[madaxe_again]

They have a really odd way to attract tech talent....

I exited my startup in the uk two years ago, successfully, leaving a successful and growing technology business behind. I have several ideas which I am prepared to self-fund up to £0.5M, and want a good environment in which to start a new business. I know coders in NZ, and they’re a talented bunch, we began to hatch a plan.

In short, the NZ gov’t don’t want it. They either want more money invested up front (much, much more), a VC to be involved (not at that stage yet by a long shot), or for me to buy a new property in NZ for > $2,000,000. Apparently having built a business with £10M turnover from nothing isn’t sufficiently good enough entrepreneurship for me to pass.

I’m now looking elsewhere - which is a shame, as I love NZ for many reasons, from the people to the nature, to the family I have there. I’m trying very hard not to be bitter about the repeated rejections, as it’s not fair to tar a nation on the basis of immigration bureaucrats. I’m certainly disappointed - the idea was for a service that NZ needs, that I hit upon while travelling there after my exit for a few months.

All they will attract will be satellite startups owned by megacorporations, as this appears to be how the bars are set.

[prebrov]

I'm not in NZ, but seriously considered it as a destination. I agree with you, the article has nothing to do with reality and is just wishful thinking or, more likely, a PR shill paid up by NZ's foreign promotion board or however they're called.

Jacinda Ardern had a strong anti-immigration position during her campaign, she literally promised to cut immigration by 20'000-30'000 per year, from 70'000. No surprise that current government basically dismantled all immigration schemes.

Good luck to them building their own Silicon Valley!

[yarg]

There's a huge number of low skill immigrants in New Zealand, they don't really add that much to the country.

I don't imagine that any restrictions on immigration would significantly impact skilled workers.

That said, I don't understand why we would possibly have a requirement of VC involvement when the already money is there to actually do the work.

[madaxe_again]

So, despite being an entrepreneur, and having founded several successful and sustainable businesses, I’m one of your “unskilled migrants”. Sure, I’ve been coding since I could walk, I have current and expert systems and web technology knowledge - but I have a bachelors. In physics. Not useful at all, and puts me on the same rung as a golf course management graduate - actually, below, as they have a shortage skill.

One of the hurdles I am repeatedly failing at with trying to emigrate is that I do not have a compsci degree.

It seems that having a bit of paper is much more important than having a track record.

[yarg]

So in fact you're in no way unskilled, and if you're being measured as such there's something fundamentally broken in the way that skills are being measured and something should be done about it.

Nothing ever will be done, and it's a loss for the country.

[te_chris]

Because the VC's wrote the rules...

[lancewiggs]

Lol no we didn’t.

[zinckiwi]

I'm generally pro-immigration, but with a population of less than 5 million and a housing affordability crisis, 70k a year simply isn't sustainable.

[oblio]

Isn't New Zealand hugely underpopulated? I fear that their real problem is elsewhere...

Just checked quickly:

* the UK: 65 million people, 242 000 sqkm -> crowded

* Romania: 19 million people, 238 000 sqkm -> not that crowded

* New Zealand: 4.8 million people, 268 000 sqkm -> it's definitely not overpopulated...

Edit: Heh, I also checked the density, it's the 203rd country in the world regarding population density. There's definitely a ton of space for people there, if the government wants it and is diligent about promoting construction of affordable housing.

[Timpy]

I don't think people per sqkm is the most relevant metric of overpopulation, it's more like people per available resources.

[oblio]

New Zealand is famous for being very resource rich, so I'm not sure I share your concern. NZ is an exporter for many of its resources: http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/nat...

[ElCapitanMarkla]

Land wise yeah theres heaps of room, but infrastructure / housing wise, not so much.

[toomanybeersies]

It's not a population density problem but a housing supply problem.

There just simply aren't enough houses in NZ. Simply finding somewhere to live can be a struggle, let alone somewhere affordable.

[oblio]

So it's artificial scarcity, basically. Someone/something is blocking development, right?

[toomanybeersies]

It's a series of problems that confound each other, some artificial, some organic.

First, we have geography. Auckland is located on an isthmus that ranges from 1 km wide to 10 km wide. It's basically on an island. It's also covered in volcanoes. Wellington is bound by the sea on one side, and hills on the other. It's wedged in the middle. They can, and have, expanded into the sea using land reclamation, but there's only so much of that you can do. There's only so much land you can put buildings on, which is a major problem when growing.

NZ also suffers from NIMBYism. People in NZ don't want to live next door to apartments, and they also don't really want to live in apartments either. Everyone wants to live in a detached house with a back yard. This problem is particularly prevalent in Auckland. The poor state of public transport and congestion on the roads in Auckland also limits how far out you can live if you work in the CBD.

And lastly, the rate of immigration has been so high that they just can't build houses or infrastructure fast enough to keep up.

So these 3 factors have worked together to cause a severe housing shortage in Wellington and Auckland in particular.

Christchurch is the only city where house prices and rents are stable or decreasing. However, the city suffered a major earthquake in 2011 which knocked out a lot of the housing supply. Whole suburbs were razed, and will never be built on again. A lot of houses only needed remedial work, rather than full reconstructions, so the housing supply has bounced back reasonably quickly. Christchurch is also the only city of the 3 main cities in NZ that is built on flat plains. Christchurch has practically unlimited space to grow inland.

Most immigrants move to Auckland though, so Auckland has borne the brunt of this housing crisis.

[cs02rm0]

Maybe the property is the route to go - can it be commercial?

Remote hires not an option?

Tech startups seem to be hard to get people to take seriously, however solid the foundation. I've done a lot of consultancy for a UK company whose entire strategy has stalled for years because they can't/won't invest in building out a rewrite of their flagship product.

I've offered to build it out for zero up front cost, just cut me in on a slice of the pie if it sells. They won't even consider it, haven't even begun to discuss the size of the slice and have turned down other contractors trying to make the same offer previously. I'm not sure how the risk could be lower and in the meantime their competitors are booming.

And they're not government employees.

[dwightgunning]

This is lame though to be fair to NZ I've come across similar requirements in other countries too.

Over the years I've happened to be invited to discussions with policy makers in both The Netherlands (2013) and Australia (2016) and as far as I know they came up with similar policies. Further back I recall taking a look at Germany (~2012) and it was also onerous.

The main takeaway I had was that constructing a set of fair requirements that can be effectively assessed/enforced is nigh impossible. Entrepreneurs should be vocal and advocate for changes that improve the system but ultimately play the cards that are dealt and stay focussed on the company mission.

[cr1895]

For what it's worth, it's relatively simple for an American to open a business and gain residency in the Netherlands through the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty.

[beagle3]

But unless things have changed considerably in the last 5 years, that American will suffer greatly at the hands of the American tax system, which treats any American owned and managed asset outside the US as a tax evasion scheme.

[dwightgunning]

That's true and definitely worth noting. In NL it is a very easy path compared to the one non-US citizens need to navigate.

[avip]

Not to advocate NZ, but you should consider any immigration plan is fraud averse first.

[kalleboo]

> I’m now looking elsewhere

Have you found anything? Singapore also requires a VC; Japan has a startup visa but there you have a quite steep language/cultural barrier... If you're from the UK it seems like your main option is inside the EU (until Brexit at least)

[njoro]

Is this the "Entrepreneur Work Visa"? Because reading online suggests that you would qualify. Of course when it comes to visas it is often hard to know how things actually work without talking to an immigration lawyer or similar.

[madaxe_again]

Yes, it is, and I thought so too from the info available online - but the reality is rather different. I had a hard line of £10k to spend on exploring immigration exploration there including paying a lawyer - and when that money was gone with no progress, I cut my losses.

As to where instead, others have suggested Portugal, Romania, Poland - Portugal is nice, but get talking to locals and there’s a problem with corruption around business ownership and ensuing audits, etc., Romania has a really big corruption problem, and there’s not much happening outside of Cluj and Bucharest, and Poland has the same kind of politics that I’m hoping to leave behind in the UK. Natural beauty and quality of life were big pluses for NZ.

I’ve also explored Latin America to little avail (the ground situation is rather different to the paper one - huge black markets in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, brewing social unrest), and am now looking seriously at Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania- although again, all three are hardening their stance against non-EU migrants, which I will be come March next, and have similar nationalist movements to elsewhere.

[phyalow]

>£10M turnover from nothing

I dont understand why people quote turnover. It is a useless number.

[fauigerzigerk]

It's not necessarily useless. It usually (not always) means that there is a useful product that someone is willing to pay for. Doesn't mean it's sustainable of course.

[chiefalchemist]

Perhaps not useless but highly misleading without context. How many customers? How many employees? Any profit? All these would help.

[madaxe_again]

45 employees, net profit of about £4M in the last FY.

[chiefalchemist]

Impressive

[madaxe_again]

Nah. Doesn’t even count as a “real business” when it comes to immigration options.

[chiefalchemist]

Somewhere is a very rich (clueless) consultant who sold them that (bullshit) idea.

[ponzored]

Just sign up for a degree at a degree mill and you'll get a student visa and an easy route to permanent residency.

New Zealand (and Australia) don't care about quality migrants, just quantity, to keep up demand for housing (both countries have housing-bubble-based economies) and to add extra consumption to national GDP.

The migrants they really want are Indians who can put downwards pressure on wages. Go to Auckland, its basically an Asian city.

Go somewhere like Poland, Romania or Portugal and hire your own workforce. You won't even be in the ass-end of the world like NZ.

[te_chris]

There is no way I would choose living in Poland over NZ. Unless you like breathing coal smoke. I actually quite like Poland too, but it isn't even a choice.

Also 'basically an Asian city' sounds, basically, racist.

[toadworrier]

> Also 'basically an Asian city' sounds, basically, racist.

Presumably, ponzored is from Harvard; we mustn't blame him for his upbringing.

[ponzored]

Have you travelled to a city in India? Not exactly a pleasant experience, particularly if you are female.

[iagovar]

Basically this. Europe has a lot of cheapish countries with wasted talent that typically migrates to the US, UK or Germany for corp.

I'd say that Portugal is a great choice.

[dingaling]

> Just sign up for a degree at a degree mill

That's the advice I was given when looking at NZ. At the time I had about 15 years experience in IT but that couldn't be considered as I didn't have a relevant degree.

"Do night classes for a couple of years and get a degree"

Instead I decided to forget about NZ even as a tourist.

[fimbulvetr]

My wife and I considered moving to NZ as well; I'm a cloud engineer with 10 years experience (20 total in software/sys admin) in the US, I've worked for startups and enterprises. NZ won't even acknowledge me because I don't have a silly bachelors degree. Too bad I spent those 4 years getting experience instead of university.

Definitely worth a visit, I'd suggest. It's really a beautiful country.

[dvtv75]

I have a Bachelor's degree in CS. Nobody will hire me because I don't have experience.

Funny thing is, before I got my degree, they were happy enough with my experience but wouldn't hire me because I didn't have a degree. Even had the same interviewer tell me one of those things on either side of my graduation.

"Get a degree and we'd love to hire you for your experience!" "Oh, sorry, you're qualified but don't have any experience."

It's like my degree reset me to zero.

[madaxe_again]

I do have a bachelors, but it’s in physics, so I get the same “well, you don’t know computers, but you do know how to contact spirits. We don’t need spiritualists - rejected”

Jesus, if I had a penny for every time I’ve had to explain that physics and psychics aren’t the same thing I’d be a rich man.

I’m more or less at the point of just giving up on being gainfully productive.

[dvtv75]

I'm not sure if that's really sad, or very funny, but you made me smile and I appreciate that.

[shankr]

Unless you have lived in Poland, Romania or Portugal, I wouldn't be so sure in suggesting these places. These countries have their own challenges starting from language barrier to inefficient bureaucracy. I don't think either of these countries are well-known for their tech quality either.

[oblio]

I don't know about Portugal, but both Romania and Poland have a well developed tech sector. They're not dumping grounds for projects (think Infosys & co).

But you're right that the bureaucracy is really bad right now...

[untog]

Irrespective of anything else, I had to laugh at the description of one of the most beautiful places in the planet as the "ass-end of the world".

[workinthehead]

Why? Asses can be beautiful. And it doesn't change the fact that NZ is about as remote as you can get.

[zinckiwi]

In the past decade or two, NZ's remoteness has seemed increasingly like a feature, not a bug.