Life is also a startup

The text continues the joint project of Colta.ru with the official website of Sweden in Russia Sweden.ru - “For example, Sweden” .

Your apartment is littered with various junk, which is a pity to throw out, but it is not clear where and to whom to sell? A pair of clicks in the Sellpy application - and they will come to you, everyone will take it away, they will sell anyone and they will share with you never superfluous percentage. Are you worried about the food that is thrown into the trash, so without touching it? This problem can also be dealt with using the Karma application, acquiring an excellent, but no bought lunch with a giant discount in one of the 250 Stockholm cafes. Are you worried about your grandparents? Here are smart devices from Aifloo , which will give a signal if they decide that something went wrong with your relatives. Do you need to find out who calls from an unfamiliar number-a spamer with another loan or is someone more important? For you, a TrueCaller tool has been developed, with which all this can be found out instantly. Or are you tired of the roar of truck polluting air? Movebybike has special bicycles with a trailer with a carrying capacity of 300 kg. All these are examples from an endless list of Swedish startups, offering socially responsible, practical and non -standard solutions for your life.

When in the early 90s the Swedish government began to subsidize the purchase of personal computers for ordinary citizens and entangled Stockholm of the world's largest fiber-optic network, not everyone could imagine that after a couple of decades this generous gesture would become one of the reasons for turning Stockholm into a European silicone valley. High computer literacy, developed network infrastructure, an active and democratic business culture, egalitarian social policy -these are the success of Stockholm success as an IT one, if not all of Europe, then at least Scandinavia. A city whose population does not reach a million people is a refuge today for more than 20,000 startups. The local IT -commentary has a separate reason for pride: with the exception of the Silicon Valley, per capita in Stockholm, the most so -called unicorns in the world, that is, startups with a capitalization of more than a billion dollars.

The heroes of the list of “unicorns”, these rare, but not at all mythological animals, are well known to ordinary users, although not everyone even knows where they were born. How many, for example, are in the know that the homeland of Skype or the Spotify music service is Sweden?

Music is generally an important part of the Scandinavian IT Sagi. For example, SoundCloud is also from Stockholm, despite Berlin registration, like its ACAST podcast analogue, in whose clients there are Buzzfeed and The Financial Times . However, musical startups do not live in a single software. A couple of years ago, they began to talk about the extremely entertaining Swedish sound system MAS 'N Live , which, due to the cunning transformation of low frequencies, allows you to listen to music at high volume and not disturb the grumpy neighbors with pulsating basses.

In addition, the list of “unicorns” contains, for example, Mojang and King , the inhabitants of the infosphere are more familiar as the creators of the Minecraft and Candy Crush Saga games. In Russia alone, the Minecraft audience exceeds seven million people, and the developers of the game back in 2014 became part of the Microsoft empire. The issue price is 2.5 billion dollars. Add to this list such veteran studios as Digital Illusions , responsible for Battlefield 4, or Paradox Interactive , which has developed the popular Crusader Kings strategy, and the level of development of the gam industry in Sweden becomes obvious even for those who have never looked into the “Games” of some kind of “games” of some Lifestail.

Music, games, services are all clear. Where else did the Swedish startups reach? As it turns out, to such areas where the entrance to mere mortals is prohibited. This is what PROP Tech is engaged in the fresh trend, which is responsible for digital technologies in the field of real estate. Let's say Tessin is a rather unique platform that allows individuals to invest in developers and receive interest from this. And the Build S AFE is an online platform that won the innovative grant of the Stockholm municipality. It helps to monitor users on the basis of cloud technologies, as in the construction of, say, their future home, all safety standards are observed. (This undertaking is directly necessary in Moscow to quickly fasten it to the renovation program.)

Or, say, legal difficulties. This is engaged in another important new direction, which is infrequently mentioned on Wired or TechCrunch -digital compliance technologies that facilitate the fuss with the legal aspects of their activities. One of the most intriguing Swedish projects in this area is Dporganizer , which helps firms organize personal data processing and report it in full accordance with European law. If we take into account how much attention to the EU has recently paid to protect personal data, the popularity of compliance services should only increase.

How did all this appear? Paradoxically, the small size of the Swedish market was only into the hands of many startups who had to think globally from the first day of their own existence. A startup huts also played a key role-for example, such as SUP 46 and Epicenter , who, in their areas, turned even potential competitors into friendly neighbors who were ready to share knowledge. As Elin Hammarberg from SUP 46 told Colta.ru, a few years ago, the Swedish IT sector was quite fragmented, but managed to unite, along with this, the number of investors and business angels investing in new projects increased in proportionly.

Another secret ingredient that allowed the Stockholm IT sector to become what it has grown into is a close and friendly community with healthy work ethics, which is alien to breakdowns, processing and constant burnouts in the spirit of the American 24/7 economics. Here they observe the balance between work and rest on the covenants of the Swedish practical philosophy of the Lagu popular today. Hammarberg explains that in most companies a horizontal, flexible structure, and "the state system of social protection allows young people to take risks and implement ideas without fear of losing everything and ending on the street."

Finally, while the American technological sector is seething around the “sexist manifesto” of a former Google employee, dismissed by the company for the manifesto of women's inability to program , Swedish private companies and the state are trying to solve the issue of gender imbalance in an IT environment without hysteria. The large-scale initiative Women in Tech helps to develop inside the industry and beginners and already experienced women programmers, and this is just an example of this approach.

By the way, today in the Swedish government at the Ministry of Innovation there is even the position of a separate startup coordinator, which is just occupied by a woman-Marie Vall. She is well aware of the problems of the stormy market of startups.

According to COLTA.ru CEO of Epicenter Patrick Meteron, one of these problems is the slow growth of projects: “Only 4% of startups cross the mark of a million euro turnover after three years of existence and only 0.5% - a mark of ten million”. True, this is in a sense a very Swedish situation. 99 percent of all registered companies in Sweden is a small business that is responsible for 4/5 of jobs in the country.

According to Meterton, “due to high taxes on salaries, starting companies cannot hire senior staff. An alternative option is to provide employees with stock options, but they are also taxed too high. ” Or another problem: “Sometimes new IT companies are developing faster than working legislation. Recently, for example, it turned out that the courier food delivery services Uber Eats and Foodora pay their employees below the minimum level of salaries, the government had to intervene. ”

Another difficulty remains real estate, the prices for which many potential specialists are scared away in Stockholm. Meteron says that “because of the overheated market, it is very difficult to find housing at adequate prices. The cost per square meter is 10-12 thousand euros, which is unbearable for young workers, many of whom prefer to leave for more affordable Berlin or, for example, Tel Aviv. ” Alas, there is no quick solution to this problem, alas, there is no need to wait. But, however, the same Stockholm company Tessin , thanks to which you can become an developer, has already attracted about $ 15 million in investment and, in a sense, serves as an antidote of the real estate market, which slightly inhibits the development of the Swedish IT industry.

True, a lot - this is not necessarily good. As Mesteron explains, “in addition to helping small companies, it is equally important to support large corporations so that they can grow calmly and not cross abroad, which would be destructive for the Swedish economy. Today in the country, the outlines of the startup bubble are already visible. So far we have a good economic and investment climate, but if we remember the cyclicality of the economy, that economic growth has a tendency to slow down once, young startups will be the first to enter. ”

True, this is an exceptionally foggy prospect. This year, the growth of the Swedish economy promises to exceed even the parameters planned for 2017 . And this means that Swedish startups will also actively change the quality of our life. Even if we have no idea who we owe this to this.