bangalore but (a)very slowly and(b) under the radar of such things as "startup meetups"
My 2 cents. I write this to add a bit of counterpoint to the rosy picture presented above.
YMMV. As always Caveat Emptor.
EDIT: A blog entry written by one of the founders of Riya.com when he wound up his Bangalore operations - http://munjal.typepad.com/recognizing_deven/2007/04/episode_... .
I am not saying his observations are valid. I think Munjal did everything wrong about trying to operate in Bangalore, ("We tend to only hire folks from IIT or other top schools." is almost guaranteed to ensure that you end up with a mediocre dev team for e.g.) but that is a post for another day.
Still, if you can infer from my post, I'm still fresh out of college (read: naive and somewhat ignorant), and you should really do your homework. While there's much more talk than work (that's a fundamental Indian trait, almost), there is some minor degree of work happening. Unfortunately the people who are doing some serious, innovative work (like our small team) are exceptionally quiet.
I got the chance to watch Bala Manian [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bala_S._Manian ] speak, and he's currently on his latest venture here as well. It's not impossible to make things work here, but it's certainly not easy. The frank opinion is the ends nowhere near justify the means unless you have a co founder who is Indian, or you're on a near zero budget (I met an American founder who travels with a Mac Mini and a keyboard in a suitcase).
tl;dr - Don't book your tickets yet, but it never hurts to keep your options open.
Entrepreneurial and technical competent hacker is a rarity anywhere. Obviously you won't find it in a under-grad who took up a job in IT, just so that he/she can prepare for MBA. But there are programmers out there, who are good and are in programming for fun of it. But then, are they entrepreneurial? Will they work for a salary cut? From what I have seen that depends.
"There aren't any universities doing pioneering/cutting edge research (no not even the IISc, their research quality is at best mediocre) which might form the basis of a successful startup."
Again for a lot of startups this might not matter. How many of startups in US spring from Basic Research? Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, Blogspot, Six Apart... agreed that some of them had hard engineering problems to solve, but they wouldn't even fall into border line case of Basic research.
Riya example might be bad in someways because for a startup, it is bad idea to stretch yourself just for being cheap. Apart from IT services sector, if one is looking to start something great here, keyword isn't cheap. Inmobi started here and from what I have heard they are doing good. Zoho runs from Chennai. My previous startup marketsimplified runs from Chennai and is doing good.
I agree with lack of support system, Government, VC et.el, but if there is a problem it primarily lies with us, programmers.
Sometimes attitude is more important than on the spot capability.
Tax breaks are not that relevant for a start-up, most of the first couple of years you'll be making relatively little profits.
My impression of India in general and Bangalore specifically is that it is very dense. How is the public transportation system within the city? Is it difficult and slow to get around? There seems to be a subway.
How about broadband infrastructure? Is it convenient to get broadband to an apartment? We'd likely rent a larger apartment rather than both an apartment and office space.
The public transportation system is pretty decent (lots of Air Conditioned buses to most places these days) but the roads are creaking under the influx led by the software boom and often gridlock during rush hours.
You can get decent internet connections in most places. Airtel is the best ISP. I wouldn't call it "broadband" but more than enough for dev purposes. Unless you plan to watch movies online or something you should be fine. Oh yeah get an apartment with power back up. Makes a HUGE difference.
http://www.e27.sg/2010/07/26/singapore-startup-government-fu...
http://www.spring.gov.sg/Entrepreneurship/FS/FS/Pages/young-... "This scheme provides funding support of up to S$50,000 for youths to set up their innovative startup."
However, the startup culture and network is not as vibrant as it is in Silicon Valley/Bay Area. Also, I hear top quality developers are difficult to hire. That being said, no strings attached seed grants are bound to help to some extent.
Things to look out for: a very myopic startup community (people there tend to have an unnatural focus on the tiny Singaporean market, particularly with me-too product ideas) and prominent members of the community who are not themselves entrepreneurs, but who spend a lot of time talking about it to the masses.
Singapore can and will be better. Just give it one or two more years. But in the meantime - funding alone does not a startup hub make.
I've worked in and around startups in SG for the past three years and am now starting my own.
Sure there are blowhards in every community but there is a real sense of a movement happening here in SG. The Hackerspace, good user groups for multiple languages, Pivotal Labs are setting up out here, Joi Ito's Neoteny Labs incubator, a founders institute class has just finished and universities that are churning out an increasingly startup friendly work force.
Plus the weather is great, you're in a regional hub for bringing in wider SE Asian talent, or hitting a beach (cheaply) for a couple of days to get some vitamin D.
There are negatives: if you are a pure idea person rather than technical founder you'll struggle to hire a good developer out here, not because there aren't any but because the community of good devs are sharp enough to smell bullshit a mile off and would be happy plowing their own furrow or joining a startup in which they had more stake. You can't outsource to here.
Broadband and wireless are cheap and plentiful, nationwide free wifi in most coffee establishments.
As an Brit entrepreneur bootstrapping out here there is a lot to recommend the place. For interest you might want to check our 'startup experience' blog, http://nakedstartup.com. Or hit me up on twitter (@andycroll) for a more detailed chat.
In short, I like it, perhaps others might.
Food is as expensive or cheap as you make it. From $4 a meal. The cheap hawker food is generally excellent. Sadly booze is a bit expensive.
Dev hires from 3k / month for grads full time. Possibly a bit less.
Outside the US the answer is London. Lots of startups in Soho. You also have Seedcamp and active a-list investors like Index (esp. Danny Rimer) and the Skype guys.
IMO, you can't go wrong with Manila :)
Would appreciate a specific link or name for the visa you're using and how you went about getting it...
I'm reading your blog post and you talk about the level of regulation in germany... but my impression is that in china it is worse, and further it is impenetrable. Of course, I've never been to china.
Actually, it is likely we will domicile our business in another country. What we're looking for is a location where costs are low and the spirit is high and where the infrastructure we need -- namely a good connection to the internet-- is available.
I'm glad to hear that renting is easy. I would have assumed that foreigners were unusual and thus it would be hard to find someone interested in renting to one.
It sounds like my preconceived notions about mainland china are wrong. Thanks!
On the plus side: - many Chinese study Computer Science and there are many very bright young students eager for a job. - salaries are still relatively low (though higher than you perhaps would expect) - weather ain't bad if you can stand the summer heat :) - food is cheap, I eat in restaurants every day. - Shenzhen tries to focus on innovation and high-tech, I think you can apply for some subsidies
- The largest internet exchange in the world, which means very cheap and high quality colo
- Several large universities with CS departments in the vicinity should you need team members
- Excellent quality of life
- People speak several languages, including English
- A great startup scene
- Tax breaks on innovative (software) products
Downsides: not cheap and hard to get a working permit if you're from outside the EU. Don't go there if you get offended by a very liberal value system.
It also has a large number of headquarters of multinationals (Cisco, Philips, etc) so expat services are well developed.
I'm not really into generally accessible meetups myself, but I'm sure I've seen a few announcements come by of various functions.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Cyberjaya, Malaysia.
Top developers are many there.
It is hard to get a read on Cyberjaya... but it seems to be a small development focused on multinationals and not really set up for startups. Maybe I'm wrong?
I have lived in China and probably would not go back. Taiwan is another option I am considering but I imagine KL to be cheaper and more fun.
It has the University of Waterloo sitting there, which disgorges tons of CS and engineering students every 4 months looking for coop jobs. I'm currently attending UW, so I might be a bit biased, but I really believe that taking on waterloo coops is generally a good experience for any company. There are plenty of students there who enjoy working at startups (many graduates go on to form their own startups actually), and the university goes out of its way to encourage students to attempt startups.
Definitely worth looking into. (and more companies offering coop jobs is always welcomed)
Cheap, when you look from the dollar perspective. Lot of startups, lot of socializing, lot of expertise.
It surely depends on the kind of startup you are building, but knowing the local industry / companies (names, people, market shares) has helped me a lot more then the actual (lack of) regulations/startup "feeling", cost of rent, size of town.
Our business is a consumer internet play and so local industry isn't a big help, but the language barrier might be an issue. We'll certainly be taking these things into account.
Another alternative maybe Cambridge, UK which is cheaper, has it's own startup community, has a good talent pool because of the uni, and is only 45 minutes away from London using the commuter train.
Elsewhere in Europe, Berlin and Stockholm both have startup communities. I'd look at Talinn in Estonia if cost is a major issue, the government offers grants for companies hiring developers which can be of significant help in reducing labour costs.
Even worse... there are overlaps between events now. You can go to several startup events every day of the week some days...
Which is, actually, awesome. Yay.
I live in San Francisco, but I have to say: Warsaw is a super cosmopolitan city (though half of that is Turks), still relatively affordable, very high level of education, and it's the fastest growing economy in Europe.
Not to mention, the amount of foreign investment pouring into Warsaw is just ridiculous.
While we don't have lots of international startups, we have quite a lot local ones, and lots of talented people in the IT field. Internet connection is quite cheap, and a westerner also should not have any problems with rent (you can find sth small in a nice location for about 400Euro/mth). Youngsters generally speak English, elders not so much, but you won't have communication problems in popular places, malls and offices.
How's the cost of living? How much would a 2Br 2Ba apartment in good proximity to mass transit go? Would it be super expensive to get broadband to said apartment? Or would it be something like the US where you just ring up a provider and they turn it on?
How much is english spoken there? I'll look into the residency and visa issues and put it on my list though.
Thanks!
Depending of the available provider in the area 6-10Mbps is about 15-20Euro/month, if building is covered by a nice cable network for the same 20 you can as well have 20Mbps+. You sign 1-2yrs contracts. Public wireless coverage is poor.
Real estate - rent? take my prices only inicatively, I'm not into real estate, they're from a quick search ~~80m2 in the city centre goes from 700Euro/mth in an average building to 1000-1500E for a more fancy location. Places uptown with good transit (20-25min subway to centre) are a bit cheaper and there's more to choose in quality, f.ex. a modern building or an old one in a cosy quiet place. I'm talking about west riverside, eastside is much cheaper, but offers less in terms of neighborhood quality or transit.
Public transport is 20Euro/mnth, gas is currently 1.1-1.2E/liter.
If you consider moving here and got any questions, u got my email in my profile, feel free to drop a line.
I'm not brave enough to drive a car in Warsaw, public transit is "European class" (which is to say, there is more of an expectation that public transit works, and that it will get you anywhere... anywhere... even remote areas of the country. I cannot say that of the Bay Area where I can't even get to most of Marin, or Napa).
English is pretty ubiquitous as well. How ubiquitous you may ask... well, even the strippers spoke English. ;-)
There are so many things happening here, every day, every night. The Anglo-Saxon cultural origins of England (which are shared by North America) mean people regard individualism and independence a lot more favourably than elsewhere which creates an ideal climate for starting up your own company.
As a leading global city, people are drawn here from all around the World every day so there's an incredibly large talent pool here. By definition, everyone speaks English here which can make things easier. As one of the main financial centres of the World, obtaining financing here is a lot more easier than at many other places.
England being an EU member, you can enjoy the advantages of being located within the EU (hiring, easy access to the European market, etc.); at the same time, there's considerably less government regulation than in other EU countries so you would have to deal with a lot less red tape.
I've also never been there, but want to visit someday.
That is for a basic existence
btw, this century is the century of the Asia. To alter slightly a famous quote by F. Brooks - think for the future - it will be there sooner than you think. ^_^
If I was going to pick somewhere in the EU, I'd go for Berlin.
http://seedcapital.pt/2009/11/18/lisbon-by-the-sea/
-- MV
-- MV
Any thoughts on what a 2BR 2BA apartment would go for?
-- MV
4 schools in Lisbon pumping good graduates. There's a small scene building up around the town.
It's a really a nice kept gem. Give it a few more years and it should hit the headlines.
* Strong, diverse and friendly startup scene. From 2 to 5 startup events every week. see calendar http://63sq.rs/52c (View @mtlnewtech for more). Many local developer groups (montrealonrails, montrealpython, phpquebec, js-montreal,dotnetmontreal, uxmtl, etc.)
* Strong existing angel investors + new VC funds being created. You mention Toronto but actually there is more money flowing in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada
* Montreal is half european and half north american, half-french, half-english. Lots of diversity, lots of creatives. Literature : "Nearly a fifth of the Montreal region's workforce forms a super-creative core: techies & cultural & entertainment types ... Montreal also benefits from its dense, compact geography. Most experts agree that innovation and productivity are driven by density, and Montreal ranks third among all North American cities in average population density"
* Montreal is 2nd happiest city in the world http://bit.ly/dAWLW5
* 4 universities, plus engineering and business schools, such as McGill University, Hec Montréal, @SUPINFOMontreal or ETS
* cost of living is cheap. Not as cheap as Bangalore of course, but cheaper than Toronto, Boston and of course cheaper than San Francisco or London, U.K.
* lots of initiatives, one startup incubator (@bolidea), another one coming in September, blogs and publications dedicated to the community ( http://montrealtechwatch.com or also upcoming @nextmontreal), student/entrepreneur groups (@Startupifier), startup weekends (one coming in early October), conferences drawing hundreds of attendees (wordcamp, rocococamps, startupcamp, podcamp etc), big startup space soon (@notmanhouse)
* plus of course many technology projects launched every month, in average 1 or 2 new products launching every week. OstrichApp launched 10 days ago featured on apple.com, BeyondTheRack funding, statusnet, vanilla forums, Tungle etc.
I'm curious what you mean by this (and if you have any evidence) -- VC deal flow, overall economic activity, or what? The impression I've got from others about Montreal's economic activity hasn't been nearly as positive.
I also wonder if you'd be at a disadvantage trying to do business in Montreal without speaking French -- the friends of mine who have prospered in Montreal are all very good French speakers.
"A look inside the April unemployment numbers of 8.1 per cent shows Quebec, at 7.9 per cent, below the national average, and nearly a full point below Ontario's 8.8 per cent. You don't see that every day. In fact Quebec added 35,000 jobs in April and 91,000 since last July. When the May numbers come in, Quebec will likely have created more than 100,000 jobs in less than a year."
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Canada+recession+bette...
The language issue is always there, but Montreal's startup community is pretty bilingual. It's possible to do business here as a non francophone. But, if you want to establish a long term presence in Montreal, it's a good idea to at least try to learn French.
Montreal Start Up is a seed fund started a few years ago by a group of angel investors / entrepreneurs. It's on its way to a home run with one of it's investments. They are raising a new larger fund - http://montrealstartup.com/
Teralys Capital is a new fund of funds that has "$700 million" in capital commitments". I think 50% will be invested in Quebec. http://www.teralyscapital.com/who-we-are
On a related note, it seems that Montreal didn't get the memo about the real estate crisis in the US. Prices actually rose in the past year. Housing is still cheap compared to major cities.
http://newtomontreal.com/apartment-hunting-ads-lingo/
Montreal is very much a renter's city. It is common for anyone under 30 to move once every two years -- some people move every single year.
Rents are not as cheap as they were in the 90s but they are still desirable compared to other major cities in Canada.