E-stonia Draws New Businesses
After graduating from Carnegie-Mellon University, young American entrepreneur Justin Fidler scoured the Earth for the perfect place to open a high-tech company.
After eliminating Western Europe as too costly, he looked at Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. But it seemed to Fidler that, “if you can buy bagels in Prague, then there must already be enough Americans there.” Finally, in 2002, a friend suggested the small Baltic state of Estonia, perhaps best known at the time for the well-preserved medieval center of its capital, Tallinn.
“I immediately found a Web site in English on investing in Estonia that was all very clear, concise and professional,” he said.
Several years later, he’s still here running Sona Systems, which provides Web-based research management software for universities across the United States, including the University of Texas in Austin. In fact, this wired nation of 1.3 million people has become such a magnet for high-tech companies that it has earned the sobriquet “E-stonia.”
It’s also home to an incredibly Internet-savvy population. Residents go online to pay their 21 percent national flat tax and do about 95 percent of their banking on the Web.
Image via Wiiw
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