What's Not wrong with the London startup scene... | Hacker News Reader

What's Not wrong with the London startup scene...

magnatemag.com

21 pointschrowe16 comments

Stop comparing London to Silicon Valley. It's a waste of time. I moved from the UK to New York a few years ago (before the startup scene really got going in the UK) and you can't compare New York to Silicon Valley, either.

However, every place has strengths that Silicon Valley does not. Both New York and London are very well connected to other industries like media, banking and fashion. They're actually great counterparts to each other- London being a gateway to Europe, and New York being a gateway to North America.

I'd love to set up some sort of intercontinental exchange programs for NY+LON startups. Companies offering desk space to their transatlantic cousins for mutual benefit. Let me know (contact details are in my profile) if you'd be interested in something like this- I want to get to know some more startups "back home" in any case!

Something not quite but similar to the exchange program for New York City is 'Adopt a Hacker' - http://www.adoptahacker.com

One to check out. I would like to see a similar programme for London.

There are so many pieces on what is wrong with the London scene, because the real scene (full of crazy people) is in Silicon Valley. You cannot compete with the insane people there who are happy to destroy capital and jobs in the pursuit of notoriety, peer adulation and the odd $1bn exit.

I don't think that's really a fair characterisation of anything.

If VCs published data of all their investments, and produced it in a form that is comparative with other 'asset classes', you would soon see why tech VC HAS to be confined to the desert...

(yes, yes, I am over-dramatising, but would it be any fun if I put across something more balanced?)

You seem to be ignoring the central role played by London financiers in the largest global destruction of "capital and jobs in the pursuit of notoriety, peer adulation and the odd $1bn exit" in the last 50 years. In other words, there's a perfectly adequate bankroll, but they happen to prefer poker over blackjack.

Sure, but tech is small-fry talk compared to finance. Want to talk finance and we'll have to up the chit-chat to A-league economics... are you game?

Tech is easy. It uses machines to make light of manual tasks. It helps to find efficiencies. Add money into the mix and it creates a gold rush. Is Silicon Valley more than a gold rush where the guy selling the spades is getting seriously rich while once in a while some idiot or other hits a rich seam and then everyone wants to build an instagram... sorry, I mean mine in that place...

Plenty of things are wrong with the London startup scene - Silicon Valley has the advantage of being close to great universities where you can recruit great talent (not that these companies don't go to the East Coast to recruit).

London doesn't have that, at least from a technical talent perspective - the area that comes close to matching that description in the UK is Cambridge (or Oxford, to some degree).

Secondly, even if you have people with good talent available, many of them see the London finance machine as their destination of choice (though they may not admit so openly). The finance culture has seeped into the startup culture as well - many of them see the finance companies as their potential clients (so that's not surprising) - but that has led to a gatekeeper culture that is prevalent to a lesser degree in the US (maybe I'm wrong here).

Lastly, the level of risk-aversion is generally higher in the UK than that in the States - the positive energy on the West Coast is _tangible_.

How many APIs have you seen coming out of London - and frameworks people can build upon? That is, raw technical products for the heck of it - not travel websites, shopping portals or phone-apps. Those are the things that form the bedrock that show the underlying passion of the startup community of an area. London (and the UK) sorely lacks that.

> London doesn't have that, at least from a technical talent perspective

Are you sure? By which I mean are you aware that 2 million people pass through heathrow each day, London oscillates between 9 and 13 million people a day, it's the main gateway to Europe from the states and a financial world capital. If that doesn't attract talent from around the world I don't know what would. Sure, plenty of people would rather work at a bank than a startup but it's the same anywhere. The difference is the sheer number of people, not to mention local universities like Imperial and UCL, not forgetting other universities with niche specialisms like Royal Holloway and Westminster with information security.

> Secondly, even if you have people with good talent available, many of them see the London finance machine as their destination of choice

As I've mentioned earlier, some would rather work for a bank than a startup, but there's plenty in London that doesn't directly involve finance. If it comes across that finance companies may be potential clients, it's because they have the money to buy the products London startups can build and there's lots of them.

> Lastly, the level of risk-aversion is generally higher in the UK than that in the States - the positive energy on the West Coast is _tangible_.

I can't speak for the west coast or the states but this varies greatly. We have things like the prince's trust, the Technology Strategy Board, SEEDA and innovateuk amongst others. If you pick the right niche to get into then people will practically throw money at you to solve their problems. I will happily concede though that if you don't pick the right niche there is a level of risk aversion though but things like Seedcamp and HN London meetups are challenging that.

You do realise you can quite happily commute from Oxford or Cambridge to London? It's only about an hour on the train from either city.

Oxford and Cambridge are hardly the only two universities to hire tech talent from either, there are are universities with excellent CS depts in London itself. Imperial and UCL spring to mind. There are at least a dozen more excellent universities within a couple of hours travel time from London...

"It’s almost a daily thing now, reading blog posts from people sat behind desks somewhere in the world talking about “what’s wrong with the London startup scene” to drive traffic to their site. Consider this post two-fingers up to those people."

Touche!

Silicon Valley is unique and will always be. Trying to replicate this scene just won't happen. Fortunately places like London are so diverse (Americans, British, Brazilian... ) and things are happening.

You can find like minded people anywhere. If you have the enthusiasm and are willing to work - the money and people will find you.

  ... talking about “what’s wrong with the London startup 
  scene” to drive traffic to their site. Consider this post 
  two-fingers up to those people.

Two-fingers up?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign#V_sign_as_an_insult

Maybe I live a sheltered life, but it's very uncommon nowadays compared to the single finger, no? At least, it seemed far more common back pre-2000.

In Britain two fingers (with the palm facing the person making the gesture) is basically synonymous to the single finger. Two fingers the other way around means victory.

There is plenty of argument as to the etymology behind that, so I won't paste specific links trying to explain one theory over the other.

This is such a real look at it. The last line about following the followers... yes.

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