Chasing the Tale of the Unicorn

Chasing the Tale of the Unicorn - Innovative Internet Report 1
as one of Europe’s 100 hottest startups in 2014. After a couple cups of coffee
with Martin, I arranged a two-week trip for him to China to visit dozens of
factories within my network.
I really think that there is something special here in Stockholm that I have
not seen anywhere else in the world. I came here with no networks and had
to build them from scratch. Less than six months later, I already have an
extensive network within the Stockholm startup community. A lot of people
I have met at Meetups, and people are very easy to meet there. I have also met
a lot of people through referrals. People are so helpful and I think people in
Stockholm have a basic sense as to whether someone is a good guy or a bad
guy. Like when I was going to move into the house where I was renting a
room, the landlord was out of town and without ever meeting me and only
some communication by email, she said I could just move in without her
being there. In fact she just told me where to find the hidden key and to let
myself in. This would never happen in Hong Kong. Here it seems people
think about the greater collective and “know when enough is enough”. It’s
not like in the USA where people are going after bigger houses and bigger
cars and show off in front of the neighbors. Here it seems that people say, “I
don’t need anything more for me so I share and give back to others.” 190
One other special characteristic of Sweden is that the workday includes a
number of informal networking activities. Due to the dense concentration
of companies and other organizations downtown and the Swedish custom
of eating a hot lunch out in one of the numerous restaurants, many individuals
meet each other over a relatively inexpensive meal (around USD 10-15
including salad, bread, drink, main dish, and coffee). Back at the workplace,
the common “fika” or coffee break provides opportunities for individuals
both from within the same workplace as well as from other firms to share
knowledge and experiences. In this way, Stockholm is similar to Silicon Valley
in one of its reasons for success – that of informal networking outside of
work with people from other firms including the competitors during which
new ideas and knowledge are shared, job openings are relayed, projects are
discussed, and success and failure stories are passed on.
Other potential factors for Stockholm’s startup success include a highly
international workforce with English as the company language in many organizations,
a well-developed crowdfunding industry across all four forms
of crowdfunding (donation, reward, equity, and lending) enabling access to
alternative forms of financing, and an advanced test market that multinationals
often choose for the development of new products as consumers in
190. Leo Heung, Entrepreneur from Hong Kong. Interview 2016-03-30.
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