Cultures that oppose the startup mentality

There is no such thing as being pro-business. There is big business and there are startups. The culture that defers to one may not defer to the other. The country that worships Berlusconi because he has concentrated all business power in his own hands is not going to be a country that celebrates the daring entrepreneur who sets out on a perilous adventure and tries to do something new.

The existence of obstacles shouldn’t be a good enough reason to prevent you from trying at all though. When you have very little to lose, because you’re already unemployed (or are not making anywhere near enough to get by), why not try and start something of your own? It’s obvious that without an initial capital, funds, or credit you can’t launch a physical retail outlet or start having goods manufactured for you in China.

Thanks to the web however, it’s possible to bootstrap a company and encounter relatively negligible monthly costs. The only real capital required is knowledge, which is freely obtainable online, paired with the ability to work both diligently and smartly towards a goal.

With rampant unemployment in Italy, particularly in the south, one would expect a huge surge of technical startups in Italy. You’d imagine people staying up until 3 AM in order to fulfil their dream of running their own business. Sadly, these are not the droids you are looking for. Unemployment figures are appalling, yet there are very few self-employed people or entrepreneurs to be found throughout the country.

The real limit is the mentality that most young Italians have.

Risk aversion. Even when there is very little to lose and you’re 20-25 years old and without a family of your own to sustain yet.

Recently a great deal of people from all over the world applied to temporary leave their respective countries to go to Chile, in order to create a startup and take advantage of a $40,000 fund for startups that the country is offering without any strings attached. Americans jumped at the occasion, despite the availability of local funds. How many Italians have gone so far? Very, very few. And yet they are the ones who could truly use – and need to avail of – chances like this.

Fear of failure. Italian society has never come to terms with the fact that failing is an opportunity to grow and try again. If you fail once in Italy, you are often seen as a failure forever (short of doing amazingly well later in life).

In North America it’s pretty much established that statistically you’ll fail a few times before getting it right. Nobody would attach such a negative label to you because you tried to create something of value and didn’t end up succeeding. You’ll be respected far more than timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Real experts are usually people who have failed more than most people and have learned important lessons in doing so. This is true in any field, not just the business world.

Sense of self-entitlement. People in Italy still expect to obtain a long term post office or government job where you’re unlikely to get fired and will remain there for 40 years, just because they got a college degree.

I’ve interviewed several Italian job applicants throughout my life, and it’s not unusual to see them become visibly upset when a fellow Italian wouldn’t hire them over someone from a different country (simply on the merits that we’re both from Italy) – even when they’ve never written a single line of code outside of their university courses.

Fatalism. In Italy there is the belief that your future doesn’t depend on your own efforts, rather that it’s mostly influenced by impregnable external forces. When you are not convinced that you can take charge of your life, it becomes really hard to make the sacrifices and jump through the hoops required to achieve success.

Some great comments on Hacker News:

phatbyte:
Unfortunately this applies to Spain, Greece and my home country Portugal. South european countries have the same base mentality when it come to entrepreneurship, you either get mocked/ignored/stigmatized for failing or you get jealousy/ignored when you succeeded.

Also, we don’t have the mentality of “self-made man” and “go get it”, most of our population expect everything from the government. They get a degree and expect to get a job the next day just because.

I have serious arguments with family members and friends regarding this, because I’m the totally opposite, I strive to succeeded and I’m happy and expired when I see someone else succeeding. I don’t want to be in a safe job for the rest of my life, I want to be in a limbo all the time, that will make me push forward and fight to a have a better life. And to be honest I’m doing a lot better than most of the people here, even if I don’t have a “stable” job.

I’m currently working as freelancer for companies outside portugal, and I’ve just funded my company in the US. I expect to get away from here next year. I just can’t stand this mentality

and:

BSousa:
Portuguese here as well and I can vouch for just about everything phatbyte said as well. Anyone that has a little bit of success, in the eyes of 95% of the population did it either by a) corruption b) stealing c) abusing people/employees. People just don’t believe hard work is a key to success. Heck, even when I change jobs for a better pay my own parents complain about it, they expect me to die in the same company I started working.
On another note, where care you in Portugal? If in the north/Porto, send me an email if you want to catch a beer. Always looking for same minded individuals for a chat.