
Ask HN: How good are the local startup scenes in Lisbon and Sofia? - a_shy_founder
I&#x27;m a solo founder and my startup is beginning to get some momentum. To capitalise on this I&#x27;ve decided it&#x27;s time to move ops out of my spare bedroom and in to a more dynamic environment. Main goal for moving: increase my chances of bumping in to like minded people and finding a co-founder &#x2F; first hire.<p>I&#x27;ve narrowed the choice down to Lisbon or Sofia (having started with London, Paris, Barcelona, Sofia and Lisbon) and would love to hear the experiences of any HNers who have spent time in either city - especially if it was while bootstrapping your own startup (or working for someone else&#x27;s)!<p>Things I&#x27;d love to know: quality, size and diversity of local talent; quality of local accelerators and investors; how easy&#x2F;hard it is to find (good) people that want to take a risk and work for an early stage startup; friendliness of the local startup scene.<p><i>My pros for Sofia:</i><p>- Betahaus co-working space<p>- Fantastic cost of living (~30% cheaper than Lisbon - which itself is already cheap)<p>- Lovely city, cheap airbnb rentals, friendly people (most of whom speak english!)<p>- Apparently quite a good local startup scene (and there&#x27;s silicon drinkabout, founders institute and betahaus events for networking; none of which exist in Lisbon)<p>- Local accelerator (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;11.me)<p><i>My pros for Lisbon:</i><p>- Startup Lisbon incubator<p>- Lisbon challenge accelerator (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lisbonchallenge.com)<p>- Hosting next year&#x27;s Web Summit<p>- Local VCs and investors<p>- Nice and friendly city (though lots of tourists unlike Sofia!)<p>- Better weather<p>- Some notable startups (uniplaces, unbabel, codacy)<p>Which city would you pick?
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NetStrikeForce
Out of curiosity, what were the bad things in Barcelona? I've got an interest
myself, but haven't really investigated yet.

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a_shy_founder1
Barcelona is a great city and it started off as my first choice. I know it
well and my girlfriend's parents are just over the border on the French side.
Had a tour of Betahaus Barcelona too and that was lovely.

Why didn't it make the cut? I visited Sofia for the first time shortly after
checking out Betahaus Barcelona and it simply ended up beating Barcelona on
every metric I was interested in. It's significantly cheaper to live there;
Betahaus Sofia was just as good; Sofia itself feels as young, fun and dynamic
as Barcelona. It's a pretty city and everyone I met was incredibly friendly.
There also seems to be a better/more fully formed startup networking
environment in Sofia than Barcelona.

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NetStrikeForce
Thank you!

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atmosx
I had no idea about the drinkabout. I rarely go to Sofia these days, but if I
happen to be there, I'll join :-)

