2 The TEP Times | Fall 2014 BERLIN / NYC
2 The TEP Times | Fall 2014 BERLIN / NYC
The Opportunity for Transatlantic Partnerships and International Collaboration
BY ASHLEY CLARK
The face of entrepreneurship is rapidly changing across the world. Increased digital connectivity means that entrepreneurs now have more tools to turn their dreams and ideas into reality, and geography is no longer a limiting factor in business growth. However, despite international expansion being a necessity for ventures to grow, legal and cultural boundaries remain. Cities can overcome these boundaries by teaming up to increase economic benefits. The Transatlantic Entrepreneur Partnership( TEP) is one model to facilitate cooperation between global cities like Berlin and New York City in the area of tech, media, and entrepreneurship.
Why NYC and Berlin?
New York City and Berlin are both hubs of digital technology; each has been working to foster a startup culture and has city initiatives to encourage entrepreneurs to pursue their ventures within the city. New York City has its“ Silicon Alley” which is steadily growing and may eventually reach the same scale as Silicon Valley. At the same time, Berlin is hailed as the creative center of Germany and is home to a growing number of startups and incubator programs aimed at fostering new business ideas. Both cities have strengths which can work symbiotically. Berlin’ s comparatively low cost of living and access to Central Eastern Europe’ s markets and talents, when combined with New York City’ s large consumer market and access to capital can come together to create the perfect partnership.
Why a Partnership?
In today’ s fast-paced world a startup can go from having millions of dollars in capital, to crashing and disappearing in the matter of a few months, so it is important that cities provide the support for longterm success. International expansion is a must for many companies that wish to remain globally competitive.
A partnership presents some challenges, but according to a New York International-supported study the many opportunities outweigh the challenges by far. If each city can learn from oneanother’ s mistakes and triumphs both will benefit and it will enable a faster trajectory into the future of entrepreneurship. City incentives for startups, fostering a creative talent pool, transparency in the digital ecosystem, systematic network building, serial entrepreneurship- these are all areas in which the cities can learn from each other. It is less about financial incentives, but rather supporting the crucial business setup in the first months.
Berlin startups are often globally minded from the beginning. Once successful in Berlin, the next step is often to look toward expansion in the US – and what better place than New York City?
NYC has worked very hard to become a welcoming place for international startups.“ The next big thing” can be a city that is open for international businesses – not only facilitating access to investors for money and the American consumer for scale, but also teaching entrepreneurs how to fail fast and cheap.
Facilitating a Partnership
Photo credit: Tobias Everke
Busso von Alvensleben, German Consul General addresses attendees at the TEP conference 2013, December 4th.
The main challenges and opportunities in a partnership are the issues of: fast business setup, immigration, and enabling political decision makers to come up with smart policies for entrepreneurs. City politics can have a huge effect on how easy or hard it is for international startups to establish themselves and grow. Both cities struggle with federal regulations that do not support the particular needs of digital ventures. The 2013 TEP conference saw Berlin’ s senator for economic development, and the president of the NYC Economic Development Corporation come together to address this topic, and this year it will take a deeper dive into the topic of investing, innovating, and collaborating in global hubs.
“ Berlin and New York provide unique opportunities”
Interview with Dr. Stefan Franzke, Managing Director of Berlin Partner
Dr. Stefan Franzke helms Berlin Partner, an organization that provides business and technology support for companies, investors, and scientific institutions in Berlin. Berlin Partner enables growth in Berlin and supports investors with customized services and a wide range of programs by helping companies launch, innovate, expand and secure their economic future in Berlin. We talked with Dr. Franzke about why he believes in collaboration between New York City and Berlin, and what he hopes will be achieved to strengthen that collaboration during this conference.
Why should New York and Berlin collaborate? New York City and Berlin are two cities where cross-Atlantic entrepreneurial collaboration just makes a lot of sense. Berlin and New York provide unique opportunities and each city has a distinctive potential that perfectly complements the other. Berlin has international culture, an outstanding quality of life and a deep pool of talented, well-educated people. New York is the # 1 place in the US for applied tech and consumer innovation, with a highly developed startup ecosystem. The collaboration between both cities helps US companies expand in Europe on one hand and furthermore assists Berlin-based companies with their market entry in the US. Berlin startups can benefit from tapping into that ecosystem and New York can profit from the thriving startup entrepreneurs in Berlin.
How have you seen this collaboration work in practice?
The New York City Economic Develop ment Corporation invited both Berlin Partner and Berlin startups to their“ World to NYC” international program. During their visit, Berlin startups received an invaluable introduction on how to do business in New York City. This was of tremendous value for the companies. After this experience, Berlin Partner decided to offer a similar program in Berlin in order to strengthen relationships on a long-term basis.
What is the goal for your visit this time? We will focus on three goals: provide Berlin startups with concrete plans for US expansion, access to relevant networks, and advice on how to implement their plans. We also hope to represent Berlin as a great place for doing business. And we want to continue our talks with New York City officials on initiatives that enable companies in both cities to expand faster and cheaper across the Atlantic.
How do you measure success? We use three parameters. First, to what extent are Berlin companies more successful because of our initiatives? Second, to what extent are we able to tell the great story of living and doing business in Berlin and attract companies to the city? Lastly, what do we have to do today to be better positioned as a city in the future? When this works well, we can replicate the framework of the New York / Berlin collaboration and the collaboration between TEP and its partners to export it to other cities and stakeholders.
Berlin and New York provide unique opportunities and each city has a distinctive potential that perfectly complements the other.
Dr. Stefan Franzke, Managing Director of Berlin Partner