
Why Ireland is the best place in the world for a start-up - dajo
http://blog.dingadeal.com/irish-start-ups/why-ireland-is-the-best-place-in-the-world-for-a-start-up/
======
Peroni
From a business perspective, everything the author says makes sense. From a
human perspective, as someone who was born & raised in Ireland and
subsequently left the country 6 years ago at the age of 24 I can promise you,
Ireland is far from a vibrant, positive place to live.

Every single element of the media is drowned in the desperation of the
economic crisis, the cost of living is exorbitant and the weather is truly
depressing.

The education system is by far Irelands biggest selling point, aside from the
fact that it's mostly free, the standard of education and the amount of school
leavers undergoing degree courses is continuing to rise mainly because there
are no jobs available so the nation is instead looking to educate itself in
the hope that when the economy improves they will stand a chance of earning a
half decent wage.

I would love to see the tech culture in Ireland experience a revival, we were
once the worlds largest exporter of software second only to Japan and our CS
Graduates were some of the most sought after candidates on the planet but for
those of you considering a move, remember, whilst he timing may be right from
a business perspective, the atmosphere and culture is a huge barrier to
overcome.

~~~
hopeless
You can mostly ignore the media if you're in the tech industry because there's
basically two economies here: one is fecked and the other is the tech
industry, with tons of open positions.

Re. the weather: yeah, it rains. And when it doesn't rain it's often cloudy.
And sometimes it's inbetween (a "soft" day). But then the hills, fields and
mountains look fantastic (unlike, say much of the UK) because it isn't being
burnt to a crisp.

Of far more concern is the poor broadband infrastructure outside of Dublin,
particularly in rural areas but even in some cities. It ranges from 25Mbs
fibre to no fixed broadband at all in Cork city. Out in the country (i.e.,
10miles from a city), it's mostly a choice between mobile (3G), fixed wireless
or satellite.

~~~
arethuza
"it rains"

Not that much - according to Wikipedia Dublin gets about 695mm of rain a year,
from a Scottish perspective that's practically a desert ;-)

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> "it rains" ... Not that much

It depends if you're measuring quantity of "it rains" in mm of rainfall per
year, or percentage of wet time per year.

Some places are _very_ wet by the first metric, but mostly dry by the second.
I haven't spent a lot of time in Ireland, but it seemed to be the other way
around.

------
patrickk
The article neglects to mention two of the primary reasons why it's good to do
business here:

\- 12.5% corporate tax rate. Also if you are big enough to afford good tax
advice, e.g. Google or Microsoft you can bounce your revenue from Ireland to
the Netherlands and into the Caribbean tax-free islands -
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-
sho...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-
how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html)

\- Young, native English-speaking workforce. For historical reasons we don't
generally speak our native tongue at all. We've a high birth rate, so our
population demographic is quite young compared to other developed western
nations.

If a multinational (or startup) is looking to expand into the EU, Ireland
would be a good bet for a place to open an office for these reasons. The city
I live in (Cork) is just an hour flight from London, and it costs €30 ($40)
return including taxes and charges on Ryanair. That's cheaper than a train
from Cork to Dublin, our two biggest cities. So Europe is highly accessible,
and you can freely travel within the EU without customs hassle.

~~~
janey
Also, A solid legal system. (which recently stopped 3 strikes rule from
happening)

------
rickyconnolly
As an Irish individual, I can tell you that the author is overlooking one very
crucial downside to operating a startup in Ireland. As you may know, our
banking sector was decimated in the financial crisis. This has made it
extraordinarily difficult for startups to obtain even modest business loans
from financial institutions. Remember this is Europe we are talking about,
where VC financing is much less common than 'mainstream' financing through
bank loans. Many businesses are closing their doors and opportunities are
being lost simply because startups do not have access to the liquidity needed
to keep the lights on. On the flip side, this could be a great opportunity for
you VCs to buy into promising startups for a veritable pittance.

~~~
davej
Minister Bruton today announced €60mil in funds designed to help bring VCs to
Ireland: [http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/bruton-
announces-e60m-round...](http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/bruton-
announces-e60m-round-of-venture-capital-funding-386376-Mar2012/)

~~~
mattmanser
Does that kind of thing ever work? Just seem one of those schemes ripe for
abuse.

------
fuzzix
"There are even government initiatives such as the JobBridge scheme that allow
start-up companies hire people free of charge"

JobBridge has been roundly derided as a source of cheap/free labour for less
than scrupulous restaurants , shops etc. under the guise of internship (as
well as a useful way to fudge unemployment figures); "Learn to deal with
problem customers..."

The short of it is, you'll need to offer a fair incentive to get good people -
the IT sector is still pretty healthy here and decent graduates can expect to
walk into a job from third-level.

------
davidw
I visited Dublin in September a few years ago. While I enjoyed myself a great
deal, and liked the people and places we saw, it was such a relief to land in
Bologna (Italy), and see strong, bright _light_ coming from the sky. I could
never live that far north.

------
SeoxyS
These hyperbolic articles about places that are "the best place in the world
for a startup" need to stop. For a creative and smart founder, any place in
the world will be a fine spot to start up, and might even be better than
silicon valley. But if you're going to make a generalization like that, then
the bay area is the best place to be. Any article arguing otherwise is doing
so purely for the sake of defying conventional wisdom.

~~~
tomjen3
Depends on the kind of startup. A tech startup has certain advantages in
people, funding and connections, but a tech startup doing software for oil-
exploration, say, might be better located in Alaska.

And I would love to see the best start-up founder try his hand in Sudan,
Russia or North Korea.

------
swang
Background: Spend most of my life in America, growing up mostly in So.
California. Went to Dublin to work for 2 years between '06-'08. I came back
right when the financial crisis hit in '08.

Good things about Ireland. It is beautiful when it is not cloudy.

The people here are very easy to talk to if you want to have a bit of a chat.

If you want to go visit Europe, flights are cheap.

Bad things Expensive, especially electronics and food. I believe the rent's
dropped since the economic crisis but that was pretty expensive too.

There isn't much to do besides drink. Food is terrible. I heard it's gotten
better but if you've lived in SF or LA and you love food, don't work in
Ireland. There were a nice row of Chinese places on Parnell that were pretty
good though.

Customer service is shite.

It rains a lot, which isn't too bad since most of the time it's a light
drizzle but then it's always cloudy. The worst part though is the winds that
usually comes with the heavy rain as it makes it difficult to carry an
umbrella since they'd just break.

Banks open from 10-4 with an hour lunch break during that time (where they'd
completely close down) and on some days they'd open half an hour later for
"training." When I was there none of the banks were open weekends, with a new
bank that was opening up advertising, "OPEN ON SAT" as a benefit of their
bank. I didn't have a car and my work was too far from a bank so it was a pain
to do any kind of banking that required me to head down there.

This makes it sound like I had a rough time in Dublin, honestly it was pretty
fun and enjoyable for the most part. All the bad points are pretty minor but
having to deal with it day in day out was not fun.

~~~
rickyconnolly
"There isn't much to do besides drink. Food is terrible. I heard it's gotten
better but if you've lived in SF or LA and you love food, don't work in
Ireland. There were a nice row of Chinese places on Parnell that were pretty
good though."

I'd like to dispute this, there are some excellent fine restaurants in Dublin.
They may be harder to find against the high background noise of fast food
joints, but the same is true for all north American cities too.

~~~
fdr
I'd like to dispute your assessment of "all north American cities." Consider
San Francisco:

[http://maps.google.com/maps?q=mcdonalds+san+francisco,+ca...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=mcdonalds+san+francisco,+ca&hl=en&ll=37.761487,-122.427177&spn=0.08224,0.144882&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.03917,74.179688&hq=mcdonalds&hnear=San+Francisco,+California&t=m&z=13)

This is not a large number of McDonalds for a city this size. Most of the
establishments are singular or small, local chains (such as Philz Coffee).

------
wtvanhest
I'm sure Ireland is a great place for start-ups, but doesn't seem likely to be
the best place on earth.

Start-up incubators - Every major city in the US has them, most of them are
terrible. The things that I believe make an incubator good are mainly the
talented people willing to spend their time with entrepreneurs and the
connections which help close future rounds. Simply having incubators isn't a
reason to call Ireland a great place to start a startup.

Talented labour available for work - Every major city in the US has labor
available. Not paying for an education does not make someone more qualified.
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/22/countries-with-
the-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/22/countries-with-the-most-
c_n_655393.html#s117390&title=Ireland_322)

According to this article, only 32.2% of Irish citizens are college educated,
compared with over 40% in the US and 44% of SF residents
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco>

Access to successful entrepreneurs - Ireland may be small, but so is the
Valley and so is Boston, and so is DC etc. As long as you start meeting the
right people and are smart and have a good idea, doors open. It may be true
that the Irish community helps you, but I don't think this makes this "the
best place in the world to start a start-up"

State run organizations dedicated to helping your business - In almost every
case state run organizations do not help your business.

Community of likeminded individuals - These communities exist in every city in
the US. Start-up communities are full of likeminded individuals.

EDIT: The guy that wrote the post seems to have a good idea for a start-up.
There is definitely demand from mid size business in that are.

~~~
kiloaper
>According to this article, only 32.2% of Irish citizens are college educated,
compared with over 40%

That's not surprising given Ireland's demographics and history but a lot has
changed over the years. If you look at 25-34yr olds, for example, Ireland is
higher than the US at 43.9%. It's also had the highest level of graduates in
Higher education per population in the European Union a few times in the last
decade (2003 for example). Unfortunately a lot of graduates are now leaving
the country, mostly for the US, Canada and Australia.

------
philjr
I'd definitely question the talented labour available for work.

There's nothing like the talent in SF and we're currently saturated with
Google/Facebook/Amazon/LinkedIn/Zynga sucking up a significant chunk of the
best talent here and also bringing people from the UK and mainland Europe.

This would be a significant challenge for anyone looking to push the bleeding
edge of technology. There aren't many brilliant young 20 or 30 somethings
willing to work in a startup environment sacrificing pay for equity in the
same way as there is in SF.

Honestly, I'd see available talent as a significant struggle depending on how
you're scaling and what kind of people you would need.

~~~
ilcavero
I can tell you that my employers are having such difficulties hiring good
engineers here in Dublin that they are opening another shop on east Europe.
Might be matter of €€€, I don't know, but the pool of both companies and
candidates is quite small here.

~~~
dkersten
The company pool in Dublin seems large enough to me (relative to the size of
the city) when you count the handful of large companies and the many small
companies. The pool of (good) candidates is tiny though - I've spoken to a lot
of companies at events like PyCon Ireland and the IrishDev conferences a few
years back and just word of mouth through less formal events and everyone is
looking for employees! Google, Facebook, Amazon, Demonware - they are all
hiring and (from talking to people working at them) are having a hard time
finding enough people. Then there are lots of small companies that are finding
it even harder still to hire (and they can't offer all the perks your Googles
and Facebooks can...) - my former employer called me a few times to see would
I come back; I get emails and linkedin messages asking if I'm available for
work all the time; I get friends sending me messages to see am I available for
XYZ.. everyone is having a hard time filling positions. I also don't know if
companies just aren't offering enough money, but I get the impression that
there just aren't enough _good_ candidates out there.

So, from that, I would say that a startup in Dublin[1] is not a good idea from
an availability of talent perspective - there may be talent there, but they're
all happily employed.

[1] outside of Dublin, the availability of candidates seems to generally be
worse still, though some towns that have schools/ITs/unis but lack of
companies (eg Carlow) _may_ have some people who would rather not move to
Dublin

~~~
ilcavero
"The company pool in Dublin seems large enough ... relative to the size of the
city" might be true but the city ranks 34th in Europe by population, its just
my opinion from my observations but I have been underwhelmed on the
opportunities available for IT in Dublin on 2010-2011 when I was looking
actively.

~~~
dkersten
Not saying that you did anything wrong - I obviously don't know your specific
situation - but my experience has been the opposite (2008-present). The key is
definitely networking. Through Python Ireland alone, I have got more job
offers and requests for interviews than I know that to do with. Both last year
and the year before I spoke to a lot of company reps and employees at Pycon
Ireland and the general consensus was that its hard to find good candidates
and that companies, large and small alike, are having difficulties filling
their open positions due to lack of people. I personally get messages asking
if I'm available from work every other week (and I'm not including recruitment
agencies/shotgun HR emails in that).

------
sellably
Enterprise Ireland just announced their "New Frontiers" scheme which is going
to give 15K euro to 100+ startups. It does seem that the government is working
hard to support new startups.

~~~
anamax
Does anyone know how many "Ron Conway years" that is? 15K Euro is much larger
than the YC "stipend", but the recent side-investments have eliminated that
gap.

Yes, both are outliers, but there's more investment in the long-tail around
them.

My point is that 15K euros to 100+ startups sounds big until you look at what
the competition is doing.

~~~
dkersten
Well, compared to Startup Bootcamp, what Enterprise Ireland are offering
doesn't seem like a brilliant deal to me. For one, do they give you that money
outright? Last I checked, they only matched investments, so if you wanted 15K
you had to raise 15K yourself too. Also, I'm not sure what they want in return
and what kind of mentorship or introductions to investors they offer.

Startup Bootcamp on the other hand also gives you ~15K and seems to be modeled
on YC - you can do what you want with the money, they provide mentorship with
a large network of entrepreneurs and investors, they have a demo day where you
pitch in front of investors etc.

Maybe I'm a little outdated on my information on EI however.

------
michaelpinto
What I've learned from the valley is that there are three tests:

1\. Do you embrace failure and those who fail? And are there local investors
who think this way?

2\. Can nerds bump into each other in a random manner in a central location on
a regular basis?

3\. Are nerds willing to travel there? So is a nerd from Scotland or Turkey
thinking "I have to get to Ireland"

I'm not sure that Ireland has those three things yet. Although to be honest
I'm in NYC and I'm not sure we have that yet either (or have it 100%).

~~~
pbiggar
As someone who left Dublin for SF recently:

1\. Actually, Ireland isn't too bad for this. You're much much more likely to
head "at least you tried" than anything else.

2\. No. The tech community is tiny, though so is Dublin. But no, there are few
meetups, and they're poorly attended. A well attended meetup might be 30
people, but that's rare. There are more conferences starting, and some cool
ones too, like FunConf and the Dublin Web Summit, which can hold their own
with the sort of thing you get in SV. But they are rare - there might be 5
worth going to a year.

3\. Yes. There is a bit of a migration to Ireland for tech. That said, nerd
are more likely to go to Berlin or London, and probably even Paris. So, maybe.

I don't know the NY tech scene, but I would estimate the Irish tech scene to
be maybe 1% of the size of what I see in the valley.

~~~
michaelpinto
Maybe the first place to start is to stop calling it the Irish tech scene and
start to refer to it as the Dublin tech scene?

------
blainm
Irish person with a CS background here. I think Ireland has similar problems
regarding churning out 'talent' to the UK in that there are initiatives in
schools for people to use computers but that's about it.

The fact we have a much smaller population also means that the small
percentage of really good hackers you'd normally expect generally is a small
number. To compound things further, those in this category are also more
likely to immigrate, not because of some hardship, but because there are
simply better opportunities elsewhere. To put it bluntly, those who dedicate
large amounts of time hacking and getting better are a lot less likely to be
'tied down'.

Universities, yes the number of relevant applicants have gone up, and that's
good and all, but to me this looks more reactionary than anything else. I
think the primary problem is more of an image one, CS itself remains a mystery
subject to many. I realise that this problem may also exist elsewhere, but to
me it seems a lot more pronounced here.

I'm glad the government is at least doing something about it, but I feel that
simply chucking money at it probably isn't the most effective way to tackle
it.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Yeah, I'm skeptical about the existence of "state run organisations dedicated
to helping your business". Not that they can't be useful, but, you'll need to
tell me why.

------
thong
As someone who was recently in Ireland for an accelerator, and asked to stay
by Enterprise Ireland, here are some of my thoughts:

1\. Start-up Incubators - There are more in the US, that are on average, of
higher quality. The incubator we went to was good, but still doesn't compare
to YCombinator, TechStars or DreamIt in terms of mentorship and networks.

2\. Talent - It's harder to find GOOD python and ruby developers in Dublin
than say New York or Boston. Scores of average developers exist, but if you're
hunting for extremely good coders, you will have a hard time.

3\. Access to successful entrepreneurs - This is the one that annoys me most.
Yes - Ireland is a small place. Networking can be done in a matter of weeks
and you'll have hit the entire country's tech guys. However, the truth is
there were only about 10 founders that really made money during the last tech
bubble - the rest largely lost more than they made in the housing crash. That
being said, older entrepreneurs may be helpful, but both the successful and
now-bankrupt are often starting businesses of their own again. The article is
misleading on this point.

4\. State run organizations that help - This is true and they are largely
referring to Enterprise Ireland. However, what they won't say is that the
state money is contingent on the seed funds/angels investing first - they
simply match. Raising money in Ireland takes 3x the effort, and 4x as long as
it would in London, New York, Toronto, and especially compared with Boston and
the valley. The major problem is that these investors are extremely risk-
averse. I feel they want to get in on companies series B kind of stability,
but at seed level prices. That being said, they are also more interested in
better mousetraps than potentially disruptive ideas, in my opinion.

5\. Community of like-minded individuals - The people are fine.

~~~
dkersten
Note, I don't actually think Ireland is the ideal place, but I do think its a
reasonably good place to do a startup.

1\. Yes, I agree that it is not near as strong as the bay area, but with the
likes of Startup Bootcamp, things are improving on this front.

2\. The Python and Ruby Ireland user groups are probably the two most popular
programming language user groups in Ireland. While that doesn't mean that they
are _good_ , it certainly raises the odds over people who don't attend user
groups simply because it shows they are enthusiastic and wish to learn more.
Doesn't say anything about overall numbers, however.

3\. I disagree - I attended Startup Weekend Dublin the weekend before last and
the startup scene (including successful entrepreneurs) is quite vibrant and
alive in Dublin - and growing. Personally I was amazed that my group found not
only mentors who knew the industry of our project very well, but also
potential customers at the event itself and that through a small bit of
emailing we got a phone call with another industry leader.

4\. Outside of say Startup Bootcamp, I certainly agree with this point.

5\. See my comments on Python/Ruby Ireland and Startup Weekend Dublin - I find
the community of like-minded indivitduals to be quite vibrant and growing
every day (when I started attending Python Ireland, an average meetup might
have 4 or 5 attendees and I did not know anyone in the startup scene - now
meetups have 30+ attendees and the conferences sell out and I know tons of
people in the startup scene, including other hopeful entrepreneurs like
myself, successful entrepreneurs, investors.. etc)

------
naghmeh
There are many good reasons why startups should consider Ireland as their
choice location: The World Bank, recently ranked Ireland as the top country in
Europe for starting a company.

As well as hosting some of Europe’s top accelerator programs, Ireland has a
high rate of seed and venture capital availability.

Ireland’s population is young, highly innovative, well-educated and multi-
lingual.

Strategically located with easy access to the important markets in Europe, US
and the middle east. Ireland is the only English speaking country in the Euro-
zone.

Ireland is a great place to live and work. download the reasons why
[http://mammothdigital.tv/clients/enterpriseireland/startinir...](http://mammothdigital.tv/clients/enterpriseireland/startinireland/3/pdf/startinireland.pdf)

or check out www.startinireland.com

------
pbiggar
I don't want to be down on Ireland, but it is not a great place to do a
startup, though it is a great place and I miss it. I left Ireland to move to
SF for the tech scene.

The tech scene there is tiny, and is completely dwarfed by Silicon Valley.
That's changing sure, but it has a long long long way to go before it could be
considered "the best place in the world".

It does have cheap talent going for it. But it has basically zero VC (look at
where Irish companies go to raise, it's not Ireland).

I would say, at best, Ireland can now be considered a "not bad" place to do a
startup, but suggesting its the best is lunacy, it's not even the best in
Europe (hint: probably Berlin).

------
onlyup
As an Irish CS student I wish this were true. I'd love to go into a startup.

~~~
bbrian
If you're in Dublin go to PubStandards. Won't be hard to find a startup
looking for a team.

~~~
dkersten
PubStandards, programming user groups (both Ruby and Python Ireland groups are
excellent means of networking and I met many startup enthusiasts and
entrepreneurs through them), attend a Startup Weekend

Also, don't wait until you graduate to attend these - start as soon as you
possibly can. Its never too early to network and you may well save yourself
some false starts.

------
kitsune_
Mumbai, Shanghai, Seoul all sound more exciting. In that I mean that maybe
it's time to shift our focus to other places.

------
ricardobeat
May be perfect for the Irish. It's no easier to get a work visa there vs the
USA.

~~~
pbiggar
If you raise enough money to hire Irish people in Ireland, they will give you
a visa, guaranteed. Talk to Enterprise Ireland.

