As a city municipality, do you need to improve quality of life and/or venture capital to attract startups and businesses? Apparent is that these are two profoundly different ingredients for progress, but cities could always use some positive encouragements and data, right?
There’s lots of time in the media vested in investing. There’s the typical reports on businesses raising funds. While getting an X Y Z series round proves something, it’s not a sign of successfully adding value for a business, or a recipe for progress. Notably these investments are mostly ‘imported’ from foreign countries. Funds are founded regularly in the Netherlands, but not even close of a the scale compared to the rest of the world’s hubs or countries.
Is there enough venture in Venture Capital?
Remove the venture from venture capital, and it’s just capital. Venture capitalists that call themselves VC’s in the Netherlands are mostly investing in a growth stage (prove me wrong). That means product market fit is found plus the product is stable for scale plus users are mostly customers. That takes about 1 to 3 years, go figure why they are so little proper success stories from the Lowlands. A venture in the literal sense, is a risky daring pioneering adventure. So why do VC’s proclaim themselves being venture capitalists?
So do we assume here startups should work with foreign capital? Let’s look at the rest of Europe, total fundraising in 2014 reached €44.6bn, the second highest level in the past five years. Great, as a continent we are growing, still Americans pronounce European “VC” is having a rebirth, where it’s at a 10% of what they are investing. Here’s how it can be divided.
This is from Yankee Sabra Limey’s blog.
What are the right questions as the Netherlands, and The Hague if we look at this data?
Are there enough campaigns to attract foreign startups? Do we breed enough life into our local entrepreneurs? Do we fight to keep foreign students here to start a business? Are there subsidies for VC’s to push them into more early calculated risks stages? Are there enough incubator programs? Do these incubator programs are supported by the government?
All these questions make us think and reconsider. This opened the chance (probably not a coincidence) for the one of the creators of Ruby on Rails, Founder of 37signals and a NYT Best-selling author prompting entrepreneurs to reconsider raising funds. While he is an American, this profoundly resonated with people, within weeks there were more than 7000 shares on Medium (a big deal). So while you are now also reconsidering raising funds, can we pivot focus on improving local quality of life? Is this then real rationale why startups come and is location not that important to make an impact?
Is the quality of life more impactful for startups to stay or immigrate?
The data and research by Teleport tells a great story why founders and employees have distinct motivators when it comes to moving. Although:
Life quality improvement is a goal shared between employees and founders alike.
When the data from surveys show the Netherlands is relatively writing a welcoming country for expats (although subjective). We’re so small as a country we rather see cities as neighborhoods or hubs. Groningen, Rotterdam and Amsterdam rank satisfyingly high on quality of life, no data on the rest of the lowlands though. The Hague is humble and modest, but maybe it shouldn’t be like that. The quality of life in the Impact City is literarily off the charts, because we’re too modest, we’re too busy making international impact. Keep an eye on our magazine to find out how we compete with the cities of Earth.
Eventually it’s easy for people to say we need and want improvements, it’s harder for the municipality to execute on the short and long term, as progress happens mostly organically. We can only cheer and help, give motivation with data which people can use to prove and share arguments. Thank god (or within context, thank the AI), we are not trying to reinvent a ‘Silicon Valley’, we are also not looking to move there, because there’s simply no winner or ideal place.
Can we say is it possible to focus on both? Venture capital on the short term with campaigns, stimulation programs and subsidies. Quality of life on the long term, with improving education, housing and local policies? While there’s no definite answer, as life came out subjective and capital not being the single solution to progress, it’s safe to say local being is more important than local money.
The post Venture capital vs quality of life. Where can cities improve? appeared first on Impact City.