WebMission: Brits go to Silicon Valley
Edie G. Lush joins a party of young British Internet talent on a pilgrimage to meet Californian role models
Twenty British Internet start-up chief executives walk into Google’s headquarters… No, this isn’t the start of a joke, but a day in WebMission – a trip which aims to bring the best of British web talent to the US.
What’s the big idea? WebMission co-founder Oli Barrett says: ‘The basic plan was to help 20 leading web entrepreneurs attract opportunities, and to give them a platform from which they could showcase their companies. We made companies apply to take part, which raised the calibre significantly and helped to generate a buzz.’
More than 100 applied for places. After a rigorous selection process, led by UK Trade and Investment with Doug Richards of the BBC’s Dragon’s Den and Mike Butcher of the weblog TechCrunch, the lucky 20 boarded a plane for California. The companies disembarking at San Francisco in some respects could not be more different – they range from a service which delivers personalised restaurant recommendations to your phone, to a site which allows bands to raise money from their fans. The one thing they all have in common is that they’re riding the wave of collaborative working and information-sharing known as Web 2.0.
And why are they headed for Silicon Valley? Well, one obvious reason is that many of the technology giants – Amazon, Facebook, Linkedin, Sun, SalesForce, Google, Bebo and Oracle – are based in and around San Francisco. For techies, a visit to the Bay Area is akin to a pilgrimage to Mecca. But beyond the big names there is a whole eco-system that is primed to help start-ups. Charles Armstrong, head of Trampoline Systems, says: ‘The density of ventures in the Bay Area is so much greater than the UK — or anywhere else for that matter. This isn’t just true for the Internet scene, but for the technology scene in general. That has led to all kinds of secondary differences like the quality of funding infrastructure, the cohesion of the start-up community and the supply of talent.’ TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher adds: ‘In general, UK entrepreneurs who have moved to the Valley say it is easier to do a start-up here, that people “get” your idea faster. No-one says Europe is not a place for start-ups, but there is less friction here and less aversion to risk and failure.’
Andrew Scott of Rummble says three words describe the Valley’s spirit: openness, optimism, and funding. ‘By “openness” I mean the willingness to share ideas, be available, engage with one’s peers – the sense of entrepreneurial community that pervades the Valley. So often the first or second line in the Valley is “What can I do to help you?” But having said that, with entrepreneur-driven web conferences gaining traction in Europe, there’s a culture shift in the same direction; it is an exciting time to be a start-up in Europe.’ Not enough to stop Scott from moving Rummble to San Francisco later this year, however!
While the feedback was mostly positive, the California-based VCs often expressed more interest in UK start-ups that were prepared to move to the US or at least have significant presence there. Josh Goldman, an entrepreneur-turned-investor at Norwest Venture Partners in Palo Alto, says this is mainly a result of living through the forest fire that was the tech crash of 2000.
‘It’s true that the earlier the stage of the company, the more we feel the desire to have our investments geographically closer to one of our offices,’ he says. ‘It’s not a hard-and-fast rule. We’ve done early-stage deals all over the world, but the bar is higher as they get further away from our base. It actually isn’t so much for day-to-day oversight of the company. Frankly, if you find yourself doing that, the company probably isn’t a great investment. The real reason is that early-stage companies need more executive recruiting, introductions and deal-making assistance within the industry and our network of contacts is centred in this area. Basically, the closer they are, the more we can help ensure their success by leveraging our network and looking for synergies with our other investments and partners.’
There’s definitely a frustration among the WebMission companies about this stance. Sokratis Papafloratos from TrustedPlaces says: ‘We’re already part of a global scene and it’s easier than ever to collaborate across borders. I’m originally from Greece; my co-founder is from France; our engineering team is in Tel Aviv and we’ve worked with people based in the US, Ukraine and Spain.’
Huddle.net boss Andy McLoughlin worked on a potential partnership with a social network and opened a few doors into Microsoft. GroupSpaces made ‘fantastic contacts with many other entrepreneurs, Angels and venture capitalists and is in exciting discussions with a few people following the trip.’ Rummble’s Andrew Scott says: ‘Despite all today’s technology, nothing beats meeting someone in person. Spending time with Silicon Valley luminaries, both in a formal business setting and socially, helped develop relationships at a level which would normally take much longer to achieve, starting from a cold call or a regular 60 minute meeting. In addition, a fantastic benefit was spending a week with 19 fellow UK start-up founders. Time you would simply never spend if it wasn’t for the WebMission trip.’ And WebMission leader Oli Barrett adds, ‘Going en masse really worked in our favour, unlocking opportunities which we could never have accessed alone.’
For Silobreaker’s Kristofer Mansson, the trip brought home an inherent difference between the Bay Area and London. ‘The Valley seems to ooze with confidence and success is almost believed to be a fait accompli if you set up your business there. That is far from the truth, of course, but in terms of mentality there’s a real faith in what the Valley can deliver. The UK Internet scene isn’t concentrated in a specific area in the same way and although the London scene is pretty vibrant it gets easily lost in everything else that goes on here. But the biggest difference is probably that the UK scene hasn’t produced any really big successes yet that have put UK on the global Internet map in a big way. We don’t have any Googles, YouTubes or Facebooks to show yet, and success is always the best catalyst for more success, which in turn changes culture and mentality in a hurry.’
So will one of the WebMission companies be the next Google? If their spirit and drive are anything to go by, there’s no stopping them.
Edie G. Lush has been a reporter for Bloomberg, a political analyst for UBS, and a regular contributor to The Spectator
Pictures by Mike Butcher
Brief details of WebMission companies mentioned in this article
Trampoline Systems’s SONAR technology keeps employees of large companies up to date with what their co-workers are doing and who they’re working with.
Skimbit is a tool to help people research and make decisions online, with the help of others.
DotHomes seeks to be the ‘Google of real estate’. It allows home seekers in the UK, US, and South Africa to search thousands of real estate websites.
Rummble’s technology can be used on your mobile phone or PC. It learns what you like and where you are, then makes personalised recommendations for restaurants, bars or hotels.
TrustedPlaces is a forum for people to discover new places to go or to share their experiences of restaurants, bars and shops by posting their opinions.
The Filter, backed by rocker Peter Gabriel, learns what you like, and recommends more films, music and web video content that you will also enjoy.
Zebtab delivers the latest sports and entertainment news in a ‘snackable’ format to your desktop, for free, with little technical complexity.
GroupSpaces provides online support to help clubs, societies, charities and other groups manage their communications, membership and events.
Hubdub is a news prediction game which allows you to compete with your friends in predicting how news stories will turn out.
Huddle.net is an online tool that combines project management and document sharing functions to help teams work better together.
Silobreaker is a search service for news and current affairs that aims to provide more relevant results by finding people, companies, topics, places and keywords and understanding how they relate to each other.
WebMission companies not mentioned above:
Webjam is a ‘social publishing’ tool. WAYN, (Where are You Now?) lets you log trips and share travel experiences with friends. Moviestorm is a suite of software tools, add-on content and online services which enable users to create 3D animated films. Mydeo provides high-quality streaming video hosting. Slicethepie is a financing engine that turns music fans into investors. Kwiqq is a social networking system for PDAs and mobiles. Zogix provides a platform to track greenhouse gas emissions. Edocr aims to create the world’s largest open document library. Coull makes interactive videos.