A NY Times a magyar startup ököszisztémáról (english)

A New York Times a virágzó magyar startupokról illetve a formálódó ökoszisztémáról, és persze a kihívásokról írt nagyon érdekes cikket. Hogy látják kintről a mi kis ökoszisztémánkat?

A cikk ITT olvasható, illetve az alábbi linken.

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Néhány idézet a cikkből:

“In Budapest there is certainly a trend toward creating an innovation hub for Central Europe,” said Peter Arvai, Prezi’s chief executive, during a recent video call from San Francisco, where the company set up an office in 2009.

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LogMeIn went public in 2009 and is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The venture equity firm Accel Partners, based in Palo Alto, California and one of the early investors in Facebook, has invested $14 million in Prezi.

“I think my generation in eastern Europe is a special group,” said Peter Balogh, interim chief executive at NNG, a designer of custom 3D navigation software for device manufacturers and carmakers.

“We were young when the whole Soviet block fell apart; we saw the established structure of society change,“ Mr. Balogh said. “We believe in change.”

Among Hungary’s strengths is a high standard of scientific education that helps nourish a “small but great talent pool, and a very creative culture, ” Mr. Balogh said.

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“Lack of money is not the problem,” said Barnabas Malnay, head of Mobility and Multimedia Cluster (MMKlaszter), a group that encourages contact between investors and start-ups and organizes training sessions. If anything is holding Hungary back it is “the lack of efficient communication between actors of the innovation ecosystem, clever government policy, and a shortage of truly competent business leaders.”

The small Hungarian market forces entrepreneurs to think big. “Figuring out how to go global with a consumer offering is the challenge for all companies operating from a small market,” Mr. Arvai said. “Right now, you can see a Prezi user in every country of the world.”

Local corruption also makes setting up outside Hungary attractive. “I could not imagine running a domestically focused company in Hungary,” said Peter Balogh of NNG, the navigation developer. “Tax evasion is still a popular sport, which makes it impossible to compete if you’re playing honest.” The country is small, he said, and corruption is still very high. “We had to fight very hard to avoid all of this, and it’s one of the reasons we’re globally focused.”

Moreover, entrepreneurs do not have a good reputation in Hungary. “My mother likes to keep from presenting me as an entrepreneur,” Mr. Retai of Pocket Guide said.