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"Timo Rein is the cofounder &amp;amp;amp; CEO of Pipedrive, and was previously the cofounder of Vain &amp;amp;amp; Partners - the leading Sales Training company in the Baltics.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019re reading this, there\u2019s a good chance that you\u2019re an American, and that means you don\u2019t know how good you have it. Nowhere in the world offers the kind of business climate that is so conducive to innovation, creativity and success for the aspiring entrepreneur.\r\nI happen to be from Estonia, a small, but fiercely proud country near the Baltic Sea, one with a burgeoning startup scene that\u2019s full of driven, intelligent and hungry entrepreneurs.\r\nThere\u2019s no reason that Estonia shouldn\u2019t become a European tech powerhouse, but the biggest thing holding them back, in my opinion at least, is the outlook that most Estonians have when it comes to starting your own enterprise.\r\n\r\nThe startup attitude\r\nIn the US, San Francisco is synonymous with startups, and the attitudes and opinions that permeate the tech space, from New York to Austin to Silicon Valley, is largely derived from what\u2019s considered the norm in the 415 area code.\r\nBut they haven\u2019t quite made the leap across the Atlantic. Things that we take for granted, like a culture of encouraging risk-taking, a \u201Cbig picture\u201D way of thinking - even the way startups are expected to grow - are completely flipped upside down once you touch down in countries where a voltage converter is necessary.\r\n\r\nInterpretations for failure\r\nThe most jarring difference for an American born-and-bred entrepreneur would be the Estonian approach to failure.\r\nIn Estonia, people who set out to build a great business can\u2019t expect to be greeted with encouragement and support from the broader community. Going out on your own, taking risks and trying to forge your own path are greeted with skepticism at best, and outright predictions of failure at worst.\r\nWhen the venture eventually fails (as most startups do), most of the public will conclude with a self-righteous &amp;quot;I told you so.\u201D Your failure being chalked up to the fact that you are a born loser, and you will be marked as one for life in the eyes of many.\r\nIn Californian start up culture, if you fail, it usually means you've been brave enough to execute, and next time around, it will be taken as a sign of your ability to bounce back after a failure. In California, you are admired, rather than shamed, for your failure. there\u2019s almost a celebration of failure - the acknowledgment that doing something wrong can teach you to be better.\r\nFailcon has been wildly successful - and included some incredibly well-celebrated entrepreneurs, including former New York Times (and current Yahoo!) columnist David Pogue and Uber\u2019s Travis Kalanick. The valley is surprisingly maternal.\r\nThe same sort of \u201Ccrabs in a bucket\u201D mentality also impairs Estonian entrepreneurs from thinking big enough to go for it when crafting their startup. With just 1.34 million people in the entire country, and the kind of mentality that stifles entrepreneurship, most founders have only had their eyes opened when they\u2019ve left the country and seen the potential that exists outside Estonia and Europe at large.\r\nOne of my friends living in Estonia summarized it best:\r\n\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;I need to get outside every now and then to make sure I don't become a small man with small ideas.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nThe culture almost holds back the mass-creation of entrepreneurs, creating a lack of entrepreneurs to rely on for the kind of mentorship you\u2019ll find in the valley.\r\nWhere you\u2019ll find thousands of successful (Read: gainfully employed, large or profitable - or both - businesses) entrepreneurs in the valley, you\u2019ll find 10-20 people in Estonian who can talk from experience about growing a software company or a successful startup.\r\nOr at least ones that won\u2019t immediately assume you\u2019ll crash and burn.\r\n\r\nThen there\u2019s the geographical restraints\r\nAmerican entrepreneurs get to enjoy an enormous market for their products, with multiple software-loving and integrating cities and a population that is literally 300 times as large.\r\nIf you want to succeed in Estonia as a software business, you had better think about how to leverage customers in Europe, America and Asia as well, otherwise you\u2019ll find it incredibly difficult to reach a sustainable scale.\r\nForgive my pessimism - it\u2019s not all bad. The need to be globally successful from day one puts many Estonian early startups in a position where they actually can serve international markets, a task many US startups will face only after they've conquered their home continent.\r\nThe rosey \u201Cyou can do it!\u201D mentality of the valley is incredibly positive and encouraging, but also can lead entrepreneurs into a false sense of security. The harsh beginnings of an Estonian startup can lead to incredible success if you can break out of the initial (and slightly depressing) beginnings.\r\nThe small-scale environment has its advantages. A trial-by-fire environment like ours means that we can\u2019t hope to launch a company without revenue.\r\nThe capital and ecosystem is not in place to give entrepreneurs the prospect of building something that doesn\u2019t make you money. You have to have even a few paid users, otherwise you\u2019ll find that you can\u2019t afford even more important things, like eating and sleeping in a house with electricity.\r\nYou\u2019ll also find a much more committed mindset in Estonia than you will in California. In Estonian startup culture, founders usually proudly and stubbornly work on the idea they believe in for years, even if it does not take off immediately or fails to show the much sought-after \u201Cbackwards L shaped\u201D growth trajectory.\r\nIn US startup culture, the tendency to hop from one idea to the next is more common, with founders working on one project for 12-24 months, and then dropping it if it does not bring great results.\r\nPersistence is a cultural and historical trait of the Estonian, in part due to our country\u2019s great struggles in the past and in part due to the fact that there just aren\u2019t that many ventures available.\r\nDon\u2019t get me wrong: I don't think that the &amp;quot;succeed or fail big and quickly&amp;quot; mentality is inferior to committing long-term. I just don't know which mentality will emerge as the winner for any particular startup.\r\nSometimes it seems to take decades of commitment to one idea to make something great happen, and sometimes it's a matter of executing the hell out your idea during 24 months. Just ask Evan Spiegel.\r\nImage credit: Shutterstock/PromesaArtStudio"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/eu/2014/01/23/like-found-startup-estonia/>