Last year I got a chance to attend Web summit in Lisbon and visit different startup ecosystem stakeholders in Europe (Germany, France, Portugal, Spain , Switzerland, Czech Republic) to be precise. In this post I am sharing the experience of Euro trip and startup ecosystem of European countries that I have visited recently.
Starting with Web summit
Web Summit has rapidly become the monster of the startup conference world. That means your company will be one of 1,000 hungry young startups, each standing in front of a 3′ wide booth competing for attention from 30,000 attendees in a giant, noisy, zoo-like setting(I would recommend using a different word here). If you ask me whether you should go or not to a web summit for next edition my verdict will be – Go only if your pocket allows, there are hundred of tech events happening out there in our country. If you think your product is something that needs to go global and you are done with your Prototype + Early traction then you can take a ride for this event.
Accelerators : Most of them powered by Corporates .
After this Tech mela, we got chance to visit different startup accelerators and Co-working spaces of Europe. Moreover ,in terms of Infrastructure and facilities ,all are identical to the Indian ones . However,mentor + Industry connections is something which is something which makes them ( Most of them ) different . For Example, I visited Wayra , an accelerator based out in Munich, where i got to know that this accelerator is backed by Telecom Giant of Europe i.e Telefonica which is not just an accelerator to fund startup but a way of acquiring great talent for Telefónica. You can read more about Wayra here .
Co-Workings : Business is about Selling Community not Wifi and Chair.
During my stay in Paris, I googled Co-workings in Paris, surprisingly there were more than 10 coworkings. Got to know about Numa, Laptop, and the one I liked the most was Remix coworking.
Again the process is same, You need to buy a monthly pass and work from there for Day/Week/ Month. Event calendar in these co-workings stay always full and you can join any coworking any weekend for some Design / Tech / Fundraising workshops.
Co-Living and Hostels : The Culture
Co-workings were good but Hostels were amazing !
During our 20 trip to Europe , We tried different hostels in different countries and got chance to meet some amazing people from all over the world during evenings when people got together over drinks or on dance floor ( We skipped those floors though :p )
The best part of these hostels were – Community , Opened by Entrepreneurs ( not traditional real estate guys), Culture apart from affordability and flexibility of check in-check out
Differences & Similarities
Europe startup Eco-system vs Indian startup ecosystem.
Though it’s tough to share all differences in such a short stay, but I would like to share our experiences during our stay.
Scale : European Tech Funding Report for 2016: last year saw 3,420 deals totalling €16.2 billion vs $4 billion invested in Indian startups. One of the reasons is that the angel investors community in India is still at early stage and is growing with the ecosystem .
Expenses : If you want to start a venture in Europe and want to build your team there it will be far expensive than what you do in India. This is one of the reasons, we met number of startups from Dubai and US in websummit who outsourced partial or full technology to bangalore /Chennai /Delhi Based Indian tech companies .
Support : In this India is ahead than of Europe, Keeping government aside( That’s debatable topic) there is strong wave in Entrepreneur community which is ready to help early stage startups to go to next level which I feel we are giving tough fight to Europe startup ecosystem. However we need to go to ground level innovation and back such innovators, designers and thinkers in order to cater to upcoming 50Cr netizens who will be mobile first users.
For now that’s all I have to share. I will be visiting Dubai and Silicon valley soon asp my calendar for 2017. We are building something that Startups, aspiring businessmen and entire community wants. If you are community builder get in touch 🙂
To Sum up , I would like to share Jack Ma’s words to all Indian startups out there.
” Global Vision, Local Win”
Let’s build it together , grow together .
Thanks @Shubham for helping me compiling this one.