Collectively, these factors serve as a perfect storm of disincentives for Spanish start-ups and have embedded risk aversion deep inside the Spanish psyche. So it’s not hard to understand why few young Spaniards are interested in technology start-ups and why those that are tend to want to leave Spain for greener pastures abroad. Nathan Ryan, an American-born professor teaching at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain, has found that his students are generally not aware that starting a tech company is a viable option. In fact, Ryan said that during his three-year tenure in Spain, not a single student has discussed starting a company. Rather, his students prize government jobs or jobs at large Spanish corporations in banking or telecommunications.
Spain also erects immigration and work permit policies that impede skilled foreigners from working in the country. Immigrants have to prove they are creating jobs and foreign investment in Spain— not taking away the job of a local. An example of this is Katelyn Melan, a U.S. citizen who graduated from Northeastern University with a bachelor’s of science in international business. She began working with local entrepreneurs in February to launch Tetuan Valley, a Silicon Valley-style incubator. I met Katelyn in Madrid, and in an e-mail exchange, Melan said she has spent three months trying to submit a work-visa application. The government keeps rejecting her application on minor technicalities. “We unsuccessfully tried once to turn in the application by ourselves based on the process we were given by a government agency on how to do it,” Melan wrote. “We ended up missing things that were written nowhere, and we were given incorrect information about the appointment.”
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