7 ms·

Why London? Wouldn't it make more sense to have it organized in a mainland city such as Berlin or Paris where many more Europeans can easily get to?

majc2 12y ago
London has 5 airports; there is also the Eurostar. If people really want to go, I'm sure they can find a way. Surely if thats too high a barrier it says something about how serious they are about founding a startup?
- smartera 12y ago
  Yes, but UK is not schengen, so for any non-EU living in the schengen area this presents a barrier.
- thu 12y ago
  I'm not complaining about the location but your statement about "how serious" I am is over the top. I am willing to create a startup on which I'm working in my free time (I need a day job to pay the bills) and personal elements made my life a bit more complicated than necessary financially-wise and I couldn't afford a trip abroad right now.
- huhtenberg 12y ago
  By the same logic they should be hosted it in Reykjavik.
  - funkyy 12y ago
    Check the map. Reykjavik is much, much further from Europe and flights there cost fortune usually. Flights to UK are really cheap and frequent. Better comparison would be "By the same logic they should be hosted in Dublin".
- amac 12y ago
  > London has 5 airports; there is also the Eurostar. This. Personally, I think the parts of the world that will perform best in the future century and beyond are those that are the most connected. It's notable that London plus NYC, Dubai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Sydney etc are economically speaking doing extremely well - it's no co-incidence they are also very well connected.
ig1 12y ago
I imagine the factors that came into play: 1) It's an major English speaking city with a culture many of the YC partners are comfortable with. Running an event in a country with a foreign language and culture is hard. 2) It's well connected with flights from pretty much every major city in Europe and has direct flights from SF & NY. Not only for attendees but also for convincing speakers to attend. 3) It's by far the biggest startup/tech hub in Europe (excluding Israel) and YC is very pro-hub (one of the reasons YC moved from Boston to SF). Obviously there's downsides to London, mainly being that it's an expensive city but given that it's a one-day event that gets mitigated to some extent.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  > It's an major English speaking city with a culture many of the YC partners are comfortable with. Running an event in a country with a foreign language and culture is hard. There is no major European city where you could not get by with just English. > It's well connected with flights from pretty much every major city in Europe and has direct flights from SF & NY. Not only for attendees but also for convincing speakers to attend. But there are better cities for that purpose: Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris. > 3) It's by far the biggest startup/tech hub in Europe (excluding Israel) and YC is very pro-hub (one of the reasons YC moved from Boston to SF). That is actually an excellent reason to do it somewhere else. Really, missed opportunity.
  - ig1 12y ago
    There's a significant difference with being a visitor to a foreign country (where you can just wing it) and running a several hundred person event. Something getting lost in miscommunication can easily become a big deal. (in practice you'd hire a local events company to manage it, but still it's messier) I'm not sure I follow your reasoning for doing it in a non-startup hub though ? - certainly you could make an argument for doing it in one of the other hubs like Berlin but doing it somewhere like Frankfurt doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
Udo 12y ago
I live in Germany, near Frankfurt, and I'm comfortable with tech events being in London. The preferred way to get to major European cities is by airplane anyway, so it really doesn't make any difference travel-wise if something happens in Paris, Berlin, or London. I do think London is the best choice though since it's guaranteed to be an English-speaking setting and as far as I can tell it's the most influential startup hub in Europe.
wallzz 12y ago
As a non EU who lives in France, I find it very difficult to go to England due to Visa issues and the high cost of living there when you do the conversion of euro to pounds. so its not a very good choice I think.
tim333 12y ago
For what it's worth Joel Splosky looked at the numbers when he toured FogBugz and London was No1 ahead of SF and NY even. There's also 5991 members on the HNLondon meetup group. There seem a lot of tech interested types here. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/11/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/11/16.html FogBugz Biggest turnouts FogBugz World Tour London Toronto Seattle Austin Boston Arlington, VA Amsterdam Vancouver Dublin Denver (Boulder) Cambridge, England San Francisco Mountain View, CA Dallas New York Atlanta Copenhagen San Diego Waterloo Emeryville, CA
tbarbugli 12y ago
Bruxelles - London by train is 3 hours :)

majc2 12y ago

London has 5 airports; there is also the Eurostar. If people really want to go, I'm sure they can find a way. Surely if thats too high a barrier it says something about how serious they are about founding a startup?

smartera 12y ago
Yes, but UK is not schengen, so for any non-EU living in the schengen area this presents a barrier.
thu 12y ago
I'm not complaining about the location but your statement about "how serious" I am is over the top. I am willing to create a startup on which I'm working in my free time (I need a day job to pay the bills) and personal elements made my life a bit more complicated than necessary financially-wise and I couldn't afford a trip abroad right now.
huhtenberg 12y ago
By the same logic they should be hosted it in Reykjavik.
- funkyy 12y ago
  Check the map. Reykjavik is much, much further from Europe and flights there cost fortune usually. Flights to UK are really cheap and frequent. Better comparison would be "By the same logic they should be hosted in Dublin".
amac 12y ago
> London has 5 airports; there is also the Eurostar. This. Personally, I think the parts of the world that will perform best in the future century and beyond are those that are the most connected. It's notable that London plus NYC, Dubai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Sydney etc are economically speaking doing extremely well - it's no co-incidence they are also very well connected.

ig1 12y ago

I imagine the factors that came into play: 1) It's an major English speaking city with a culture many of the YC partners are comfortable with. Running an event in a country with a foreign language and culture is hard. 2) It's well connected with flights from pretty much every major city in Europe and has direct flights from SF & NY. Not only for attendees but also for convincing speakers to attend. 3) It's by far the biggest startup/tech hub in Europe (excluding Israel) and YC is very pro-hub (one of the reasons YC moved from Boston to SF). Obviously there's downsides to London, mainly being that it's an expensive city but given that it's a one-day event that gets mitigated to some extent.

jacquesm 12y ago
> It's an major English speaking city with a culture many of the YC partners are comfortable with. Running an event in a country with a foreign language and culture is hard. There is no major European city where you could not get by with just English. > It's well connected with flights from pretty much every major city in Europe and has direct flights from SF & NY. Not only for attendees but also for convincing speakers to attend. But there are better cities for that purpose: Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris. > 3) It's by far the biggest startup/tech hub in Europe (excluding Israel) and YC is very pro-hub (one of the reasons YC moved from Boston to SF). That is actually an excellent reason to do it somewhere else. Really, missed opportunity.
- ig1 12y ago
  There's a significant difference with being a visitor to a foreign country (where you can just wing it) and running a several hundred person event. Something getting lost in miscommunication can easily become a big deal. (in practice you'd hire a local events company to manage it, but still it's messier) I'm not sure I follow your reasoning for doing it in a non-startup hub though ? - certainly you could make an argument for doing it in one of the other hubs like Berlin but doing it somewhere like Frankfurt doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
  - jacquesm 12y ago

Udo 12y ago

I live in Germany, near Frankfurt, and I'm comfortable with tech events being in London. The preferred way to get to major European cities is by airplane anyway, so it really doesn't make any difference travel-wise if something happens in Paris, Berlin, or London. I do think London is the best choice though since it's guaranteed to be an English-speaking setting and as far as I can tell it's the most influential startup hub in Europe.

wallzz 12y ago

As a non EU who lives in France, I find it very difficult to go to England due to Visa issues and the high cost of living there when you do the conversion of euro to pounds. so its not a very good choice I think.

tim333 12y ago

For what it's worth Joel Splosky looked at the numbers when he toured FogBugz and London was No1 ahead of SF and NY even. There's also 5991 members on the HNLondon meetup group. There seem a lot of tech interested types here. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/11/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/11/16.html FogBugz Biggest turnouts FogBugz World Tour London Toronto Seattle Austin Boston Arlington, VA Amsterdam Vancouver Dublin Denver (Boulder) Cambridge, England San Francisco Mountain View, CA Dallas New York Atlanta Copenhagen San Diego Waterloo Emeryville, CA

tbarbugli 12y ago

Bruxelles - London by train is 3 hours :)