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Ask HN: Does the UK need a YC clone?

• danhon 18y ago
  Yes, it does.
• davidw 18y ago
  > governmental initiatives As people keep repeating, the thing that makes YC special is not the money - you could get a few K from a lot of people. It's the connections - as a simple example, where else could you meet all the people that Paul has as speakers at their dinners?
  • jlees 18y ago
    One of the reasons I mention government initiatives is stuff like NESTA's Starter for 6 (disclaimer, I'm on the programme) aims to help you build a network as well as just give you training and possibly some money. However, the network it provides is nothing compared to YC's, and that's one of the problems.
  • barry-cotter 18y ago
    Very true. But the UK does have founders, startups and money. Not nearly as much as the US, and no cluster approaching the valley, but the network is a surmountable problem. One could probably get government sponsorship for a regular meetup/conference with speaker honoraria, etc. This would go some way to fixing this problem. Not all the way, but it'd be a start. jlees is looking at this from a Scottish perspective, so maybe getting Scottish Enterprise to sponsor monthly Techcrunch UK shindigs in Edinburgh would be an idea. Again, Scotland suffers the substantial disadvantage of not being London, or within the Golden Triangle. If I were attempting this I'd probably go to one of the Science Enterprise Centres at various UK universities, and attempt to get them to host a monthly meetup, get them to do it in co-operation with the Business School. Again, London would be best.
    • jlees 18y ago
      The thing is, is a monthly meetup the right solution? I go to a lot of events up here; we have a monthly tech-focused meetup and open coffee club, the University of Edinburgh runs a lot of courses and events, and their entrepreneurship club invites a lot of cool speakers over from the valley and elsewhere. This sort of ongoing network/atmosphere is great on one level but on another it doesn't really provide the pressure cooker 'kickstart' that something like YC does. I think we have all the ingredients for a YC, but they're too disparate right now, perhaps.
      • barry-cotter 18y ago
        I was just noting davidw's point on the speakers, the network. If U. Edinburgh can get speakers over from the valley on a semi-regular basis this isn't that big a problem. Yet again, London's better because the number of cool intersting people passing through will be orders of magnitude higher so you can piggy-back off of that, more and better speaker opportunities. But your point is well taken, meetups are not a big problem, and the lack of them is relatively easy to overcome. A proper YC clone probably requires (a)Angels, plural, successful ones, with personal experience of startups (b)20-50K per round, so assuming 2 rounds a year, and three years to get some form so others will back you thereafter, ~120K min. I think that's it, and if you're lucky you could get away with less. Here, government might be useful. 60K isn't chickenfeed but it is doable in grant aid. If you could find someone willing to pony up 60K, you could get matching funds from a local authority somewhere in the UK, or from one of the enterprise incubators.
        • davidw 18y ago
          A speaker going to talk at a university is a lot different from a speaker talking to a small, focused group of people in a no-holds-barred sort of environment (those talks are not recorded and are not public, afaik). The YC dinners are weekly, too, not monthly, and not just some random thing that anyone can show up to.
          • barry-cotter 18y ago
  • pg 18y ago
    I hope the most valuable thing isn't the connections. I hope it's that we give good advice.
    • ivankirigin 18y ago
      Those aren't unrelated. The alumni and network are an invaluable source of good advice.
    • rms 18y ago
      Sure, that's probably true, but if I'm explaining the value of YC to one of those people complaining about how your valuations are a ripoff, Demo Day sounds pretty impressive. Where else do you get to present to every angel investor in Silicon Valley?
      • dbul 18y ago
        If they've already drawn the conclusion without asking questions, then perhaps it isn't worth the attempt at explaining it to them. At least not today. Maybe tomorrow.
• barry-cotter 18y ago
  Good god yes. Never mind the UK, Europe needs a proper YC clone, and if one gets significant traction anywhere in the EU/EFTA it'll have the same kind of advantage in that space as YC does in the US, i.e. first pick. A good YC clone would be fantastic but (as the sainted pg says, pbuh) angels are the limiting factor. YC Edinburgh would be fantastic and given time might be sufficient to build a proper startup hub, but if some entity ponies up the cash for the "buy a Silicon Valley" plan, you're crushed. Even aside from that a substantial portion of any Scottish clone's rounds would end up in London. Dragon's Den Pro- They decide very quickly. Con- The expertise is not there, so they will say yes seldom. Seedcamp They're later stage than YC. Good and all but you need a let a thousand flowers bloom thing. Prince's Trust/Government grants Pro- Lots of money Con- The anti-angel. Not an entrepreneurial bone in their bodies, must fill out forms and justify why the money went to this company rather than that one. Can you imagine an agent with more perfectly misaligned incentives? They have no upside if their investment decision goes right, and probably no downside either. People in those kind of jobs very rarely get fired. Coda: Yeurope appears to be moribund, so the spot is open again. Their website hasn't been updated in ages and has advanced linkrot.
• pclark 18y ago
  YC is international.
  • jlees 18y ago
    Sure, it's open to international applications, but it's still physically in the USA. The UK Government &c want companies to start up here, not seek exotic shores for support as we currently have to do if we want to get all the benefits of YC.
    • pclark 18y ago
      the brief discussions I've had with our RDA in Cambridge I got the feeling they didn't want our kind here.
• Major_Grooves 18y ago
  Undoubtedly the UK needs some YC-like schemes. The YC FAQ does say “There already is a Y Combinator in your town: Y Combinator. The seed funding business is national, not regional.” and we know that in fact it is international as UK teams have taken part. In fact as far as I know, all the YC-like schemes will consider international applicants. However, as jlees says, that does not benefit the UK. I believe that a lot of it is to do with national culture differences - the US just has a much stronger ethos of innovation and investment. People are just more likely to be entrepreneurial in the US. Entrepreneurs built America and it’s been part of their culture since colonists first settled there. Meanwhile, in the UK, most individuals with large amounts of money (enough for angel investing) are either “old money” or have gained their money through conventional high-paying jobs (lawyers, investment bankers) where entrepreneurship is not part of the job per se. Those that do try angel investing, just don’t quite “get it”. Technology is completely alien to some farmer with 100,000 acres who happens to have a spare £100,000, meanwhile biotech investments (my current sector) will scare the bejesus out of most sane angels. I would love to start a UK YC equivalent, but I would not want to do it without having experienced considerable success through starting and exiting some companies, or through gaining significant experience through VC work (which is closer to my current job). If anything, these experiences are needed just to build the network which we know is more important than the money in these programmes. As has been mentioned, there are some schemes around in the UK, but there is nothing that /really/ fills YC’s concept-PoC niche. There will be eventually though - once I have got a spare £100 M from successfully selling a few companies I will gladly start one!