Entrepreneur goes Dutch on start-ups

Silicon Valley has long been considered sacred ground for start-ups but increasingly it has plenty of rivals. Cities across the globe are all working flat out to try to create a good environment in which young companies can thrive.

In recent years, London, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Paris, São Paulo and even little old Dublin are among those cities to have staked a claim for having the best ecosystem for would-be entrepreneurs. One place that is less well known in this regard is Amsterdam, a city that has a long and illustrious history as a trade centre.

Amsterdam is doing its best to rectify this by seeking to market itself as the “start-up capital of Europe’s west coast”. It has enjoyed some success as a result and has begun to attract many more fledgling companies to the city.

One person leading the mission to push things further along is Limerick man Paul O'Connell, founder of Dutchstartupjobs.com and, latterly, the Uprise Festival.

O’Connell moved to the Dutch capital in 2008 after completing his college studies and, since his arrival in the city, has been doing his utmost to bring people together to work harder to boost its reputation.

A visual designer by trade, he freelanced for a number of years before setting up his own business. In 2012 he founded Pitchrs, which began as an idea to bring start-ups together to learn from each other. Less than a year later he established Dutchstartupjobs.com, a website dedicated to helping young companies find talent.

“I started getting involved in the start-up scene shortly after I arrived in Amsterdam. What I quickly realised was that many of us faced the same kind of problems – such as finding good people and so on – but no one was coming up with solutions. Things had progressed with Pitchrs but that alone wasn’t enough, so one weekend I put up a blog and within a day it had 1,500 unique visitors to it,” said O’Connell.

"It took me about a year and a half to fully build its reputation but the platform is now revenue positive, we have a few members of staff and Dutchstartupjobs.com is now the biggest such site in the Netherlands. And we've added a sister site in Belgium as well," he added.

That’s not all though. Earlier this year, O’Connell ran a prototype festival known as Uprise to see if there was an appetite for a big event that would showcase the work being done by start-ups and to help them secure talent.

Having successfully attracted more than 4,000 visitors and with 77 start-ups participating, a second full two-day festival is now due to run on September 25th and 26th. More than 10,000 attendees are expected to attend the event for a mix of workshops and content about technology, job opportunities and music. Partners for the festival, which will highlight the work of 200 young and mid-stage start-ups, include Facebook, the University of Amsterdam and Red Bull.

Uprise began as a way for university students to find a single entry point into start-ups and blossomed from there.

“Universities started coming to our website looking for a way to make contact with startups, as students were keen to join them and many young firms were also looking to make contact with the careers offices in these institutions,” said O’Connell.

“So we looked for a way to bring the two sides together. This led us to doing workshops with college students on what entrepreneurship was and the reality of working for a start-up and from here it became obvious that we needed a focal point so that’s how the festival came into being.”

He’s hopeful that Uprise will soon be a regular on people’s calendars to match the Web Summit and Vienna’s Pioneers festival. However, O’Connell is adamant the event offers something different from many of the tech events we’ve come to know.

“Our focus is on participation rather than on listening to guest speakers. Not to knock other events but they often treat start-ups as a side event, which always drives me crazy.

“We want to connect young firms directly with the public to show them that the products and services they’re working on are ones that could end up in common usage. We want visitors to see that these are things that are being done locally rather than in Silicon Valley,” he added.

O’Connell is optimistic about Amsterdam’s ability to become a well-known hub for start-ups, particularly given that the Dutch government is now also doing more to promote the city. For this reason he sees himself staying in the Netherlands for some time to come.

“I moved here because I wanted to experience a different style and culture, and while things have been challenging at times, it’s also been exciting. There’s an established design and visual aesthetic that I really like and being based in mainland Europe is great because there’s a chance to go pretty much anywhere you want to from here,” he said.

“I could have easily moved to Berlin, which has a more established start-up ecosystem but I love the Dutch focus on having a great work/life balance and think that’s very attractive, not just for myself but for many young entrepreneurs as well,” added O’Connell.