[meriksson]

Running a software company in Stockholm, Sweden is a blast. It is a great place to live, plenty of good people to recruit, a decent domestic market, e.g. many big companies willing to try out services from startups. There is a vast number of small tech companies here, most of them completely unknown. Every week I learn about some cool new company doing their thing just around the block from us, without ever having heard of the people involved.

There are some major caveats: Income taxes are extremely high and tax rules makes it almost impossible to share ownership in a rational way, e.g. it is very hard to setup stock option programs etc. Also, the domestic venture capital market is extremely underdeveloped - a great opportunity for foreign investors!

I am a firm opponent of all government programs to stimulate entrepreneurship. My view is that the government should simply get out of the way. And in fact, except for the taxes, this is by and large what the Swedish government is doing. For example, there is very little bureaucracy around running a business, e.g. starting an incorporated company is now done easily over the internet, often the whole process can be completed in a matter of days.

[robin_reala]

Out of interest, do you think it’d be easy to get into the startup scene with minimal Swedish? My wife is Swedish and we have in the past considered a move to Stockholm but my Swedish is absolutely not fluent (although were we to do it I’d enrol in an evening course as soon as we moved).

[Matti]

Getting by in Stockholm won't be a problem: you can safely assume that people within the start-up scene are fluent in English. You'll be met with a slightly different kind of problem: as communicating in English is so effortless, you'll have few opportunities to really practice your Swedish.

[robin_reala]

Hah, yeah, I know the Swede’s proclivity for English :) Just wasn’t sure that it’d be acceptable to speak it in a business context. That’s interesting for sure.

[Wilya]

I've been in Stockholm for 1.5 years now. When I arrived, I didn't know a single word of swedish (I've taken classes since, but not in a very productive way), and things have been just fine. Like another said, I'm not improving so much because I have very few incentives to do so.

[dalke]

Our monthly Python meetings in Gothenburg are almost always in English. In part because it was founded by two native English speakers, in part because there are other non-Swedish speakers who come, in part because many of the software courses are in English, and in part because almost all of the literature and documentation is in English.

And of course, in large part because this is effectively a bilingual country. In the years I've been here, I've only talked with a handful of native-born Swedes who did not speak English. Those were older people who had learned German as a student. (There are non-native-born Swedes, like immigrants from Chile who speak fluent Spanish and Swedish, whose English can be poor.)

So yes, it would be easy.

[meriksson]

I agree with Matti - doing business in Stockholm without knowing Swedish is no problem. Swedes are generally fluent in English and most often they enjoy speaking it. I know several foreigners who run startups here without bothering to learn the local language.

[to3m]

I had to go to Stockholm a few years ago. It was somewhat short notice, so I didn't have time to brush up on my Swedish. I knew how to say "thank you", and "Sweden", and that was that.

On the first evening I had a bit of difficulty operating the keycard outside the hotel. A chap came up to me and started talking, presumably explaining how to use it. "Murgle burgle burgle wurgle furgle", he said, or something like that. I must have looked blank for about 0.1 seconds before he slipped, with barely a beat, into flawless, unaccented English. And the first English words out of his mouth were, "Oh, sorry..." :)

(This was not a unique experience. Even the petrol station attendants spoke great English. You don't even get that in England.)

[berntb]

How easy/cheap is it to get a small apartment...?

[dalke]

It's crazy hard in Gothenburg, at least for some place I wanted to live. I've heard that Stockholm is worse. If you're a single person, willing to share an apartment with someone else, then you can rent just a room ("inneboende"). That's likely the easiest. You can also look for a sublease ("andrahandskontrakt"). But getting a lease ("förstahandskonrakt") is hard. Parts of town require you to be on a waiting list which can be up to 5 years long. For Gothenburg, I was on the list for 1.5 years for a lease before we gave up and moved to the smaller city of Trollhättan.

No startup scene, but a 1,300 sq. ft. apartment in the center of town (3bd, 1.5 ba) goes for only $1,500/month, and the commuter train to Gothenburg takes about 45 minutes.

If you have money you can get a "business apartment" for about 2x the normal rate. Those are pretty easy to find. But you'll need to have a business first (even one in the US) to rent it.

You can get an idea of what's available using the aggregator http://kvalster.se/Stockholm . When a place is "1 rum" it means studio, "2 rum" means "living room and bedroom", etc. As a decent approximation, 1sq meter is 10 sq. feet.

Rates in the tech area of Kista look about $700 for a shared room/studio. In Södermalm I see prices more around $800 for a room/studio, though you can pay a lot more. (350 sq. ft studio apartment, furnished, for one month rental while the owner is overseas, $1264 for the month.)

[pathy]

Förstahandskontrakt is more like 17 years in the most popular parts (Vasastan in Stockholm).

It is possible to get a sublet or such but it tends to be expensive and quite time consuming. A lot of scams going around as well so one has to be careful. Prices indicated above seem quite accurate.

[dalke]

17 years? Wow! Last I read was a couple of years ago, and it was definitely only about 5 then.

But when I first moved to Gbg it was easy to get a 2nd-hand contract. Now it's nearly impossible. I read that there was a change ~5 years ago in the law to make it financially better for the Bfr to switch from rental to co-op, so I can see how that would also affect Stockholm.

Well, if I want my children to retire in Vasastan then I should put their name on the list soon. (And have children, but that ruins the joke.)

[meriksson]

The market for apartments is not a strong point for Stockholm. You can get an apartment rather easily, but it is not cheap compared to similar cities in Europe.

Some current listings from the Swedish equivalent of Craigslist:

http://www.blocket.se/stockholm?q=&cg=3020&w=1&s...

[subsystem]

I wouldn't say it's easy. Most of those ads are for a room, short term or in the suburbs.

[samuellb]

Public transportation is quite good though. For most suburbs it's 15-30 minutes to the city center.

If you don't mind (or prefer) living in the suburbs you can definitely reduce your costs a lot.