Lisbon’s Startup scene is booming
How to Successfully Relocate Your Young Startup to a New City like Lisbon
Today, this nation with its history of maritime exploration, has set out on a new voyage, a voyage of entrepreneurial discovery! A trend that many expect will continue for many years to come.
The world keeps talking about what’s happening in Lisbon, calling it one of the main Startup Hubs in the world. Foreign investors and entrepreneurs have call Lisbon the new Berlin, Forbes says Lisbon discovered its spirit of entrepreneurial adventure, the Financial Times compares Lisbon to San Francisco and the European Union has awarded Lisbon with the Entrepreneurial Region for 2015,
What’s happening here is remarkable. Lisbon is a showcase for startups such as Talkdesk, a company creating digital call centres, which counts Dropbox amongst its over 500 clients; Uniplaces, an Airbnb version for students, which in less than 2 years has expanded to more than 30 cities across Europe; Feedzai, the fraud prevention software that raised 17.5 million euros; Unbabel, a company promising to revolutionise the translation industry, which is a recipient of Y Combinator and Google Ventures investment; Codacy, the automated code review tool invested in by Seedcamp and winner of the last Web Summit pitch competition in Dublin.
And the number of startups created keeps on growing. Just over last year, more than 500 startups were created in Portugal, while 8.2% of Portuguese adults were involved in startups and new businesses, according to this article on Portugal Startups.
For all the above reasons GETiN Relocation Services has introduced a special relocation service targeted specifically at Start-Ups. Our service accomodates your needs for fast growth and low budget.
How to Successfully Relocate Your Young Startup to a New City like Lisbon
Moving is always a hassle, no matter if it’s to a new country, city, or even just down the street. Moving can be even more stressful if you’re not only relocating your life, but also your company. Sometimes, however, moving is necessary to grow your business, especially if you started your company in your home or college town.
If you’ve decided that relocating to a different place will benefit your company and help you grow, than by all means don’t let anyone hold you back.
Here are some tips to help you make the move as smooth as possible:
Pre-Plan Your Move
Although there are the usual things you’ll have to figure out when moving anywhere, such as signing a lease for an apartment, changing your address with your bank and dozens of other organizations, etc., there are even more things to think about when moving a company.
If you have employees, will they move with you, work remotely, or will you need to find new employees in your new city before you move?
Will you need to find new office space? If so, make sure the space is move-in ready and that all your communication channels are up and running. Same thing applies if you’re a home-based business.
Do you have any local suppliers or companies that perform essential business functions that you will have to find in Lisbon?
Will you need to rent temporary storage space until you get situated?
Who will you need to notify of your move? Customers, suppliers, freelance employees, banks, insurance companies, etc.
If you’re not working on your startup full-time yet, will you need a new part-time job? If so, have job interviews lined up or do phone/Skype interviews before you move.
All of these questions should be thought about and figured out long before you actually move. The last thing you want is for your business to be down for a week or two while you scramble to get everything up and running. Better to think about every function of your business and how it will work in your new location before you start packing boxes.
Or you can let budgeted professionals like GETiN take care of all relocation issues, and just focus on your business.
Network Before Moving
After choosing the place you would be relocating to, you begin reaching out to people through Twitter and other channels who already lived there. You should start with people and companies you already know about, then follow people they hang out with and look at the events they were regularly going to in the local startup community. Also visit your soon-to-be new home a couple times before actually committing to the move, making sure you meet with a dozen or more entrepreneurs, companies, and possible mentors.
In this way, you have already started building a new community for yourself weeks before you actually move. Do you know where many of the entrepreneurs hang out and what startup events they are attending? This is critical for most young entrepreneurs because the last thing you want is to not have a clue about who to know or where to go when once you have arrived.
Many startups are also drawn to Lisbon because of its tech talent and they end up setting up their tech teams here. This was the case of Seedrs, for example – you can ask the guys at Landing.jobs, a marketplace for tech jobs based in Lisbon.
The Move
This is the worst part. Depending on how far you’re moving, you’ll have to decide how many trips back and forth you’ll need to take and your method(s) of transportation. Some of us are able to fit our whole life and business into a 16’ Penske moving truck and then tow our car. A moving truck is usually the best idea for a small company move, unless you can hire a moving company, which is even better.
Make sure you pack your belongings strategically, however. You want to be able to access your most essential items first, so pack those last. You don’t want to have an essential item or piece of equipment that you can’t access until you completely unpack everything else!
The move itself is another problem we can help you with, using GETiN’s partner services.
Settling In
Moving is stressful for most entrepreneurs, and once you are moved in and unpacked you’ll probably want to take a day off just to unwind. This is a luxury most of us don’t have, though, and instead you’ll probably be catching up from the last couple of days when you were moving. The more you plan ahead, however, the less catching up you’ll have to do. Then you can spend time making new connections in your new city. If you’ve done your homework, you already know people and places to go to.
You can use Twitter to find new connections and sites like StartupDigest and MeetUp to find people and events in your industry. As long as you’re outgoing, friendly, and not trying to sell your products/services to every new person you meet, you’ll become a well-known local in no time.
To support all this you have many important players within the ecosystem, from incubators to accelerators, everyone is focused on building the next generation of tech entrepreneurs:
Startup Lisbon is an impressive incubator operation, occupying three buildings in downtown Lisbon. The organization is an NGO with strong support from the public sector (Lisbon Municipality) and the private sector as well. There are more than 60 startups with upwards of 200 people working in the current offices, and the organization has supported more than 180 startups since its establishment in 2011.
Lisbon Challenge, the accelerator program from Beta-i, was considered the 4th most active accelerator in Europe by Fundacity.
Fábrica de Startups, an incubator that has been innovating by creating different workshops, networking events and programs for entrepreneurs.
Without forgetting the funding sources like Faber Ventures, Caixa Capital and Portugal Ventures on investing and helping startups succeed.
It is no coincidence that the Web Summit has relocated to Lisbon. It will be on our shores for the next three years, and it is not only here for the sun & surf.
Contacts :
GETiN- Relocation Services, Praça da Armada, 35-1º 1350-027 Lisboa Portugal
