In this presentation I argue that subcultures are important shapers of startups, based on my Twitter research of a particular startup ecosystem. Using an approach which could be scaled in analysing other startups ecosystems elsewhere in the world. For more details about the ongoing research you can contact me via Twitter @LEriksonas

1. „Startup“ subculture?
@LEriksonas
5 Nov. 2014

2. Content
• What is a „startup“?
• „Startup“ and subcultures
• „Startup“ networks in Lithuania
• Results from network analysis

3. Why are we talking about “startups”?
„startup“
searches
on google
trends

4. A new global phenomenon – hackerspaces
1833 hackerspaces
1087 active
355 planned, of which
two in Vilnius
Hackerspaces.org

5. Technarium: the first hackerspace in Lithuania
In operation since
2013, Vilnius
New premises of the Technarium hacker
collective in a defunct tool factory (4 Nov. 2014)
Hackerspace initiator, Tomas Verbaitis,
www.technariumas.lt played in Dr Green, a punk rock band

6. Technarium’s mission statement, Vilnius
• Technarium shall be a place with tools for your dreams. We are
building an open, community-operated space in Vilnius, Lithuania,
where people with technology-related interests can collaborate, work
on their projects, share their knowledge and skills. We've been
operating an informal workspace where our friends and friends of
friends could come and make or fix things for several years, we have
lots of experience and the basic equipment. Now we would like to
expand the place and open it to the broader community.

7. Hacker Collective at Technarium, Vilnius
Ieva Marija: artist .
Graphic designer
Tomas: engineer /
technician
Karolis: artist /
scenographer
Kęstutis: technician /
engineer
rxdtxd: electronics opit: astrophysicist / ceramist
engineer / metalworker
/ sysadmin
Steph: agronomy
engineer
Mic: software architect
/ electronics engineer
Giedrius: entrepreneur/ Adomas: music make
administrator
R: chemist / technician
Kipras: technical /
Punk rock musician

8. What is a „startup“?
• A social group, an informal work collective, aligning a lifestyle, values and
personal preferences of its members with an ambition to make a million
and “change the world”:
• you can think of a startup as a way to compress your whole working life into a few
years. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you
possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a
premium for working fast (Paul Graham, Hackers and Painters, 2004)
• Sociologists describe a volunteer workforce in startups as „venture
labour“or „entrepreneurial workers“ who are:
• Mostly graduates with higher education (often with degrees business or creative
industries) yet without adequate opportunities on the job market, often with a
previous career track in the corporate world disrupted by the economic crises
• Technologically savvy, highly skilled (programmers, designers)
• Well socially integrated, prone to networking and other socializing activities online

9. „Startup“ culture and relations to subcultures
Centre for Rational Thought, 2014

10. „Startups“ and subcultural values
• Hacker subculture:
• Programmers („nerds“, „geeks“, „hackers“, „crackers“, „makers“): sharing of programming code,
bricolage programming,
• Main values: a freedom of information, anti-establishment views, equality
• Raison d’etre: to „hack“ software or hardware and demonstrate their abilities in achieving such
hacks, despite the power structures, demonstrating the claim that they are above the system
• Rationalists:
• Latter day atheists, trans- and post-humanists, who believe in the abilities of an individual to
racionalize oneself through the application of pure reason,
• Main values: trans-humanism, singularity, elitism, affective altruism.
• Raison d’etre : „life hacking“, self-education through a rational reflection
• „Startup“ values:
• Borrowed from hackers: a declared aim to hack (disrupt) economics, horizontal relations
• Borrowed from rationalists: group self-reflection, mission-driven, elitism (founders)
• Borrowed from libertarians: a belief in the dialectics of business development, social darvinism

11. Rethorical differences between subcultures
Hacker author- Eric S Raymond,
Libertarian party
Rationalists ideologue – Elezier
Yudkowski, movement Less Wrong
„Startup“ guru – Paul Graham,
Y Combinator incubator and VC fund
Using the online tool http://www.analyzewords.com/

12. Differences in style
Hacker party with Eric S Raymond Rationalists’ lecture by Kenzi Amodei „Startup“ day with Paul Graham

13. Environments and groups within an ecosystem
Hackerspaces
shared
working tools
and work
space
Coworking hubs:
Individual work places
in a shared work space
Incubators for startup
teams:
Team work in a shared,
institutionalized work space
DIY/
Makers
IT professionals
working on
their own or as
subcontractors
Hacker
subculture
Startup founders

14. Hypotheses for the ongoing research
• During the research the following hypotheses have been addressed:
• Hypothesis 1: The development of „startup“ ecosystem is shaped by
subcultures bottom up.
• The hypothesis will be proved if there are evidences to suggest that
subcultural ideas are present in the startup environment and that former
hackers are participating in the startup ecosystem in shaping it.
• Hypothesis 2: The development of „startup“ ecosystem is shaped by
the institutional development from above.
• The hypothesis will be proved if there are evidences to suggest that the
facilitators representing different institutional actors in the ecosystem are
more central in the “startup” networks than entrepreneurs themselves

15. Defining a „startup“ ecosystem in Lithuania
• The research was carried out in two phases (2013 ir 2014) by analyzing the Twitter
followers and friends of the core actors in the “startup” ecosystem in Lithuania (the
approach is scalable and could be applied in other communities)
• Data collected via Twitter API:
• 1 stage: a seed list of 24 actors (identified through a „snowball“/ respondent-driven survey)
created and used for analyzing a network of 19515 Twitter users following or followed by the users
on the seed list
• 2 stage: the seed list extended by additional 33 Twitter users, identified as sharing more than 8
users with the members of the original seedlist
• In total: the collected data on 83000 Twitter users linked to the startup ecosystem in Lithuania,
including 198000 relationships between them, were analysed using a network analysis approach
• The total population of a „startup“ ecosystem in Lithuania was nailed down to ca 1200 individuals
• Software used for data mining and analysis:
• Python scripts (courtesy of Dr Derek Ruths, McGill University, Canada)
• Neo4j graph database and additional Python scripts for network visualization from GitHub

16. Initial core network of a startup ecosystem in
Vilnius
StartupHighway
accelerator, Vilnius
Hub Vilnius
coworking centre
Startup
teams
The data from June 2013 Hub Vilnius, a coworking space (2013)

17. H1: have subcultures shaped „startups“?
• Hacker collective GamejamLT
(2002)
Participants of GamejamLT 2002: NeARAZ, Oasis,
rtfb, Voblia, ReJ Teaman, ProNinja, OneHalf, simple
• One of the members of the
GamejamLT hacker collective (2013)
Viktoras Jucikas, a founder of Yplan, London, a
former ex hacker (BigtoP) from a „demo scene“
In Lithuania

18. From subcultures to startups: a career path in
inversion
• Subcultural
environment
Hacker
collective
• Institutional
environment
• „Startup“
ecosystem
Founders’
Shared values: team
• „life hacking“
• rationalism
• affective altruism

19. A core network of a startup ecosystem in
Vilnius (after 1 year)
Facilitators vs. Founders
Data from October 2014

20. H2: does „startup“ ecosystem depend on
institutional development and imitation?
Year Subculture texts Institutional development In Lithuania
2002 Gamejam LT 2002*
2003 Eric S Raymond, Hacker emblem How to become a hacker
(a local translation)
2004 Paul Graham, Hackers and Painters
2005 Y Combinator (Palo Alto, CA) Raymond’s
2006 Yudkowski, Less Wrong blog‘as Twitter
2007 Open Coffee Club (London)
2008 Seedcamp (London) Open Coffee Club
2009 Yudkowski, Less Wrong Sequencies BarCamp
2010 Less Wrong meetups AngelList „Startup Weekend“
2011 Singularity University „Startup Highway“
Hub Vilnius, Gamejam LT
2012 Startup.Lt
* - Modelled on the example of a gamejam festival in the UK

21. Conclusions and directions for further research
• H1: The development of a „startup“ ecosystem is shaped by subcultures
• NO, not in the case of the Lithuanian startup ecosystem where subcultural influences
are few (though some hackers have contributed to founding some startups after failing
to pursue their institutional careers in a corporate world). In the further analysis an
assumption will be checked that the „startup“ culture is an imitation of subcultures,
allowing the highly skilled individuals whose careers have been abrupted by crises to
create meaning narratives about their careers;
• H2: The development of a „startup“ ecosystem is shaped by the institutional
development from above
• YES, the development of the startup ecosystem in Lithuania is driven by the facilitators
and institutional intermediaries who represent the economic interests of risk capitalists
and public investment programmes. In the further analysis an assumption will be
checked that a founders’ team is an imitation of an institutional business setup, allowing
the highly skilled individuals to differentiate vis-à-vis other skilled labour with similar job
tasks but having a different social status.