Meet Avery Schrader, a Canadian founder who used the Startup Visa to build his company and life in Estonia. Avery was looking for a place where people don’t just talk about startups, they actually build them, and he found exactly that. Intrigued by the country with the most unicorns per capita in Europe, he soon started building his own success story here.
From Canada to Estonia
Avery grew up in Nova Scotia, on the east coast of Canada. He describes it as geographically similar to Estonia in size and population, but very different when it comes to career or startup opportunities. “I didn’t have a lot of exposure to inspiring careers when I was a kid.” After finishing high school, Avery moved to Germany and worked various jobs while trying to figure out what to do with his life. “After a couple of years of chopping vegetables and stocking shelves at a pet store, I thought maybe it was time to really commit to something bigger.” Around the same time, Avery started hearing about startups and Estonia. “If I go to Estonia and survive, I’m like a real adult,” he laughs. “Turns out it’s actually really nice here, so I stuck around.”
Estonia is not small, it’s well optimized
Initially, Avery arrived in Estonia on a university visa. But after shifting focus, he switched to the startup visa, which he still uses today. “If you’re going to build a real company, that visa can sustain you from zero to billions in revenue. You don’t have to constantly worry about your visa expiring; you can renew it with ease if you’re making progress.” Some readers will know a visa renewal can be a nightmare, but not this one.
For Avery, the decision came down to timing and focus. “For the first time in my life, I was really excited about my path forward; I was going to figure out how to build a company. Estonia presented itself at the right time with the right message.” At the time, companies like Bolt were scaling, and the ecosystem was maturing. “I had a simple theory. If I go somewhere with lots of successful founders, maybe I’ll learn how to build a company myself. That theory turned out to be super correct.”
What stood out most was the mindset. “There’s just such an insane density of people thinking about future technology and how to build businesses. Even the political conversation is around digital infrastructure and e-government. If your objective is to learn how to build a company, it’s a good place to be.” Avery also believes Estonia’s small size of only 1.3 million people is one of its biggest strengths. “There’s a great quote that the good thing about Estonia is you have to go global from day one, and it’s true. There’s little local market to fall back on, so you build those global muscles immediately.”
Having visited other ecosystems while briefly working with LIFT99 coworking spaces, he’s seen the contrast firsthand. “In bigger countries, startups can get comfortable selling locally and never scale internationally. Estonia forces you to think bigger from the start.”
What’s the startup scene like?
While Avery notes that you can’t expect instant access to everyone or hand-holding, he was struck by how generous people were with their time. “A surprising number of people would just talk to me when I asked,” he says. Places like LIFT99, along with Startup Estonia events and community meetups, made it easy to meet other founders and startuppers. “There’s a foreign founder community filled with people who came here to build companies.”
When it comes to communication styles, he has noticed some differences. “Canadians are extremely polite and chatty with strangers. You don’t really get that here. But once you break through the ice, the relationships are really deep, loyal and genuine.” This creates an advantage for outgoing people. “Estonians don’t hate people. They hate small talk. If you’re the one who breaks the ice, it’s really appreciated.” Even today, Avery finds the ecosystem unusually accessible. “All it usually takes is a LinkedIn message saying ‘hey, let’s have coffee,’ and people will meet. That openness is pretty amazing.”
Building a successful startup in Estonia
Avery’s strategy was simple. Show up everywhere. “I went to every event I possibly could. University events, meetups, LIFT99, conferences, hackathons. Estonia is small enough that after your hundredth event, you’ve met basically half the population of the country,” he laughed. That consistency paid off because he met Modash’s early team members organically through the events. “Just being near the ecosystem pillars is enough to meet everyone you need.”
The early years were anything but glamorous. “We built all kinds of stuff nobody wanted for like two years straight,” Avery admits. “Everything we built basically sucked.” The team tested idea after idea and often received brutally honest feedback. “We’d ask people if they’d be disappointed if we stopped working on it. Most of the time they’d say, ‘Guys, I really wish you would just leave.’”
Then one demo with the Head of Partnerships at Bolt changed everything. He told them, “Everything else you built sucked, but this one little piece might actually have something to it.” Avery explained, “That became the core product.” Financially, the team lived on very little. “We lived on nothing, like a couple of hundred euros a month. We lived in the office, freelanced, did random sponsorships and small side gigs. Just scraping by, however we could.”
But now, things have changed for the better. In 2024, Estonia-based Modash raised over 9 million euros in Series A funding led by VC fund henQ, marking a major milestone in its journey. This funding has enabled the company to scale its operations significantly in the past two years, reaching over 9 million euros in annual recurring revenue.
Through its platform, Modash helps brands like Stanley 1913 and NordVPN discover creators who can authentically promote their message. Instead of focusing on influencers with massive followings, Modash uses open data to map a global network of more than 250 million creators, helping companies find the right voices to market their products and services.
Work-life balance in the #1 digital nation
For Avery, the capital city Tallinn hits a rare balance. “If you want to be in Europe and focus on building a company, it’s a good place to be.” Beyond the startup ecosystem, what stood out was how easy everyday life is. “The digital infrastructure and the simplicity of how things work means you get to spend more time talking to customers and shipping code, and less time doing taxes, bookkeeping or compliance.”
Moreover, he noticed how central technology is to national thinking. “Other countries look to Estonia as a beacon of e-government. The whole country is focused on building great technology.” For Avery, Estonia’s digital society directly supports company building. “You underestimate how valuable all those small conveniences are until you add them together. They free up time and mental space.” From taxes to company administration to visas, the system works quietly in the background and lets founders focus on building products and talking to customers.
One thing he didn’t expect in Estonia was the extreme seasons. “I was surprised how dark it is here in the winter. We’re actually quite a bit further north than where I’m from in Canada.” For being a small nation, Avery finds life in Estonia surprisingly rich. “You can go to a great party at night, cross-country ski in the morning, play sports in the afternoon, and eat at a pretty good Indian restaurant in the evening. The restaurants here are better on average than anywhere else I’ve visited.”
Estonia continues to evolve. “There’s always something new. New places, events and creative projects. People here are active and doing stuff. It’s a pretty fun place to live.” If you want to hear more about Avery’s journey, see this podcast by e-Residency.
