I would love to see more of the rich and wild startup stories brought to life on screen - and I have heard on the grapevine that a sequel is in the works. References to ‘the queers’ and Nigerians, however, made me grimace - Estonia has a wider diversity problem.Īll in all, it was refreshing to see a portrayal of startup culture outside of Silicon Valley. We know VC is structurally biased -but there are more female founders emerging. The film captures the casual sexism female founders face, without focusing on it.

Female founders face a tonne of casual sexism (shock, horror).

Whilst you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to scale a startup in the Valley, you do need their sales talent to compete. He ends up making more money than the two founders combined. The protagonists hire a smooth Silicon Valley sales guy to grow their startup Bikedrive - a parody of SaaS unicorn Pipedrive and mobility giant Bolt.

Tech talent is in abundance - but Estonia really lacks salespeople.

Estonia’s startup success is intimately tied to the network effect created by earlier unicorns like Skype. Entrepreneurs are the rockstars, and the government follows their lead - in the film the ex-prime minister has a cameo working at a startup. Everyone in Estonia has a startup.” Estonia has the most unicorns per capita in Europe, but this isn’t by chance. The film opens with the iconic statement: “Everyone in America has a car.

Everyone in Estonia has a startup - no really, they do.Directed by VC Rain Rannu, based on real stories of Estonian startups and full of inside jokes - it’s surprising Sifted wasn’t invited to the launch party. After speaking to a lot of people in the Estonian tech scene, I was told that the film Chasing Unicorns is key to understanding its startup scene. Film Chasing Unicornsīreaking: Sifted is planning a Sifted Session in Tallinn and the lucky employee who is planning the whole thing? That’s me. It comes out weekly on Wednesdays, and covers how to build a business and who to bring onboard to help you do that. Here are our top six reviews of 2022 so far.įor more reviews like this, sign up to our Startup Life newsletter.

Skype ceo parody