Is The Norwegian Startup Scene Hot Or Not?

Re:Is The Norwegian Startup Scene Hot Or Not? by marcusf on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @07:35AM (#3943137)

Right by the end of the article, he hits on one of the big pain points of starting a company in Norway, Sweden or any other small sized country compared to the US: The comparative lack of a home market. It's basically impossible to make it big in Sweden alone, a country with a population just slightly bigger than NYC. Expansion of course means grappling with international governance, international law, wildly differing cultures etc.

It seems to me that the large home market is probably the biggest advantage US startups have (together with comparatively easy capital and a healthier attitude towards new ventures).

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Re:Is The Norwegian Startup Scene Hot Or Not? by ThomPete on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @07:40AM (#3943147)

To a certain extent you are right. But there are still very successful businesses only based on local markets in both Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

In Denmark for instance JustEat and Trendsales were pretty successful. Both have a heave part of logistics involved though.

If you are making something digital then always think of your home market as a market of 6Billion people.

Successful startups out of Denmark 100% digital but none of them choose to stay there.

Tommy Ahlers Zyb (aquired by vodafone) and Podio (acquired by citrix). TrustPilot.com, Zendesk (moved to the US), Unity (moved to the US)

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Re:Is The Norwegian Startup Scene Hot Or Not? by marcusf on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @07:53AM (#3943174)

Yeah, good point. I think it's vital to distinguish between local success and global success though; Sweden has a number of companies that have made it big locally but with a non-existent international footprint (Adlibris, to name one), and a select few lobal players, like Spotify.

I agree that you should look at the world as your home market, but in practice there's more to it than that. Just opening shop in another country usually means incorporating for example. Our founder has mentioned a few times that his biggest regret was setting up shop in England after Sweden, instead of going after the US directly. In hindsight, the gain/pain ratio would've been a lot better.

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Re:Is The Norwegian Startup Scene Hot Or Not? by ThomPete on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @07:57AM (#3943182)

I agree. JustEat is making it global though.

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Re:Is The Norwegian Startup Scene Hot Or Not? by marcusf on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @08:01AM (#3943192)

Cool! I've never heard of them before, probably due to me not following the scene enough and them not being available in Stockholm, but I'll keep an eye on them from now.

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Re:Is The Norwegian Startup Scene Hot Or Not? by bretthopper on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @08:37AM (#3943297)

Just-Eat is huge in Toronto now.

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