I'm living in Romania. It would be a great place to join up with other entrepreneurs. My biggest problem is finding entrepreneurally-minded people (co-founders).
Finding experienced programmers to hire is not a problem, there are plenty. There's an entire outsourcing industry working for US and Western Europe clients.
Finding "professional conditions" (office space? net? or what?) is not a problem either.
Living costs are still cheap, but rising, and so are wages.
Good to know that there are so many Romanians on YC. I moved from Romania in Bay Area 6 years ago. I just went back there for a few weeks in August. Life is getting more expensive there and from what my friends were telling me, there is an increasingly demand for programmers, therefore the wages are going up.
I was thinking about moving back for a while but I don't think this will happen very soon. If anybody would like to talk about Romania some more feel free to email me (email address in the profile).
Personally I wouldn't recommend Romania as a place to do a startup yet, at least not to incorporate in Romania. I moved to the US from Romania about 7 years ago and while some things have improved in the mean time I think the current system in Romania would impose too many road bloacks for a startup. Great place however to outsource.
Incorporate in Delaware; bureaucracy is still time-consumming in RO. You could work like that for a while and nobody would bother you (or even know you exist for that matter).
Eventually (i.e. when you have profits and want to take dividends) you're supposed to register your business with Romania. Or you could just go back to the US. At that point you probably have enough money to have lawyers and accountants take the hassle out of doing business.
Danny, I'm Romanianian too; click on my profile and shoot me an email if you want to talk more. I understand your point exactly; I have 2 family members who are programmers there in Bucharest and when I called them up half a year ago to join me in my startup efforts, their first response was "You want to do WHAT??!?" Hang in there, send me an email -- emailadrian "at" inbox "dotcom". Things are changing especially since EU integration this year. Don't forget that Romanian programmers put UbiSoft on the Map. Look at that as an example, it's not much, but it's something. A company started by french farmers to make video games programmed first and foremost by Romanian programmers. If it can work 15 years ago, much more can be done now.
Finding experienced programmers to hire is not a problem, there are plenty. There's an entire outsourcing industry working for US and Western Europe clients.
Finding "professional conditions" (office space? net? or what?) is not a problem either.
Living costs are still cheap, but rising, and so are wages.