Don’t Trust the Free Beer: The Dark Side of Denmark’s Student Perks
Denmark’s free education system and student perks have enabled everyone to pursue and get a great education. But without the risk of failing, the system effectively removes the incentive that drives great entrepreneurs.
Medium recently became my reading place of choice when it comes to startup and entrepreneurial articles. I frequent several startup and tech blogs, but most of them fail to continuously deliver interesting and insightful articles. To my pleasant surprise, the quality of the content on Medium, or at least the content recommended to me, seems to be of surprisingly good quality. And so it happened, that I stumbled upon my fellow entrepreneur @jonasboegh’s article “3 reasons why Denmark is an awesome place to be a student entrepreneur”. While all the points are valid and true, I also believe they have a dark side that reflect some of Denmark’s greatest weaknesses when it comes to fostering startups.
You get paid to study
I believe wholeheartedly in the Danish model with free access to education and learning. It’s one of the best ways to secure a broad, competent and generally well educated population. But in Denmark we don’t just get free education, we also get paid to study. The reasoning is that this enables students to focus primarily on their studies. Mainly because students aren’t forced to take neither loans or student jobs. While a lot of students do it anyways, not having to can have a great effect on motivation. Especially when making a startup. Without any expenses and the risk of closing shop, you are less motivated to earn money. This became evident to me while working in Stampster, when we went from earning nothing to securing two salaries — because we suddenly had to. Sure, it’s great for experimenting — and we should keep up an environment where you are free to do just that. But we should also make people feel the heat of real life — cause only then will they learn what’s needed to succeed.
Free offices for student entrepreneurs
As mentioned in Jonas’ article, students are actively encouraged to start businesses and be entrepreneurs. The university is actively trying to implement both special credits and exam privileges for student entrepreneurs on the same terms as elite athletes. This is great news for entrepreneurship in general in Denmark! This means that following your passion by taking either no or a crappy salary while working your ass off is no longer frowned upon — it’s actively encouraged. It’s mad, it’s different and I like it. But the way the university have currently been handling this, is by throwing perks at student entrepreneurs. The most prominent of these are the great offices in which we now reside — for free. Furthermore, the growth part of the accelerator we’re now at, is the highest level of the university’s accelerator program. And we’re just starting to accelerate. As such the university has removed all sense of progression in their accelerator. While we’re thrilled about all the perks and opportunities we’ve been offered, it has taken us quite some time to realize how it has inhibited us. This is solely our mistake, and the university is not to be blamed for offering too much. But not being accountable for our mistakes and not taking any risks made us complacent. I believe the university should and could require more of the companies that apply for their accelerator. Force them to fail. And then help them pick themselves up again.
Starting in a vacuum
“The best incubator is an already thriving industry” Vlad Savov from The Verge recently wrote in his “Europe has a chicken and-egg startup problem”. One of the hardest part of launching a tech startup in Denmark and especially in Aarhus is finding proper mentoring. The mentoring that’s directly offered through the university’s network is primarily made up of paid advisors with little to none startup experience. They are excellent at what they do, but as an entrepreneur it helps immensely to learn from someone who’s already taken the path you’re on. Putting together an active network of successful entrepreneurs, would in my opinion be a much greater help and investment than free offices.
We love the opportunities we’ve been offered here at Stampster. And I hope that it will encourage even more students to take the entrepreneurial plunge. But I hope that the environment will evolve and mature, so that we can fail and improve — faster.
Feel free to comment or share the article. I hope that I will learn as much by writing as I’ve done by reading. So I welcome a healthy discussion. @Arendtslev
