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Startup Britain: a small step forward

32 points by swombat 16y ago

notahacker 16y ago
Well I guess somebody had to play devil's advocate and defend it. Personally I'd be staggered if the government made anything other than positive noises on entrepreneurship. And some of what they do in future might have a positive impact. But we're a critical bunch even when it comes to weekend projects here, and I think we had a right to expect an initial offering announced with such fanfare to be more than a link list apparently less thought out than your typical Mashable "top 10" blog post. List bloggers wouldn't claim to be dragging the economy out of the doldrums, and they also would entitle a link to Dotmailer.co.uk "Google Analytics", or put staff incentives in a "creating a brand" list - the sheer randomness is a little amusing. After you've crowdsourced your logo and built your free template site on Moonfruit you apparently need a $10/month heatmap to monitor where people are clicking. And some discount glasses c/o one of the site's backers. Hard-up freelance designers also have a right to be irritated by the suggestion than small businesses should eschew their services in favour of setting up a competition for people overseas who consider £400 a major prize rather than enough to cover rent.
- moblivu 16y ago
  Well at some point heavily critisizing it is be the best way to impove it. There's a start, and that great. Simply the fact that they can point someone to 99designs might just make his day and be a big problem resolved for him/her.
  - robin_reala 16y ago
    They don’t point to 99designs any more but to the Design Business Association ( http://www.dba.org.uk/ http://www.dba.org.uk/ ).
    - jot 16y ago
      Which is probably a worse thing to do. They're supposed to be making it easy and appealing to start a business. This makes it seem more complicate and expensive that it really is. There are thousands of successful businesses that don't have logos.
      - moblivu 16y ago
        Well the fact is that, at least there is a reference and while we have to critisize it in order to impove it, we have to achknowledge the fact that they are trying something compared to many others. Just take a look at the TechCrunch post where they talked about how bad the Startup Visa was and later a new redefined version of the US Startup Visa is in the works. There's a start with StartupBritain, why not contribute?!
jot 16y ago
This is probably a better place to continue from our discussion on Twitter... What is the benefit of describing http://jfdibritain.com http://jfdibritain.com as first "cynical" and then a "negative reaction"? Like Start Up Britain, JFDI Britain is positive about startups in all industries. You can JFDI it with any business. We are a response to Start Up Britain, our only direct reference to them is that we say they "inspired" us to create the site. We think Start Up Britain should continue to do what it's doing and we hope that it evolves to highlight that the only real barrier that exists to starting any kind of business is the time you have available to get on with it. Our only real criticism the prominence and potential damage of the 1:Idea 2: Biz Plan 3:Kit 4:Logo approach. We're suggesting a positive alternative.
- swombat 16y ago
  That's your opinion (that you can JFDI any business). I think most businesses are not suitable to this approach. More importantly, you set this opinion in opposition, not as a complement - it's clearly presented as an opposing reaction to StartupBritain. So yes, it's a negative reaction, one that fits under the "StartupBritain is not good enough advice" stream of thought.
  - ColinHayhurst 16y ago
    I too don't think you can use JFDI, taken literally, for any business. Just as you can't use 1,2,3,4 on StartupBritain for any business. Therefore I don't view JFDIBritain as a negative reaction. Indeed it's a very constructive contribution, being simple and practical. It is extremely useful for some types of start-up businesses: Certainly for many, but not all, of the businesses that I have done, or do, work with.
  - jot 16y ago
    Sorry you feel that way. It wasn't our intension to come across like that. How could we have got our message across more positively?
    - swombat 16y ago
binarymax 16y ago
Have a look here: http://www.bl.uk/bipc/index.html http://www.bl.uk/bipc/index.html Why were resources spent on this new and empty initiative, where there are perfectly good resources that exist already? Why not promote those? Why not build on those?
CallMeV 16y ago
Okay, well, as revealed in another post here on HN, the BBC has revealed that the Startup Britain website links you to a fake site stuffed with malware. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12904585 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12904585 "According to Paul Baccas, a senior threat researcher at Sophos, the link featured in an article about US investor Warren Buffet and took users to a fake banking site. ""It went to a third-party site, bankling.com, where users were redirected to a fake anti-virus page given a prompt saying their computer was infected and encouraging them to download a fix," he said. "In reality, the fix contained malware. "The exploit only affected users of Internet Explorer, including the most recent versions. Other browsers, including Firefox, were not affected. "The slip will be embarrassing for the government, especially as Prime Minister David Cameron had helped launch the site and the Number 10 website linked prominently to it." A small step forward, sure ... but I don't like the direction that step has taken us so far. HN discussion link:- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387009 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387009

32 points by swombat 16y ago

Well I guess somebody had to play devil's advocate and defend it. Personally I'd be staggered if the government made anything other than positive noises on entrepreneurship. And some of what they do in future might have a positive impact. But we're a critical bunch even when it comes to weekend projects here, and I think we had a right to expect an initial offering announced with such fanfare to be more than a link list apparently less thought out than your typical Mashable "top 10" blog post. List bloggers wouldn't claim to be dragging the economy out of the doldrums, and they also would entitle a link to Dotmailer.co.uk "Google Analytics", or put staff incentives in a "creating a brand" list - the sheer randomness is a little amusing. After you've crowdsourced your logo and built your free template site on Moonfruit you apparently need a $10/month heatmap to monitor where people are clicking. And some discount glasses c/o one of the site's backers. Hard-up freelance designers also have a right to be irritated by the suggestion than small businesses should eschew their services in favour of setting up a competition for people overseas who consider £400 a major prize rather than enough to cover rent.

moblivu 16y ago
Well at some point heavily critisizing it is be the best way to impove it. There's a start, and that great. Simply the fact that they can point someone to 99designs might just make his day and be a big problem resolved for him/her.
- robin_reala 16y ago
  They don’t point to 99designs any more but to the Design Business Association ( http://www.dba.org.uk/ http://www.dba.org.uk/ ).
  - jot 16y ago
    Which is probably a worse thing to do. They're supposed to be making it easy and appealing to start a business. This makes it seem more complicate and expensive that it really is. There are thousands of successful businesses that don't have logos.
    - moblivu 16y ago
      Well the fact is that, at least there is a reference and while we have to critisize it in order to impove it, we have to achknowledge the fact that they are trying something compared to many others. Just take a look at the TechCrunch post where they talked about how bad the Startup Visa was and later a new redefined version of the US Startup Visa is in the works. There's a start with StartupBritain, why not contribute?!

jot 16y ago

This is probably a better place to continue from our discussion on Twitter... What is the benefit of describing http://jfdibritain.com http://jfdibritain.com as first "cynical" and then a "negative reaction"? Like Start Up Britain, JFDI Britain is positive about startups in all industries. You can JFDI it with any business. We are a response to Start Up Britain, our only direct reference to them is that we say they "inspired" us to create the site. We think Start Up Britain should continue to do what it's doing and we hope that it evolves to highlight that the only real barrier that exists to starting any kind of business is the time you have available to get on with it. Our only real criticism the prominence and potential damage of the 1:Idea 2: Biz Plan 3:Kit 4:Logo approach. We're suggesting a positive alternative.

swombat 16y ago
That's your opinion (that you can JFDI any business). I think most businesses are not suitable to this approach. More importantly, you set this opinion in opposition, not as a complement - it's clearly presented as an opposing reaction to StartupBritain. So yes, it's a negative reaction, one that fits under the "StartupBritain is not good enough advice" stream of thought.
- ColinHayhurst 16y ago
  I too don't think you can use JFDI, taken literally, for any business. Just as you can't use 1,2,3,4 on StartupBritain for any business. Therefore I don't view JFDIBritain as a negative reaction. Indeed it's a very constructive contribution, being simple and practical. It is extremely useful for some types of start-up businesses: Certainly for many, but not all, of the businesses that I have done, or do, work with.
- jot 16y ago
  Sorry you feel that way. It wasn't our intension to come across like that. How could we have got our message across more positively?
  - swombat 16y ago

binarymax 16y ago

Have a look here: http://www.bl.uk/bipc/index.html http://www.bl.uk/bipc/index.html Why were resources spent on this new and empty initiative, where there are perfectly good resources that exist already? Why not promote those? Why not build on those?

CallMeV 16y ago

Okay, well, as revealed in another post here on HN, the BBC has revealed that the Startup Britain website links you to a fake site stuffed with malware. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12904585 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12904585 "According to Paul Baccas, a senior threat researcher at Sophos, the link featured in an article about US investor Warren Buffet and took users to a fake banking site. ""It went to a third-party site, bankling.com, where users were redirected to a fake anti-virus page given a prompt saying their computer was infected and encouraging them to download a fix," he said. "In reality, the fix contained malware. "The exploit only affected users of Internet Explorer, including the most recent versions. Other browsers, including Firefox, were not affected. "The slip will be embarrassing for the government, especially as Prime Minister David Cameron had helped launch the site and the Number 10 website linked prominently to it." A small step forward, sure ... but I don't like the direction that step has taken us so far. HN discussion link:- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387009 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387009