Your to-go-to place when you want to found a startup is Silicon Valley, right? Or perhaps London? Wrong. It was, a few years ago. But it isn’t anymore. Not only does the mayor of Palo Alto (which includes Silicon Valley) want the tech giants out, investors are also done with putting their money in salaries, rent, and other administrative stuff, rather than the product itself.

I moved my startup topishare to Tbilisi, Georgia almost a year ago. And, although we had both ups and downs, it has been a great decision. Read the 5 reasons why you should run your startup from Tbilisi as well:

The Business Climate

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not ‘easy’ in Georgia to set up a business, but it’s a whole lot easier than many other places in the world. And I’ve setp up several in several different countries. Georgia is by far the friendliest place to do business.

What you should know: easy registration, English speaking staff in most institutions and businesses, a not bad taxation system, and a one-stop-shop for getting your residency permit.

I’ve learned a lot in the year we’ve ran our business in Tbilisi, and of course we had our frustrations with government clerks who had troubles understanding what we were doing. I also must admit that I believe Georgia’s tax system isn’t perfect, and needs quite a lot of work to make it a major attraction for start-ups, but there’s a good intention. And I believe that with a few adjustments, they can get there.

Moneysz

Doing business in Georgia is good for business: for a fraction of the cost elsewhere you can run your business. Not only salaries, but everything else you’d need to put money in to run a successful business are significantly cheaper than, let’s say, Silicon Valley or London. That, plus cheap and delicious, healthy, organic food: what else would you need?

Invest in your Product

Instead of spending money on the administrative side of running a company, you can actual invest that money directly into your product. Which, basically, means you can create your product faster, more efficiently, and as a result, more succesfully.

And that is especially interesting for potential investors who are tired of seeing most of their investment going to anything but the product itself.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Investors aren’t throwing themselves at you in Georgia. But you will be in a unique position to make them understand their investment will be extremely cost efficient for them. And that is something investors love to hear.

Inspiring Creativity

If any, Georgians are incredibly creative. And their history is a major contribution to this. But I also strongly believe that the beautiful environment adds to the creativeness of Georgians: the mountains, the architecture.

And as a start-up, you need to surround yourself with very creative people from all kinds of different fields, whether it’s design, marketing, or programming. The best results are yielded through a creative and innovative team.

Perfect Market to Test your Product in Beta

Every start-up needs to test their product, and Georgia is a perfect market for this. It isn’t extremely large (around 4 million inhabitants) and it’s full of people who are eager to try out new ‘cool’ things.

Is Georgia perfect? Definietely not. It can improve its business climate for startups in many different fields.

But it has a major potential.

That is why I am working together with other businesses to attract international startups and investors to Georgia, to help them build the Start Up Nation they could become. And help the young generation in Georgia.

And once topishare becomes a major success, I will continue my efforts to put Georgia on the map, because I love – and believe in – Georgia.

Article by Hila Peled