I've used this 3 years ago. I took 6 months off to conduct my own business. I also published a "choose your own adventure" game during that time: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.soygul.crowner" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.soygul.cro...</a><p>Amazingly productive days. I must add that you don't get paid for the time off. It's just that you don't lose your employment status.
I am CEO of a swedish VC-backed startup, and i am currently off 2 days a week for parental leave for 6 months. Yes, i am a man. And when we hire somebody in their 30s (man or woman), we can expect that for 6-12 months they will be gone on parental leave at some stage. (We have 4 people now out of 16 who will be on parental leave during 2020 - 3 of them men).
That's how me and my mates started off in the UK.<p>We three were working for a firm in the UK in various capacities in 1999. The firm decided to FM their IT function to Synstar which became part of HP(E). We formed a company and resold ourselves back through Synstar (they took 17%, we were still cheap and still made a living)<p>Nowadays, 20 years later, we are still going. We will never set the world on fire and that is the way I like it. We turn over £1.5M at the moment and have 20 employees, we grow gradually as needed. I sleep very well at night.<p>I'll quite happily stick two fingers up at any fantastically wealthy fuckwit who managed to make themselves wealthy beyond compare who might describe my little company as an underachiever (and have done so.)<p>I'm not advocating that our approach is the best. It works for us. It wont put you on the cover of a magazine. Be absolutely certain that you are the dog's nadgers when you think you are the dog's nadgers. If you are not the dog's then be prepared for disappointment and worse.
Being Swedish, I attempted to use that back in 2002 when I was fed up with with my current, quite stagnant employer. Being young and naive I allowed my then direct manager and CEO to bully myself into giving up on that idea.<p>They weren't even aware of this possibility. I showed them the actual law. They implied they would lawyer up if I fighted them.<p>I ended up simply resigning instead. In retrospect that was a fantastic idea! In retrospect I saw people getting stuck there, while my career took off like a rocket (well, comparatively speaking)...<p>If I had been a similar age today, wanting to attempt this, I'd probably be able to find free help online. It's such a different world now, compared to 18 years ago.
I heard finding housing in stockholm is very hard. How do policies like this play in practice? Is it like how some US states pay you to move there except it's really nowhere near enough to be considered a livable income?
France has something similar: congé création d’entreprise, up to 1 year (renewable once adding an additional year).<p>Also, if you’ve worked in the private sector for 6 cumulative years, you’re entitled to an unpaid sabbatical of up to 11 months, and you get to keep your job when you go back.
Cool idea.<p>Here in the US we go the opposite way: even if you do find some way to take enough time off to accomplish something significant, there's a good chance your employer (legally) owns it.
I think we should also start with 6 hours work days or 4 days 8 hours. It will free up time to try new ideas and spend more time with family and loved ones. 6-7 weeks of vacation would also be something to try. Ie optimizing for life quality.
This sounds like a wonderful idea but I'd love to hear some stats on how this specific time-off fares for would-be startupers. The article mentions a few successful start-ups but it's unclear whether these came about as a result of the time-off or if they resulted from someone just pursuing them full time. Not knocking the idea either way, just would love to see data on how many new companies it's helped create.
I think also France allows that, not just for entrepreneurs, but for anything. A colleague of mine just took a sabbatical and next year he'll be back.
I think Sweden is very romanticized in American media and amongst the elites. Having lived there for 6 years before moving to US, I think it's an ok country but nowhere near the paradise that is promised by the American media. They say the best thing in Sweden is its health care. In the entire time I was there I attempted to see a specialist for a condition that I had maybe two or three times, I ended up giving up every single time after I was told the wait time is between 3-4 months. I keep my American employer sponsored private insurance and employer determined time off policy, thank you very much.
<rant><p>As a Swedish entrepreneur with 2 exits under my belt and a startup in progress, nothing boils my blood more than bullshit like this. You want to encourage entrepreneurs? stop making up bullshit laws and initiatives that does nothing but fuck us over every single day.<p>Initiatives like this have the exact opposite effect of how they´re advertised as I´ve personally experienced first hand. Yet somehow all you read about is the outgoing PR of how great this place is, when in fact it is a god awful place to conduct business in. Heck just living here is becoming a nightmare as of late.<p>It´s time to move on from this shit hole to somewhere more welcoming. Too bad the US immigration system is a clusterfuck regardless of how much money you´re willing to throw at it.<p></rant><p>As requested here is an example:
Lets take the "Right to Leave to Conduct a Business Operation Act" or "maternity leave". In both of cases if you work at an early stage startup and exercise your right to take a leave (paid or otherwise), I as an employer have to hold on to that position for the duration of the entire leave of absence. In the case of maternity leave (~1.5 year of paid leave) for instance, I have to hold that position open for you as an employee. The last startup I was involved in had a female employee that was there for about 6 months and then left work for ages before returning, and then "somehow" in an "unplanned manner" managed to quit a few weeks after. Zero work experience, have to hold the spot open for her, have to hire expensive replacement consultants for the duration of the leave which could be extended at any point and I am also obligated to provide benefits to the workers that come in as temporary replacement at a higher cost???? All of that without having the right to fire or suspend said person.<p>Imagine being 1 out of 6 employees and you just vanish, leaving behind everything for the company to pick up by having to hire a secondary person as a consultant for far more money, giving them those same benefits while keeping your position open. Startups cannot afford these costs period. Not every startup enjoys the millions of SV dollars. Our bootstrapped startup almost went under because of employee benefit payments for people who were not even showing up to work and we cannot fire by law.<p>This is beyond sinister and it isnt done to protect employees, it is merely done to extract the maximum amount of value from companies at all stages so that the state can afford to deliver on its never-ending promises of "FREE EVERYTHING".<p>One of my best friends have had a full salary for the last 5 years and have not worked a single day. Who pays for that do you reckon? and in what world is that fair to the rest of us?
> Sweden gives employees unpaid time off to be entrepreneurs<p>Shouldn't it be the choice of the employees what they do with their unpaid time off?
> "...Stockholm, has become Europe’s start-up capital, second only to California’s Silicon Valley for the number of unicorns (billion-dollar tech companies) that it produces per capita."<p>I can't find any evidence for this. According to wiki[1]: "Unicorns are concentrated in a few countries/regions: China (125), United States (121), India (27), South Korea (11), UK (10), Israel (7), Sweden (5), Indonesia (5), France, Hong Kong (3), Portugal (3), Switzerland (3), Australia (2),Estonia (2), Belgium (2), Canada (2), Germany (2), Singapore (4), Ukraine (2), and thirteen other countries (1 each)."<p>Smells like propaganda to help the stagnating innovation in europe.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_companies" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_compan...</a>
What is the difference between this and me (UK) just telling my boss I'll be back in N months?<p>The boss being forced to take me back?<p>The usefulness of this seems predicated on employment shortages (otherwise people don't need permission to leave).
In practice, if you left a job in the US for an entrepreneurial venture that fails, your former employer or a competitor would gladly welcome you back as an employee.
I enjoy and support the systems mentioned in the article, but the right to unpaid leave was used by Daniel Ek, Markus Persson or Niklas Zennström as far as I know.
There is something like this in France, called "Congé pour création d'entreprie" (en: time off to build a company).<p>Basically, you can leave your job (unpaid) but your contract still holds, so you can get back to your job if things don't go as planned.
How does this work when it comes to any intellectual property you create, while still bound by an employment contract which can often stipulate a company's ownership of ALL of your creations while working for them.<p>(Maybe not being paid is a factor?)
So basically how it is with the US/UK but with formalities? I've never heard of an employer refusing to take an entrepreneur-failed attempt back, if anything its a demotion to have the same rank/job after
this is mostly bullshit... if you are unemployed you can use 6 months of your unemployment money as a lump sum to start a business. most of the time noone gets unemployment money. as many have said sweden is romanticized.
> Stockholm, has become Europe’s start-up capital<p>I dunno, but this just feels very strange. Sure the unicorns, but to call it the #1 startup capital in Europe? Something HAS to be better at this, Berlin perhaps?...
Love the Greta-like how-dare-they-leave-us quote:<p>“Employers can only turn the request down if the employee is vital to the business’s operations. Also, your new idea can’t compete with your existing employer, nor cause them any significant inconvenience.“
Why can't people they just quit their job for the duration needed, do the startup in their spare time using their own money rather than taking advantage of someone else who is already successful?<p>They want to be called entrepreneurs - why would they not grow balls, take risk like proper entrepreneurs do and not hide behind socialist populist state?<p>Looks like a lot of people on HN have left-leaning views despite the name "HACKERnews"
> Anyone who’s been in full-time employment for at least six months is entitled to apply for the unpaid sabbatical, or tjänstledighet, as it’s called in Sweden.<p>I just don’t see the magic in this or the extended parental leave<p>Why can’t any healthy functioning adult do the
exact same thing on their own ?<p>is 6 months living expenses really holding back your entrepreneurial dreams?