Stepping into The Cube, a start-up incubator and co-working space in Athens, is like walking into a microcosm of Silicon Valley.
With nine floors, 30 start-up teams and 15 freelancers, it’s the largest such space in Greece. Bulletin boards are strewn with advertisements for hackathons and skills workshops. After six years of financial crisis, the innovation and new companies emerging from The Cube are a testament to the start-up founders’ resilience.
But the past few weeks have been tougher than anything they’ve seen before. Since June 29, capital controls - restrictions on the flow of money outside Greece’s borders - have prevented Greek companies from paying their foreign suppliers, web hosts and internet providers. Foreign investors and customers have fled.
No matter how much start-ups have overcome in the past few years, it’s been a time of soul-searching for entrepreneurs who now question whether they have a future in Greece. The latest economic and political meltdown could drive out the young Greeks who are poised to be the future of the Greek economy.
They’ve developed skills and stamina and resilience that would not be easily taught in another environment
Within the span of one hour recently, three different start-up founders stopped in to seek advice from entrepreneur Stavros Messinis, who started The Cube, on how to pay their rent, employees and bills. “See how much time we’re wasting?” Messinis said when they finished. “We’ve spent 80 per cent of our time on this in the last week.”
Starting a business in Greece has never been easy. The country ranks 61st out of 189 economies on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business list. The bureaucratic red tape is notoriously hard to navigate, and a slow judicial system means delays for things like zoning and land disputes. Tax laws are constantly changing.