

Amsterdam's Startup Manifesto - vincentleeuwen
https://medium.com/on-startups/8656836beb94

======
cxx
The main reason why Amsterdam isn't a startup hub, and won't be for some time,
is really simple: money.

First of all compared to SV there is no easy access to capital. Want to raise
100k (an insignificant amount by SV standards)? Well you better get a good
price for your kids in the black market because there's barely any VC to speak
of and banks do not give money to anything more complicated than a clothing
shop.

Next is housing. Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, but
it's also one of the most expensive ones. Living inside the city ring (what
people typically understand when you talk about Amsterdam) is extremely
expensive. A 50-sqm-one-bedroom appartment will easily cost you $1500 (over
1000€) and for the average person that means almost 50% of your netto salary.
Go under that and you're not really living in Amsterdam proper but the newer,
and much less desirable, outer boroughs.

Finally there's the issue with compensation. Amsterdam is plagued with yuppies
in the finance/consulting/sales sectors for one reason: it's what pays. In
consulting 60k is almost entry level, and I'm talking about middle of the road
companies. A senior engineer, someone with more than 5-7 years of real
experience, is lucky to break 55k and will never get a raise once there. Lack
of talent you say? Go 120km to the southeast and you have access to fairly
hardcore technical guys. If you need more you have Germany right next to it
which also has lots of technical talent. There is no shortage of talent here,
there is a shortage of pay and of interesting work. And let's not get into the
highly unfavorable contracts offered, like mandatory non-compete agreements
for up to two years and automatic ownership of everything you make in your own
time with your own equipment.

In short, nothing will change unless there's more money flowing around.

~~~
janjongboom
Agree 100%. I basically see all really good engineers either flying out to SF
or working from home while being employed by a SF company. Mainly because of
the complete lack of appreciation (in hard cash) by companies here. I myself
are working for Norwegian company from Amsterdam.

Something to add as well: failure is accepted in the Valley. It's part of the
way to success. In the Netherlands you will get BURNED for life. First of all,
failing the company and being stuck with personal debt? The only way to get
rid of it is to go into 'schuldhulpverlening' (debt helping something), which
will mean you will have to live of 30 euro's a week for three years and can't
get any bank loans in the first five years after it. Second, an entrepreneur
that went bankrupt will have a stain on himself forever, both with banks, as
well as investors.

Then there is the complete difference in how investors work between the Valley
and Netherlands. When my previous employer was raising money (the company was
about 10 persons in size) the only way to get money out of Dutch investors was
to replace the management team, whereas they eventually raised 5M in SF. No
business plan or no experienced CEO? There is the door. Seed money? There are
a few funds that provide it but it's hard to get around to it.

~~~
vincentleeuwen
"It's part of the way to success. In the Netherlands you will get BURNED for
life."

Couldn't agree more.

------
andreafrancis
I'll throw in my two cents on the education side of things. My supervisor is a
professor of entrepreneurship. I asked her how she teaches it since she has
never started a business herself. She said "When I start the course the first
thing I tell them is that most of them are not going to start a business."
What she believes is that she teaches them a way of thinking that will help in
the future. This was weird to me. Basically, despite "expertise" in the topic,
it still boiled down to teaching theory and not how to start a business. But
that's just a snapshot of one conversation, take from it what you will.

Generally, there is a division in young graduates: the part that want security
and benefits and "not having to think about it" to the idealists who have the
potential but are clueless as to how to get started. Divisions between
disciplines in the classroom mean that in the past year I've spent more time
with anthropologists than engineers. A ridiculous amount of time. Who knows
what ideas could have been sparked if I'd hung out after-hours with a few
techies instead?

The irony is that many of the top graduates from my class will go on to work
for McKinsey and other consultancy companies (it was the top career of choice)
somehow deluding themselves that they can offer top advice on something
they've never fucking done. Isn't that pretty amazing? I think so. They are
not bad or dumb people, but they've been taught that they CAN do it like this.

What other industries can you be a consultant in without prior experience?

------
tinco
"Seriously: McKinsey? WTF do they know about starting your own company?"

Eh.. I don't know, maybe they've been consulting and guiding startups since
before you were born?

They've even written an excellent book on starting a business called "Starting
Up" ([http://www.scribd.com/doc/4505824/Mckinsey-Starting-Up-
Busin...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/4505824/Mckinsey-Starting-Up-Business-
Planning-Manual))

Anyway, I don't think that the problem with Dutch startups is ambition. It is
lack of action taking. If I look at people with awesome and ambitious ideas,
they almost never go out and persue it full time. They also almost never try
to find a cofounder. If they do, usually it's a group of friends that go at it
part time.

So perhaps what we need to convince people of is that it's not so risky to
stop what you're doing for a year and pursue a startup idea full time. The
Netherlands is actually a very startup friendly country, people just don't
know it. They don't know about tax advantages and subsidies available to
entrepreneurs. Banks make it seem like getting money is hard.

BTW how did you manage to write a blog post about startup culture in Amsterdam
without mentioning Bubbleconf?
([http://www.bubbleconf.com](http://www.bubbleconf.com))

~~~
vincentleeuwen
""Seriously: McKinsey? WTF do they know about starting your own company?"

Eh.. I don't know, maybe they've been consulting and guiding startups since
before you were born?"

Consulting and guiding from the sidelines indeed. Being a consultant is pretty
much the furthest you can get from being an entrepreneur. They know next to
nothing about risk taking, only about mitigating risk to others. I believe
it's a true disgrace that new venture is the most well-known startup
competition in the Netherlands, and I'm definitely not alone in this. Over the
years it has become a bullshit bingo where some 50-year old Shell exec
lectures young talent about why their startup should be a sustainability
focused business. They just forget to mention how they have been ignoring any
form of sustainable behaviour in their own business model for the past 5
decades.

I'd rather take advice from someone who's done it himself instead of following
up on some macro-level bullshit business plan book. I don't really believe in
stories that promises me golden showers based on some assumption-overloaded
excel model. Webvan anybody?

~~~
tinco
Just to make sure you don't misunderstand me. I don't have any affiliation
with McKinsey, I just think it's a bit odd to dismiss a firm with a pretty
solid reputation out of hand without much evidence.

I don't think anyone asks of McKinsey that they should be entrepreneurs, or
even risk takers. I don't see how risk mitigation is irrelevant to startups.
You'll find little about risk mitigation in 'Starting Up' though. It's more
about how you can describe your business in a standard way so you and your
investors can reason about it more easily. If that's something you want I'll
leave up to you.

I don't think you should follow the book to the letter, I just think it's a
good little book. There's no stories in it that promise golden showers, none
that stuck in my mind anyway.

Isn't the whole idea of risk taking to promise yourself golden showers based
on an assumptions based revenue model (or none at all), like webvan did?

I agree with you that it's a good idea to take advice from entrepreneurs
themselves though, that's also why Bubbleconf makes an effort to get founders
to speak at the conference (and not consultants :P).

(btw, I work for a company that coorganizes Bubbleconf, but I'm a part of the
organisation of the conf this year, just a helping hand)

~~~
tinco
*I'm not a part of the organisation

------
thenextwomen
Great Piece. FYI: last year we brought 500 female led startups together
througout the year, to connect with the eco system of investors. we organized
2-monthly Pitch training programmes that won the recognition of the European
training Foundation. We have monthly coffee chats for female entrepreneurs. We
bring a fresh approach to the startup female entrepreneurs, connecting them
with investors. We are building an inclusive startup eco-system, and indeed,
if there would be more corporates, VC's, who would support this, we would go
faster - and so would the female entrepreneurs. Every country in the world
understands that female entrepreneurs are key to future growth of the economy,
( do a google search and you will know) but the Dutch government is not yet
there. Next week we'll talk again

------
rubentim
I'd love to hear the one, the first, most important (or with the highest
leverage or MVPability) thing we could start to change. Tell me and I'll help.

Startup tour and media attention for it was not bad either btw. At Springest
we get a lot of visiting students who want to know what it's like to work at a
startup or start your own. I feel a bit like we're also underplaying how much
is good already. Maybe a first step is a good directory-style site that gives
info on all kinds of startup ecosystem parts? Then we can fill in the gaps or
accept them where they can't be filled in. And make sure nobody gives bullshit
reasons for not starting something :)

------
martinharing
I don't know were you got your information about higher éducation and
startups, but a lot of good things are already happening at ACE.
[http://www.ace-amsterdam.org/](http://www.ace-amsterdam.org/) Greetings,
@martinharing

------
vincentleeuwen
To be sure: With this manifesto we don't mean that the ecosystem is completely
shit. We've written this post in order to recognise current weakness in the
Amsterdam ecosystem, discuss and learn form them, and build something great
from it.

------
peterjaap
You're talking about talking to the government, but you'd need a clear agenda
if you want to partake in such an endeavor. So what will the main talking
points be and do you have something clear and actionable in mind?

~~~
nephronim
\- entry points in education systems using dutch influencers. \- Cheap
resources like specialised Housing \- Facilitate talent coming into the
country with more information on how to set yourself up and who to talk to. \-
Small enterprise and startup awareness campaigns

These kinds of ideas

~~~
wkneepkens
Who can/should spearhead this?

------
noloqy
In Amsterdam, there's almost no houses with garages. Put bluntly, this is why
Amsterdam will never be anything like SV.

~~~
codfrantic
IJburg (East-Amsterdam) is full of parking garages. Huge ones underneath
almost every large building :-)

~~~
vincentleeuwen
dangerous business, ijburg :p

------
calrieldur
It's started a conversation at the very least ;)

~~~
vincentleeuwen
Exactly. Which is the most important part in my opinion.

~~~
akulbe
I am an American who travels to Amsterdam on a regular basis, and who lived
there for 2 years for work. Based on that experience, I believe that there are
some more basic cultural issues that need to be addressed if Amsterdam is to
be a successful startup culture.

~~~
bjansn
Can you name some examples of the cultural issues needing to be addressed?

~~~
akulbe
I'd rather take that discussion to IM or video, as I think it would be more
productive in a synchronous fashion, than here.

~~~
nellyelephant
I'd love to hear it.

My experience has been an abundance of charlatans. The other issue is that 60%
or 6 out of 10 is deemed the best you will ever get out of a Dutch person.
And, a lack of accountability in anything that's done - so if it's not done,
nothing is said... poor.

~~~
akulbe
You're painting with a wide brush, as I was going to do as well... however, my
concerns are more specific.

Charlatans are in _every_ culture. Slackers are in _every_ culture. This is
nothing unique to the Dutch.

I am of the mind that reputation is important, and I'm wary of speaking my
concerns to freely in this format, and being misinterpreted.

If anyone cares to talk further, let's do Skype or Google Hangout. My
usernames there are the same as here.

