Stay in the UK or Go West?

The bay area will provide you all the things you mention and more. It depends on what you are looking for.

The main advantage of the bay area is ofcourse the people, the collective knowledge, and the culture. You learn so much from other creative and smart people and bouncing ideas off of them (if you meet the right people, that is). On the other hand, it is very competitive out there and very tech centric so you can sometimes lose touch with the 'real world', so to say.

I have lived on both the East and the West coast and although I like the lifestyle in the east better, the west coast is the place to be if you are doing technology (the bleeding edge). You'll learn how the big guys do stuff and learn some valuable lessons that you can then use wherever you go (even if you don't end up living there longer term)

On another note, how is the startup scene in london ? My impression of it is that a lot of the startups are more business-centric (like on the US east coast) than tech-centric whereas it's quite the opposite in the valley.

I live in the UK, and I have a startup (very early stage). Were it not for the usual immigration nonsense, moving would almost be a non-issue - the risk appetite of British investors is just too low. There are other advantages associated with a Web 2.0 startup which make the move to California compelling for us in any case - primarily, IMO, the ease of making really good contacts.

You'll have a great time in San Francisco. However, remember the line from Wayne's World, when Wayne is in the sleazy record producer's penthouse in Chicago?

"This is totally the kind of place I'm going to get when I move out of my parents' house."

As someone who grew up in SF and had to struggle and compromise quite a bit to stay here, I've seen this play out over and over. You probably won't roll out of bed to your spectacular view of the bay, Alcatraz and the bridge. Not for the first 20 years, anyway. Nobody rents an apartment on unemployment checks, opens a camera store, and finds his way in life here anymore.

But hey, if you've lived in London, you already know how cost of living can collide with the images swirling in your head. So keeping that in mind, definitely out to SF, and you'll probably love it.

It's an interesting question, both for early stage and more advanced startups. I'd put Huddle in the latter camp; they're the London tech entrepreneurship scene's darlings, they're kinda the star British startup at the moment, and it really makes sense for them to get more exposure and credibility abroad. On the other hand going to SF puts them right against a ton of baby competitors and of course good old 37s.

For those of us starting out, we have the same question and decision to make - try to start abroad and establish credibility, contacts and capital from the start, or build up brick by brick in the UK and then move once we have made our name locally. There is never going to be a right, one-size-fits-all answer. For example, I'm in Edinburgh because that's the best place to be for the tech I'm developing, but it's certainly not the best place to be for the business - so I'll move. Right at the early stages, it's more about cost of living versus opportunities than easy access to millions of VC money anyway.

One caveat to note though, as a lawyer I recently spoke to told me: if you incorporate in the US, even if you're British through and through, you're going to have trouble attracting UK money. You're also going to have extra legal fun if you do return to the UK, since most UK lawyers aren't experts in US corporate law so you'll have to hire someone specialist or across the pond. Similarly if you incorporate in the UK and then want to do stuff in the US, you'll run into fun there too. Bottom line is leave off incorporating as long as possible :P

Interesting that the article mentions Michael Birch, UK born but as they point out made it in SV - then again, Birch has invested in some uk based web startups. SV has it all, really, except one thing, which America lacks in general: a culture of quality. Europe has this, and as IT growth slows down for good, there will be more lucrative opportunities in fixing existing technologies that were originally rushed out in the US.

I'm staying here in the UK until I hit it big with desktop software, then to Los Angeles to produce films.

Stay in the UK I would.

Go west, young man.

If you stay in the UK you will have access to literally hundreds of £ of VC funding