European Startups vs the US Upstarts
March 27, 2007 //
There’s a buzz around the European startup community at present. Well, actually, most of it seems to be happening in London, where the passion and enthusiasm is most apparent and collaboration is easier to attain. That’s probably because it’s a big city with lots of people and all speaking the same language with no water separating them. That’s not to say there isn’t the same level of enthusiasm elsewhere which shouldn’t be harnessed and supported.
A much needed ecosystem to enable better collaboration is starting to form in London, with people like Saul Klein kicking off initiatives such as OpenCoffee, Robert Loch and Paul Birch running (compelling) Internet People and informal gatherings for Creative People (supported by me from a BIMA perspective) and Sam Sethi running mashup events. And these are just a few of the networking opportunities that attract an average of 80 likeminded opportunists on a regular basis. Then you have intimate and private breakfast meetings which I’ve attended, along with people such as Paul Birch, Robert Loch, Olly Barrett, Saul Campbell, Judy Gibbons, Judith Clegg, Michael Smith, Saul Campbell, Sam Sethi, Daniel Appelquist and more.
Sam wrote a very interesting post that grabbed the attention of some of the UK’s finest investors recently, most notably Doug Richards, one of the originals from Dragon’s Den. Sam articulated what I’ve been thinking about for a while – about the disconnect between investors, brands that can make a difference such as BT and Microsoft, government initiatives and entrepreneurs.
I was interested in the debate it sparked. Each investor articulated their involvement in various initiatives, all of which were unknown to me personally. That’s not to say they’re not compelling and very worthwhile, but it does highlight the necessity for each community to collaborate and not just each person in each community.
During the exchange of comments on Sam’s post, I raised the question about working with government bodies to seek more support to help build the foundation of such an ecosystem. There were no takers and only Robert suggested something similar.
Whilst Enterprise Ireland does very little, the Irish government has decided to roll out free WiFi access across Dublin city. This is the type of stuff that’s needed, but much more needs to happen if budding entrepreneurs are to, well, blossom. Unlike the dragons, I wouldn’t necessarily expect an inventor to have the business acumen to realise the full potential of their product – you can’t be good at everything.
So, whilst I believe entrepreneurs have the ability to sell, that doesn’t mean they have the time to fill in application forms for innovation type competitions to ensure they end up on the radar of people who count, nor are they likely to have time/money to spend on PR firms to do it for them. Congratulations to Nooked though, they deserved to be on the list! I believe the rest of the value chain should seek and discover such talent and help them realise their full potential. It’s not just about the money; it’s about building an ecosystem where better collaboration can take place.
I work with what I like to call ‘widget companies’ instead of trying to build everything. We now work in an environment where ‘plug ‘n play’ companies work together to deliver compelling products and services that don’t cost an arm and a leg to build.
So, who are the ‘The Digital Pioneers’ and how are they discovered?
So, here’s an example of where a vital stake holder could better engage to make a bigger impact.
I was contacted by the British Council this week and asked if I would consider becoming a mentor to a Hong Kong based mobile games company under a new scheme called the ‘Digital Pioneer Programme’. I have accepted because I think it’s a brilliant initiative.
I will also be talking to them about how to improve the programme itself. I’m impressed by their open-door policy to change where necessary.
The Digital Pioneer programme is a British Council programme for digital pioneers in the UK and Hong Kong. Six people, three from each country, have been selected following a competitive application process to take part in the first Digital Pioneer programme.
The Digital Pioneer programme 2007 is focussing on content development and an integral part of the programme is mentoring. Each digital pioneer has been asked to outline the area that they would like their mentor to be working in and the kind of input they would like from their mentor.
The Digital Pioneers from Hong Kong will have mentors in the UK and the UK pioneers will have mentors in Hong Kong. The initial visits will take place at the end of March with the UK pioneers going out to Hong Kong first and the Hong Kong pioneers returning the following week.
The UK pioneers will be in Hong Kong 17-24 March and we would like them to have the opportunity to meet their mentors during this visit. The Hong Kong pioneers will be in the UK 29 March – 5 April and again we would like the pioneers to have an opportunity to meet with their mentors during this week.
My role as a mentor will be to work with the Digital Pioneer and help them to access the market opportunities they are seeking in either the UK or Hong Kong.
I will
- put the pioneer in contact with people in industry who might be interest in buying the services/products offered by the pioneer’s business;
- be able to advise on how to access the market for example who is the best person to contact, what form the contact should take for example email or telephone;
- comment on the business they are running and offer advice on how to run the business more effectively;
- be a sounding board for ideas that the pioneer might have in terms of business or market development.
The (lucky) company 
The guy from Hong Kong that I’m going to mentor is Wallis Wong.
Walis set up his first start up company in 2004 and has successfully developed and launched more than 20 mobile games and services including two award winning games, 3G Mopas and Hong Kong War. More information can be found at www.3dynamics.com.
It’s ironic to think that Enterprise Ireland sent 2 of its consultants to review my company’s business recently. Neither of them had any experience in our area. In fact, one of them was so bad I asked him to leave our office in Dublin, as he was ‘wasting my time and I was wasting his’. Note to Enterprise Ireland – please hire people who ‘get the Internet thing’ and stop wasting tons of EU funds in administration fees.
So, how do we get all the relevant stake holders to collaborate and discuss how to implement better collaboration? I know this may sound a little silly, but sometimes you need to plan how you’re going to plan.
UK
May I call all of the aforementioned, the DTI, British Council, Business Link and Gordon Browne to a sit down breakfast? If Gordon is going to pay for it, why don’t we make it the Ivy?
Ireland
I’d like to call upon Enterprise Ireland to have a meeting with those of us who author Web2Ireland blog (I’m one of the authors), Tom Raftery, James Corbett, Judy Gibbons and all the other smart and well connected people I’ve failed to mention by name. I’ll happily host it at one of our restaurants in Dublin.
What are your thoughts?
marco goldschmied says 
jamesq says 
Sharon Crossley says 
Grant Bannister says 
Very interesting to hear how the Digital Pioneer Programme works - what a great scheme. Agreed we need to meetup with EI and trash out some of these issues.
March 27th, 2007
James - do you know anyone in EI that actually knows how companies make money from the Internet? Seriously? I’ve been invited to an ‘Irish International Business Network’ (private club) launch party this evening in London - perhaps I’ll meet others who we can collaborate with.
March 28th, 2007
Paul - good initiative, if I can help the Digital Pioneer programme with any VC insight (or any other way) let me know.
best,
Nic
March 28th, 2007
That’s great news Nic! This could be a good opportunity to promote UK companies in Asia - possibly the differentiator needed. I’m meeting them next week so will have an update after that. Please feel free to run this past anyone you think could add benefit.
March 28th, 2007
I left a long comment on this topic at http://www.web2ireland.org/2007/03/16/irish-startup-scene-some-thoughts/
which possibly wont get published since its fairly critical of EI, fair enough.
In short I was suggesting that the Irish tech community should setup their own mini-VC fund, prompted by Damien Mulleys ideas around a Business Advisory.
“As it happens I sent an email to Damien Mulley today about how I think the Business Advisory he’s involved in should approach funding in Ireland. Only having come to this post afterwards I realise that everything I advocated to him has already been said here.
I’m late to the discussion but I might as well chip in:
Despite having a mandate to foster innovative technology in Ireland, EI seems to want to bet on a sure thing. I’ve seen first hand where EI have openly discussed massaging its requirements for a pure service company to get funding because they were sure it would do well. Zero innovation was involved in the project being discussed.
Ireland has too much of a reliance on large multinationals. As the multinationals are starting to look elsewhere the Government will, unfortunately, all too likely further incentivise these companies to prop up jobs rather than funding more diverse, smaller local enterprises.
Silicon Valley has a large amount of reinvestment coming back from entrepreneurs who have gone through a few cycles. Here in Ireland we have a catch-22 situation. No money coming in from (probably property generated) VC funds, harder for startups. Less startups, then less money coming in and the riskier investments.
The work being put in by Damien and Conor and others is great and it’s encouraging to see a such positive attitude within the tech community being developed.
The Business Advisory idea is great idea since a key ingredient for small companies is access to good advice. So my suggestion was that they should take the Advisory one stage further and develop a “Y Combinator / Dragons Den” facility for a collaborative VC project (Fergus Burns mentions this directly above). I think if the Irish tech community sets up its own funding facility it will be a focal point to encourage growth within the community.
Projects that are being funded and guided directly by the Irish tech community will do a number of things:
It will allow the community to help itself.
It will be a show of confidence to funding sources (VCs, government agencies) that the tech community is willing to invest in themselves.
It will generate incentive for all involved, less fear of local competition and access to a larger support base.
VC’s would be happier committing money if companies have in essence been peer reviewed and have had access to good advice. EI will get awake up call hopefully and begin to “get it”. My own opinion is that EI should oversee that money isn’t being abused, but bascially give the money away with zero expectation of a return. Failure is still not as well accepted as it is the American context. EI only investing in dead certs defeats the whole idea of whats needed to foster the best startup culture.
I’m not talking about raising a ton of money for large startups, more like following the Y Combinator model of initialing seeding up to $10-15,000 and if anything had potential help the company raise other funding through the usual support agencies or VC’s. Anybody on the funding side of this collaborative project would be able to choose where their money is invested rather than a kitty that is dispensed by somebody else.
Other benefits, are that the tech investors will “train” as VCs for comparatively little investment, leading to bigger and better things down the line. Personally, I’d like to be able to spread my own risk as small company and have some interest (however small) in other small businesses. That in itself will foster incentive for the broader community to thrive.”
March 29th, 2007
Paul,
congrats on the mentoring. Kudos 2u 4 being approached like that - shows how your own personal/profressional PR/help-out approach can really make a difference.
Some strong words there but sometimes you need 2 get some smoke going 2 get action.
Interested in chatting with some more on this topic (especially in relation to ’startup’ help etc..)
Lal
March 29th, 2007
David - I hear you. Whilst I love the Dragons Den, I’d hate to see that type of stuff happen in real life. It’s best left for TV. It’s more of a piss take out of poor folk who freeze in front of a TV camera (which could happen to anyone) and then you have the public raping of inventors who loose large quantities of equity when they don’t have the skill to negotiate (shame on them for taking the piss with the inventor of the energy saver in the last episode!).
Ok, back to reality - I attended the launch of an International Irish Business event in London last night (by invitation and now invited to sit on its Committee). After I raised the issue of Dublin falling behind London when it comes to the Internet startup scene, the Head of EI approached me and asked if we could meet to discuss how to do stuff in Dublin. So, talking to the man in charge might actually help. I had a chat with a senior figure from Microsoft at the event too and she agreed - so we’ll be discussing how to progress things. I need to write a post about this specifically so please provide me with feedback when you get a chance
I’m keen to get startups, investors (NOT just VCs), government agencies, Enterprise Ireland and large brands together to discuss this subject and to put in place a framework so it can ‘happen’. As I said in my post, there are too many groups working in silo and it’s time to get one coordinated effort.
March 29th, 2007
Lal - thanks for your kind words. I don’t think of it as PR, although I do obviously realise the power of making things happen. I think the story in the Sunday Tribune helped. I purposely stayed under the media radar until recently so it’s nice to get some recognition.
I’m going to write a blog post about the networking event I attended last night where I met the Head of Enterprise Ireland who I’ll be hooking up with soon to discuss how to build an ecosystem in Dublin. So, you’ll have to tell me if your interest is Dublin or London because play in both playgrounds.
March 29th, 2007
Paul,
I wasn’t a fan of DD and I haven’t the seen the last few seasons. To be honest I didn’t like people, trying to make a go of something, being torn to shreds publicly either. What I meant was a funding system will allows for investors to have a larger say in where their money is going rather than a a combined fund that is distributed using a board/committee. I won’t be using that analogy again
The comments I made about Enterprise Ireland possibly sound harsher than the opinion I hold them. Even the example of helping non-innovative companies get funding shows two things, one being that they are bending over backwards to help others but two that they just don’t seem to be getting enough demand in the tech scene. I’m just frustrated that they expect large successful start-ups to pop out fresh in air in Ireland where the smaller tech company ecosystem is extremely small (and largely unsupported) at the moment.
I suppose what I was trying to say was if we can’t get a decent national policy/framework in place that their is plenty of opportunity to help ourselves.
You’re right a coordinated effort is needed in Ireland. I’d love to contribute to any feedback you might be discussing with the relevant parties. Looking forward to your post..
March 29th, 2007
David - don’t be harsh on yourself. I echo your concerns regarding EI. I bitch about them from time to time but I’m prepare to work with them to help ‘them’ improve how they deliver their service so companies such as Segala can benefit.
March 29th, 2007
[...] 2. European Startups vs the US Upstarts 3. Two absolutely great posts by Ben Yoskovitz, the Co-Founder of Standout Jobs, a friend of businesshackers.com: When Should You Outsource To Help Your Business? : Instigator Blog and Top 10 Reasons to Join a Startup : Instigator Blog [...]
May 28th, 2007
For want of going off the track slightly - ie DD. The major obstacle for start ups is culture. On this side of the ocean we have the ability to knock failure – it can be a good thing. As an Online Product Manager I am very aware that seven out of ten products put forward won’t even see the light of day – the trick is to learn why they didn’t and apply the learning’s.
Over on the side of the ocean I get the feeling that start-ups are supported and actively encouraged – that “go get them” attitude.
Do you not find it ironic that an industry that can create fantastic communities online – with all the knowledge transfer that entails - can not shift it into the off line world?
May 31st, 2007