I was just thinking of a friend I have who has a very successful software product he sells. He is Scottish. He went to the university, got a doctorate in mathematics, found himself completely unemployable. Ended up living in a subsidized flat and on the dole. Kept applying for jobs. Was overqualified for menial labor and his math degree was generally useless for everything else even though the guy is completely brilliant.
On the dole, he started to write software. Over the period of several years he created a number of titles and started distributing them.
Finally his reputation was good enough and income coming in so he was able to get off the dole, buy a house, rent a business location, and hire employees.
There were a few years there he was probably illegal since he was running a business when he was supposed to be unemployed. But once the business paid enough to live on he lived on it and went off the dole.
Based on this, I think that public welfare programs can work to assist startups. The reason is the person is getting living expenses, which is all a developer needs, and there are no requirements or equity lost or regulations or other BS that takes away from focusing on developing a product and building a customer base.
In Belgium we have an excellent welfare program. For many people it brings in enough money so low wage jobs are not interesting enough. For 100 or 200 euro more they are not going to work.
In some countries you see people starting very small businesses just to survive. Buying and selling goods or delivering services such as gardening, cleaning or maintenance.
Maybe they should give a bigger incentive so people can start these small businesses instead of receiving welfare.
Off course I'm not speaking in IT startups in particular.
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I was just thinking of a friend I have who has a very successful software product he sells. He is Scottish. He went to the university, got a doctorate in mathematics, found himself completely unemployable. Ended up living in a subsidized flat and on the dole. Kept applying for jobs. Was overqualified for menial labor and his math degree was generally useless for everything else even though the guy is completely brilliant.
On the dole, he started to write software. Over the period of several years he created a number of titles and started distributing them.
Finally his reputation was good enough and income coming in so he was able to get off the dole, buy a house, rent a business location, and hire employees.
There were a few years there he was probably illegal since he was running a business when he was supposed to be unemployed. But once the business paid enough to live on he lived on it and went off the dole.
Based on this, I think that public welfare programs can work to assist startups. The reason is the person is getting living expenses, which is all a developer needs, and there are no requirements or equity lost or regulations or other BS that takes away from focusing on developing a product and building a customer base.
In Belgium we have an excellent welfare program. For many people it brings in enough money so low wage jobs are not interesting enough. For 100 or 200 euro more they are not going to work.
In some countries you see people starting very small businesses just to survive. Buying and selling goods or delivering services such as gardening, cleaning or maintenance.
Maybe they should give a bigger incentive so people can start these small businesses instead of receiving welfare.
Off course I'm not speaking in IT startups in particular.