Italian Internet Start-up scenario
June 14th, 2009 Posted in Babotel, start upIn the last few days, we have all read the news that Massimiliano Magrini resigned from Google Italia to create an new VC / Incubator claiming that it will transform Milan in the new Sillicon Valley.
But what is the situation in Italy right now from a Start-up point of view?
Italian start-ups are nearly absent in the international panorama. Even the most interesting ones, and there are several, are all focusing on the Italian market only. Some of them do succeed in italy, but they never manage to gain relevance outside the italian borders.
There are, naturally, several factor at play, but here are what I have found to be the major obstacles:
1) Lack of funding. The italian banking system is not helping us at all. They give money only to companies that already have it. Venture capital companies are non-existant in the italian market. Recently there was an interesting initiatives of Telecom Italia “Working Capital”
2) Enterpreneurs’ lack of vision. There are outstanding individuals in Italy that work in the internet sector. However many of them have never worked abroad, and in my opinion lack an international mind-frame, focusing solely on the Italian market.
3) Lack of qualified employees. Babotel has been trying to hire qualified professionals in Italy in the last few months but it has proven very difficult to find young and qualified professionals in the market. The best professional tend to work as freelance doing small consulting work.
4) Bureaucracy. It is still very difficult to run a start up in italy. I have also run start ups in the UK, but the amount time I spend with bureaucracy here in Italy, is ovewelming. Almost 30% of my work is dedicated to it.
In spite of all of the above, however, I am happy to say that I am starting to see changes, especially over the last few months. I see more and more people taking risks trying to launch their start ups and develop their ideas. This is a very encouraging sign, that may, I hope, one day bring about the so much needed changes.
Let’s see what the future brings us.
