[michaelpinto]

What I've learned from the valley is that there are three tests:

1. Do you embrace failure and those who fail? And are there local investors who think this way?

2. Can nerds bump into each other in a random manner in a central location on a regular basis?

3. Are nerds willing to travel there? So is a nerd from Scotland or Turkey thinking "I have to get to Ireland"

I'm not sure that Ireland has those three things yet. Although to be honest I'm in NYC and I'm not sure we have that yet either (or have it 100%).

[pbiggar]

As someone who left Dublin for SF recently:

1. Actually, Ireland isn't too bad for this. You're much much more likely to head "at least you tried" than anything else.

2. No. The tech community is tiny, though so is Dublin. But no, there are few meetups, and they're poorly attended. A well attended meetup might be 30 people, but that's rare. There are more conferences starting, and some cool ones too, like FunConf and the Dublin Web Summit, which can hold their own with the sort of thing you get in SV. But they are rare - there might be 5 worth going to a year.

3. Yes. There is a bit of a migration to Ireland for tech. That said, nerd are more likely to go to Berlin or London, and probably even Paris. So, maybe.

I don't know the NY tech scene, but I would estimate the Irish tech scene to be maybe 1% of the size of what I see in the valley.

[michaelpinto]

Maybe the first place to start is to stop calling it the Irish tech scene and start to refer to it as the Dublin tech scene?