[CalRobert]

That's really interesting, and heartening. When I've looked at places in Europe that could make sense to start a small business Italy is often described as having a high bureaucratic burden and generally being a challenging environment. Is that true? What do you think has caused small business to succeed?

[cunidev]

Definitely true. I would rather identify the problem (which is a wild guess) as having very similar burden between larger and smaller industries, meaning no particular protective measures, investments or auxiliary measures (e.g. simplified tax formats - which exist only to a smaller extent) are taken to ensure a newborn company can safely "hatch".

Disclaimer: While Italian, I am no startup/industry owner, so anyone in the field could probably give a more insightful opinion.

[tim333]

Italy has long had a reputation of having some talented and hard working entrepreneurs and an inefficient and somewhat corrupt government so I guess the ambitious try running small businesses and avoid the government to the extent that they can.