Newcastle startup scene reaches 'critical mass' [video]

"Why can't football fans talk about football online?"

Why indeed? Are they? Did anybody check? I suspect they may already be!

You could take that clip out use it to build the script of "This Is Spinal Tap" for UK startups.

Having been in the "industry" for a large number of years now, I genuinely don't find that any of the startups are congregating around the these new areas unless they are VC funded burn-out outfits which to be honest I wouldn't poke with a stick.

Most of the genuinely interesting ones seem to be running out of people's houses with no specific location. They're also making cash without VC intervention.

I work in Newcastle, live in Middlesbrough. It's becoming surprisingly strong for a developer community now, when I left Uni about 5 years ago there wasn't really much going on.

There's a lot the North East has going for it, living costs are pretty spectacularly low in most parts, office space is cheap, there's reasonably strong transport links between the hubs (ish, it's still British transport). It's nice to see it being represented nationality, the focus often swings back to the London community.

The biggest criticism I've heard it's there's a lack of angels and VCs but it feels like a chicken and egg situation. Do startups flourish in areas with a large amount of VCs, or are VCs drawn to areas with a large amount of startups?

For those further interested there's also Sunderland Software City and the Middlesbrough Digital City project outside of Newcastle.

Newcastle is a great city to take a startup from napkin to reality. It wont take much to open the door of any business or investor and the community is generally welcoming (Kind of un-British) in some respects.It's also beautiful city and happens to have one of the lowest costs of living in the UK.

However Newcastle and the North East in general suffers from a shortage in quality developers. Primarily because they're either entrepreneurial with their own startup or finding offers from startups in London with double the salary on the table.

Newcastle isn't really trying to be anything other than itself, it understands that there isn't an abundance of developers and it's trying god dam hard to bring the right talent to the area.

Newcastle university offers a great CS course headed up by Professor Aad van Moorsel and with the right startups keeping that talent in the area shouldn't be hard.

If you're located in London and looking to take that idea into a reality, Newcastle and the North East(York & Durham) are great choices. £10,000 can give you 6months of decent living up here. As opposed to 2-3 in London.

Super Mondays, monthly startup event in Newcastle - http://www.supermondays.org/

Favourite soundbite: "When I arrived the first thing I saw was vomit on the floor. But it was real, it was a real place."

As someone working out of, literally, a tin shed in Byker (a stones through from the Tyne river in Newcastle for those unfamiliar with the area) it's nice to see the city getting some good PR. One thing I would add is that there are plenty of businesses outside straight up IT/Tech in the city and as a result there is a really great and diverse business community.

If you are looking for somewhere to start a company that involves manufacturing (as ours does) then you could do a lot worse that the Northeast - the legacy of ship building and the presence of the 500,000 cars per year Nissan factory make it a great place to get stuff made.

Alos, London is great an everything but for quality of life and low cost of living Newcastle knocks spots of it. Something that, as a cash strapped founder, is really useful and on a good day it's only a 2.5 hour train ride to London.

Great video I can empathize with. We're building a startup community in Myrtle Beach, SC, US (www.coworkmyr.com). We aren't quite at 'critical mass' yet, but share a lot of the same sentiments about it being somewhere to focus, and so long as it has some community and access to the same resources it can be a great place to do a startup.

Perhaps even a better place than major hubs where cost of living is so high that your runway is necessarily shorter.

We wrote about it recently: "Get Your Ass To Mars: Making a case for tech startups in Myrtle Beach" http://coworkmyr.com/get-your-ass-to-mars-making-a-case-for-...

This is just up the road from my hometown. It's a breath of fresh air to see startups in the North of England, especially as it is one of the most deprived. Hopefully it's sustainable as I'm getting tired of all the Tech City talk by the government.

Tech Britain maps UK startups: http://techbritain.com/ - it shows Newcastle as the 4th hottest spot after London, Manchester and Bristol.

Awesome to see this video. Currently down in London on an internship before I go back to Newcastle University next year. With the amount of startup events going on down here (highly recommend the HN London meetup if people haven't been) I was pretty apprehensive about going back up but not as much anymore!

Definitely feel a bit more excited now. Apart from Super Mondays, are there any other events I should remember for next year?

Isn't there just too much benefit to being in a large city (in this case, London)? Specifically: established and well attended social groups, like meetup groups focussed on your particular technology or vertical? The possibility of an encounter with someone who either has an invaluable piece of advice or wants to join your team must be exponentially higher.