STARTeurope

Aloha!

A heatwave is burning down Vienna and with temperatures of 37°C and no air conditioner in the office work becomes impossible. Thus, our team is working from cool bars, at home or from the pool. Although we still work hard, there’s a bit of summer feeling in the air and this is why I decided that this week’s Mashup won’t be about work. You should read it and afterwards go out to enjoy these last days of summer. Go for a swim, meet up with friends and leave your smartphone at home to make sure you won’t check any emails. Let life wash away your thoughts about work for at least one day. Relax, recharge your batteries and have fun!

This guest blog post was written by Kim Kashmere. Kim writes for an expat community blog that provides calling cards to Italy and Swiss calling cards. As well as writing she enjoys Travelling, Photography and Walking with her Husband and Dogs.


More people than ever are making that life changing decision to move abroad and try something different, but what start up job opportunities are there to find entrepreneurship while living abroad?

1 – If you are thinking of taking your profession (what you specialize in) abroad with you, you first need to think about whether there would be a market for your specific product or service where you are going. You could look on websites and forums to see what people’s experiences have been setting up their ventures and you can see what currently is being offered by people in the location you are bound for.

In order to compete with others you will need to offer a high quality product or service. If you can offer something unusual this will always be appealing to customers and stand you in good stead.

2 – Have a look at the real estate websites to see if there are any businesses for sale abroad that might interest you. There could be bars,  restaurants, hotels, b&b’s all up for grabs.

If you are going to consider buying a venture I would always advise going out there to see the establishment for real first and also the prices will always be better face to face. Apartments and Villas are always a good little business, as people love their holidays and what makes it so great about investing in Apartments and Villas is that you can make a return from renting them out, while at the same time  they are sitting there making you a good investment.

Obviously you must think wisely over the price you will pay and the location of the property, as this will determine how successful you will be in making money and a wise investment.

3 – Starting a franchise abroad could be just the thing for you as long as you have researched adequately enough to ensure that your product or service is suited to that particular country and to make sure that there is not too much competition around already offering the same/similar product and especially offering it for cheaper than you could go down to. For example certain products & services may be suited more towards cooler climates and others towards hotter climates and other similar variations, so there is quite a lot to take into consideration.

4 – Take a job in someone else’s business abroad to start off with, this way you can gain the experience you may need and maybe after a while you can do the same line of work yourself, then you will be more prepared and experienced, so should have a good chance of succeeding in what you do. People are always looking for staff to work in their real estate businesses especially English speaking staff, not only to help with emails but to deal face to face with any English speaking customers that come out on vacation and want to buy a property.

Also Tourism is another good business to get into as people visiting the country on holiday will be happy to have fellow native speakers giving them advice, help & tips and the customers will have more trust in native English speakers, as they can relate to them and have their native language in common.

5 – If you still can’t decide what the way forward is for you, maybe you will just have to go abroad to your chosen destination and see how the land lies.

Make sure you have enough money to finance yourself so you can live for a few months without income and see what job prospects there. You should get some business ideas or notice something that is missing from the town/city, just by being in the thick of it. If the town/city has something that it is famous for, (wine, leather, or a feature of some kind) doing something business related to that should always be successful as people are already visiting that town/city for that reason so you will already have clientele.

So here are a few ways that can help you and make it possible for you to find entrepreneurship while living abroad. You must work hard at it to start off and you will have lots of uncertainty at the beginning, but once you achieve your goal you will feel satisfied that you have managed to become a successful expat entrepreneur.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

it’s summer, it’s hot and love is in the air: we are showing all you pals & gals some big love and offer you a sweet group discount for the STARTUP WEEK 2011(you can get it going over here)!  Besides, we are still flattered by the love we received from the guys at The Next Web…speechless!

On another note: do you want to be part of the hottest entrepreneurial circle in Europe? Then check out this facebook group we created!

We hope you enjoy the Mashup and wish you bon appétit:

Something completely different to our usual job offerings, but we like it: HealthyCorner, which is offering fast & healthy food (especially breakfast) in Vienna, is looking for a manager with experience in the food service industry. Sounds interesting to you? Contact Vitus Bösch at v.boesch@qidenus.com!

The internets:

An in-depth look at what it takes to start, launch and grow a startup: Startup Lifecycle, by Fred Destin. This presentation was delivered at Mini-Seedcamp Ljubljana and boy, it is straight to the point.

“Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.” Google’s Senior Vice President David Drummond says there is an organized patent war against Google out there.

Events coming up in Austria this week:

You have an event coming up which should be featured here? Stumbled upon something hot (like really hot)? Want us to post your job offerings? For suggestions and hints, please drop a mail to julian.sametinger@starteurope.at

Heya guys and gals!

Awesome news from the STARTeurope HQ: Facebook’s Chris Hernandez will join us at the STARTUP WEEK 2011 as a speaker. Yeah, we’re cool like that. Speaking of coolness: yesterday we received some love from our partner TechCrunch Europe! If you want to attend the WEEK, there are still some early bird tickets left – so betta go getsum!

Behind the scenes, we are pulling some strings and you can expect a few more bombs to drop in the near future, so hold your pants tight! Is there anything you would really love to see at a startup conference? Something that has never been done before? If you have a idea worth sharing, we are more than happy to hear your thoughts on how we could make this WEEK the best week of 2011!

More at http://www.starteurope.at/jobs/

The internets:

Interesting interview with Douglas Edward, the first marketing manager at Google: the confessions from Google Employee #59

German VC firm Earlybird postulates that European VCs outperform their American colleagues

Finally! After a lot of buzz and a long stealth mode Jumio finally lifts the curtain! Read more here

Events coming up in Austria this week:

When: Saturday, July 30th, starting 6pm

Where: Stiegl-Ambulanz, Alser Straße 4, 1090 Vienna

What: Designer machen einen Screenshot ihrer Arbeit in einer maximalen Größe von 400×300 Pixel, laden ihn hoch und lassen ihn von anderen Dribbblern bewerten und kommentieren.

You have an event coming up which should be featured here? Stumbled upon something hot (like really hot)? Want us to post your job offerings? For suggestions and hints, please drop a mail to julian.sametinger@starteurope.at

Aloha!

Check this out: one of our speakers of the STARTUP WEEK 2011, Constantin Bisanz (founder of brands4friends, €150 Million exit to ebay) is out there in wild waters with temperatures in the 2-3° range to cross the Bering Strait on a freakin’ Kiteboard! Holy shit, that’s what I call pushing it to the limit – good luck with that Constantin!

While Constantin is out there in the Bering Strait, we’ve been sitting in summery Vienna and curated another version of your favourite read, STARTeurope’s Weekly Mashup.

More at http://www.starteurope.at/jobs/

The internets:

Google is looking for the new Google…they invested $583 Million!!! in startups within the first three months of this year!

Bubble here, bubble there. Someone once said: the best sign that you are in a bubble is when all these ivy-league MBAs quit their consulting and investment banking jobs and join startups

Thinking about selling your product through its price? Try selling on value instead!

Events coming up in Austria this week:

When: Wednesday, July 20th, starting 5pm

Where: The Hub Vienna, Lindegasse 56, 1070 Vienna

What: Pirates, mermaids, sailors! The Summer is here and we celebrating the SUN season on Hub Vienna’s deck! Get on board!

You have an event coming up which should be featured here? Stumbled upon something hot (like really hot)? Want us to post your job offerings? For suggestions and hints, please drop a mail to julian.sametinger@starteurope.at

The guest post is written by @nwstein, an international marketing manager and consultant who moved to Vienna two years ago from London, where he worked predominately in the Sport and Entertainment field. This post is in reply to @thomasdoane‘s guest post “Next Tech Boom“.