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Go and try to start a company in the UK, and then see if you're quite as enthusiastic about repatriating smart people. Nothing about British society and cultur

Go and try to start a company in the UK, and then see if you're quite as enthusiastic about repatriating smart people. Nothing about British society and culture is receptive to startups and entrepreneurs - it's an uphill struggle (both ways! in the snow!) to even get something simple started, let alone fully explore new ways of doing business. The net result is that the entrepreneur has produced less value for the world than if they'd been able to build their idea in America, where there's far less friction in getting new ideas off the ground. The US is (still) a unique and wonderful place for smart people to try to realize their potential. As a country in a global competition for talent, we should be doing everything in our power to attract and retain the smartest people in the world. (UK emigrant)

markng 15y ago
Do you mean start a company, or build a product? As another UK expat in America, starting my first company here (and having run a company back home), the process for starting a company in the UK is slightly more efficient than in the US. If you're talking about finding investment, that's a different matter. But finding investment is only "easy" in a few places in America. It's certainly no easier to find investment in the city in which I am based than it is in London. Edit: (and I'm not so sure we should all be building companies that need hundreds of thousands of dollars to get off the ground. That places exist where we can do that in the world is great, but bootstrapping creates different types of worthwhile businesses.)
- garethsprice 15y ago
  Finding investment, talent, or even just being able to tell people you're starting your own business without getting a look like you've just told them you've got a second head... the US (even the remoter parts) has a far better support network for entrepreneurs than even large UK cities. Agreed about bootstrapping, but even that is easier in the US where people are more conditioned to pay for services, consultants, etc.
  - markng 15y ago
    I can't say I've experienced anything like what you've talked about. What places in the UK and the US are you talking about/comparing ? My experiences have been in London, Bournemouth and Phoenix.
mattmanser 15y ago
My original comment was tongue in cheek, but if you seriously believe this than you are cuckoo. I know people who have started a video company, another who's started a money saving card, another who's selling phone apps, another who's started a social musician site, another who's doing a website monitoring service. All living within 1/2 hour of me. I also know people who have started more traditional businesses, trying to disrupt mortgage brokers and the like. No-one's ever said 'oh noes, woe is me, the government is out to get me'. They're all 'dammit find customers, find customers, find customers'. Which is normal. And on. And on. There's even some bio startup centre near me which I only heard about last week, http://www.biocity.co.uk/ http://www.biocity.co.uk/. Yesterday I was sitting round a table with 5 others for a 'launch it' club. As another commentor has said, perhaps funding's what you're talking about, I wouldn't know as I've not tried, but for actually creating and running a business? What are you on about? In the end the new paradigm is low cost startup using incubators and surprise, they're in the UK too. I don't even live in London/Cambridge/Bristol which are the known cities for startups in the UK.
- garethsprice 15y ago
  You can find people anywhere who have started businesses to test their ideas, the issue is scaling those businesses past a certain point. There are many brilliant people in the UK, yet the UK has no equivalent to Google, Facebook, Oracle, Apple, etc - why? Why does the BusinessWeek Top 100 (http://www.businessweek.com/it100 http://www.businessweek.com/it100) have 1 UK company and 40+ US companies, if there are not intrinsic differences between US and UK attitudes towards building and growing businesses? I am not trying to make a qualitative assessment of the two countries, or predict what will happen in the future - but the statistics bear out that if you want to build something on a world-class scale, the US still provides far greater opportunities to do so (it'll also crush you if you aren't lucky and end up on the bottom of the pile, but that's a whole other discussion).
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    You've gone from saying it's impossible to start a business in the UK to talking about some totally random list of 'top' IT companies that seems to have plucked out of the author's ass. BT has a bigger operating income than most of the 'top' companies but somehow it doesn't count. But Verizon and China Mobile do? What about ARM? You know, that Cambridge, UK company? We're talking about the hottest company in processors right now. That 'equivalent' that doesn't exist? Oh yeah, not on the list. Netflix is there, but Lovefilm isn't. Because.... Last.fm? Spotify? And they're just the ones I know about personally. And, um, exactly where on that list is Microsoft? Maybe it's a little US centric because maybe, and I'm guessing here, it's written by an American. Just a hunch.

markng 15y ago

Do you mean start a company, or build a product? As another UK expat in America, starting my first company here (and having run a company back home), the process for starting a company in the UK is slightly more efficient than in the US. If you're talking about finding investment, that's a different matter. But finding investment is only "easy" in a few places in America. It's certainly no easier to find investment in the city in which I am based than it is in London. Edit: (and I'm not so sure we should all be building companies that need hundreds of thousands of dollars to get off the ground. That places exist where we can do that in the world is great, but bootstrapping creates different types of worthwhile businesses.)

garethsprice 15y ago
Finding investment, talent, or even just being able to tell people you're starting your own business without getting a look like you've just told them you've got a second head... the US (even the remoter parts) has a far better support network for entrepreneurs than even large UK cities. Agreed about bootstrapping, but even that is easier in the US where people are more conditioned to pay for services, consultants, etc.
- markng 15y ago
  I can't say I've experienced anything like what you've talked about. What places in the UK and the US are you talking about/comparing ? My experiences have been in London, Bournemouth and Phoenix.

mattmanser 15y ago

My original comment was tongue in cheek, but if you seriously believe this than you are cuckoo. I know people who have started a video company, another who's started a money saving card, another who's selling phone apps, another who's started a social musician site, another who's doing a website monitoring service. All living within 1/2 hour of me. I also know people who have started more traditional businesses, trying to disrupt mortgage brokers and the like. No-one's ever said 'oh noes, woe is me, the government is out to get me'. They're all 'dammit find customers, find customers, find customers'. Which is normal. And on. And on. There's even some bio startup centre near me which I only heard about last week, http://www.biocity.co.uk/ http://www.biocity.co.uk/. Yesterday I was sitting round a table with 5 others for a 'launch it' club. As another commentor has said, perhaps funding's what you're talking about, I wouldn't know as I've not tried, but for actually creating and running a business? What are you on about? In the end the new paradigm is low cost startup using incubators and surprise, they're in the UK too. I don't even live in London/Cambridge/Bristol which are the known cities for startups in the UK.

garethsprice 15y ago
You can find people anywhere who have started businesses to test their ideas, the issue is scaling those businesses past a certain point. There are many brilliant people in the UK, yet the UK has no equivalent to Google, Facebook, Oracle, Apple, etc - why? Why does the BusinessWeek Top 100 (http://www.businessweek.com/it100 http://www.businessweek.com/it100) have 1 UK company and 40+ US companies, if there are not intrinsic differences between US and UK attitudes towards building and growing businesses? I am not trying to make a qualitative assessment of the two countries, or predict what will happen in the future - but the statistics bear out that if you want to build something on a world-class scale, the US still provides far greater opportunities to do so (it'll also crush you if you aren't lucky and end up on the bottom of the pile, but that's a whole other discussion).
- mattmanser 15y ago
  You've gone from saying it's impossible to start a business in the UK to talking about some totally random list of 'top' IT companies that seems to have plucked out of the author's ass. BT has a bigger operating income than most of the 'top' companies but somehow it doesn't count. But Verizon and China Mobile do? What about ARM? You know, that Cambridge, UK company? We're talking about the hottest company in processors right now. That 'equivalent' that doesn't exist? Oh yeah, not on the list. Netflix is there, but Lovefilm isn't. Because.... Last.fm? Spotify? And they're just the ones I know about personally. And, um, exactly where on that list is Microsoft? Maybe it's a little US centric because maybe, and I'm guessing here, it's written by an American. Just a hunch.