We know much of Silicon Valley as the maybe most prominent start-up ecosystem world-wide. However, other ecosystems are rather dynamic as well, such as Berlin, Tel Aviv and the like. There maybe be different resources, persons, and institutions that play a role. However, are there any dominant factors that play a role?
Dear Jörg,
You may want to take a look at a related question:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Nanobiotech_startup_better_in_the_USA_or_in_Germany
Regards,
Serge
Thanks, Serge! Yes, there are some interesting interfaces to the thread you mentioned.
Best,
Jörg
After 20 years in the start-up industry I left Germany in 1999 yet. Therefore my answer of course is influenced by the fact that I had to leave my country due to non-existing Venture Capital.
Before Christmas I had a lunch with two bigger German VCs in Munich. And nothing changed the last 20 years: There only aim is to delivering a subsidary to a big company in stocks. Therefore they never will spend time and money to develop a model of Freeware such as Adobe, Google and Facebook did.
The "ecosystem" of course depends on "weak" factors such as trust, confidence, patience and a sense of risks.
If you have a look on all the stupid shit of Berlin being acquired by Springer, Burda, Holtzbrinck, at Samwer Bros. and the 30st portal for comparing insurances you may explain this by the ecosystem, of course.
In Silicon Valley there are people (as the Germans Thiel and von Bechtoldsheim) who:
- Built up something from nothing
- Helped others to build up something from nothing
- Sold nothing for something
- Transferred something in new nothing
The businessplan of a successful start-up - by the way Researchgate is a Start-Up from Berlin! - must not be a "V" but a big Null.
So while capital is THE dominant factor for start-ups, capital depends on the Social Capital of the people providing the capital.
A guy like Dietmar Hopp from SAP prefers investing in sailing and soccer. Mr. Burda prefers Real Estate. Matteschitz extrem sports. Hoeneß stocks.
So if drivers would come to live in Germany of course they would refurbish the poor ecosystem of "Gründungsberater" from the FH and avoid us from begging two years for 40.000 Euros of which 30.000 go to the consultants.
Dear Serge, unfortunately yes. Only in Scandinavia pension funds invest in start ups. Skype and Opera came from there. In France it's even worse than in Germany. In Austria you can achieve excellent research funding and credits (100 to 400k) that can substitute seed money. In the Netherlands you get funded but you end up as an employee with 2 per cent of the company if the idea was good. The Dutch investors are TOO clever and will never let you participate.
In Switzerland it often happens that the local Kanton finances a start-up by giving a first and important order for the service. Then the investors attend the other 26 Kantons to follow which they don't, because every Kanton is a country for itsself with resources to provide any thinkable service.
For Eastern Europe I have no experience.
I realised the existence of one factor recently (from experience mainly though). It seems valid at least concerning the contribution of university to start-up eco-systems, more precisely the contribution of student-entrepreneurs or professional scholars to a start-up eco-system. It is free time, for students and scholar, kept available in their academic curriculum/program, in order for them to be able to "hang out" and "come across" others who don't necessarily belong to their (sometime very) "small world".
It seems to me to be a pre-condition, not- that-often verified, for enabling serendipitical dynamics and variety/diversity inside start-up project teams (so important for innovation and living eco-systems). The few academic references I can thing about right now are the work of R. Florida on the "Creative Class" (especially “social diversity” and “tolerance” variables), and some old work of Cowan on formal Social Network Analysis and diversity, with computer simulations, that was innovation focused. I'm interested if someone has more ideas/academic contributions on this.
It'a a matter of "word" : don't think "start-up" but "innovator" !
Ecosystem is concept developed by ecology and is valid only for living beings like innovators, not valid for concepts like innovation. Ecosystem is not the right word for start-ups.
In the ecosystem, you can identify two kinds of features : ressources and regulations. And for living organisms, ressources are not a mechanical factor with input and proportional output. For example, living being needs food, but if you increase quantity of food, he doesn't need it.
You can imagine a lot of "premium" factors like finance (but it is like food, you need it like a service, it is not a trigger factor) or knowledge (the same) etc... but the key feature is to achieve a sustainable critical mass of innovators.
A kind of egg-and-chicken problem ! The main characteristic of innovator ecosystem is the number of innovators involved : retired innovators, successful innovators, future innovators ... and even ruined innovators !
This is the key indicator and factor for developing an ecosystem.
The next question is how you can do that : unleash, unlock, free ... innovator and finance his projects by people who also want to get the new frontier.
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