

Why Building A Startup In Russia Is Less Risky Than In The Valley - emmanuelory
http://www.arcticstartup.com/2011/04/27/why-building-a-startup-in-russia-is-less-risky-than-in-the-valley

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sireat
The positive points mentioned in the article might be valid, namely:

1\. Less local competition in adopting Western startups to Russia 2\. Easily
recruited qualified developers

One point not mentioned in the article, this kind of startup specifically
favors someone of Russian origin who has lived and breathed Western startup
culture for a few years.

Someone local might have completely different experience, and so would a
Westerner without any knowledge of Russia.

Finally, article completely ignores the big white elephant in the room:
Russia's rather tenuous grasp on rule of law.

Since the original interview was in forbes.ru it is only fitting to mention
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Klebnikov>

Thus, I would argue that it is not less risky to create a successful startup
in Russia.

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praptak
Even assuming that you won't get murdered, there's still plain old corruption:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=689205>

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mtw
(cough)
[http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/20/russia_s_cr...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/20/russia_s_crime_of_the_century)

~~~
gacba
Not to mention the widespread, ongoing corruption of the local authorities,
government employees, and infrastructure managers. Imagine having to
constantly pay bribes to keep your Internet connection available, the lights
on, and your building open. These are all significant issues in Russia, per my
Russian colleague who has now emigrated to the US recently.

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keiferski
_Most importantly, there is less competition and markets are more open for
conquest. 'Russia has many markets that are not dominated by anyone while in
other countries similar markets have companies that are already worth
billions',_

If that's the "most important reason," I think I'd rather go to Brazil,
Africa, the Middle East, or virtually anywhere else that isn't going to lock
me away for trivial things. (Not that the aforementioned countries don't have
problems)

~~~
zeteo
I don't think either the rule of law or the corruption situation are
significantly better in Africa or the Middle East than in Russia.

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mynegation
As a Russian I am very happy to see what Serge is doing. However, knowing
Russia from inside I presume that "building a startup in Russia" in fact means
"having an R&D office" not "registering as a Russian firm and planning to grow
a to a big corporation". It is not impossible but you have to have some kind
of gut and connections to navigate corrupted government on all levels
expecting you to bribe your way through, racketeering (attempts) by organized
crime, and shady tax practices. For example, in Russia it is quite common to
pay part of the salary bypassing the books (so called "gray salary") and as
such you are at competitive disadvantage if you want to pay market salary
_and_ pay proper payroll taxes.

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lapusta
The market in terms of consumer consumption is also _very much_ different from
US one. There aren't many profitable web 2.0 or mobile start-ups here targeted
for local market, even copying US ones don't usually work.

The only profitable model I've seen these days are Groupon-clones and i
believe they really work just in Moscow & Saint-Petersburg.

My company is also working on the similar services in Russia, but we make
products for international brands like Sabre & TUI, and while I like the fact
that such start-ups do appear here, I'm not sure it's "less risky".

