I’ve long known about Dublin’s Digital Hub but seeing is believing, and when I was over there recently for our TechCrunch Meetup I visited the place and was mightily impressed. Here’s what it’s all about:
The Digital Hub is a community of people – artists, researchers, educators, technologists, entrepreneurs and consumers, all working together to create innovative and successful digital media products and services which support their future. The Digital Hub is an Irish Government initiative to create an international centre of excellence for knowledge, innovation and creativity focused on digital content and technology enterprises. The core development of nine acres is located a ten minute walk from the city centre within the historic Liberties area of Ireland’s capital city, Dublin. Over the next decade, this initiative will create a mixed-use development, consisting of enterprise, residential, retail, learning and civic space. The project is managed by an Irish government agency, the Digital Hub Development Agency, which was established in July 2003.
Fantastic. Totally and utterly fantastic.
So I am hereby serving notice that TechCrunch UK is going to start campaigning for a Digital Hub for the UK.
The working title for this concept is “The TechHub”.
Unfortunately this is going to sound boringly London-centric. But I think it ought to be in London. Why? Simple really. Money, access and the networks inside London. Startups can make use of the amazing access to the wealth of mentoring, venture capital and talent here. I know there is an argument for creating other centres around the UK. But the classic clustering effect created by Silicon Valley would be replicated by concentrating efforts on one geographical area.
The location would preferably by an airport (London City Airport? Near the Heathrow Express?) or other major transportation network where key industry players will be passing through.
A London TechHub (LondonTechHub.com now registered) could also be a great place for startups from other parts of the UK to lay their hat. Ideally it would even have a sort of “pod hotel” next door.
It would need to have super-fast broadband, a cafe/bar, hot-desk facilities and great transport links.
I’m thinking that one of the buildings in the plans for the London Olympics would be good for this TechHub, or perhaps it could be near Canary Wharf or in the East End of London? Perhaps there is already an existing project that can be expanded? Kings Cross might be the ideal area – loads of new development, access to the Heathrow Express and Eurostar.
[Update: Having said all that, I also know London has disadvantages, expense being the main one. It could be in Cambridge (45 mins away) or - maybe Brighton. But the important thing is that it's a genuine geographical cluster with fast transport links to London].
There is also a European element to this. Why could we not have a European network of TechHubs, all with similar purposes, creating a network of startups? The idea could dove-tail well with the Open Coffee Club network.
This is going to require people from government to get involved [Maybe - unless I can find a willing millionaire]. I may even have to kidnap Boris Johnson and hold him to ransom.
What do you think? Please leave your feedback.
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UPDATE: Ian Forrester of BBC Backstage is not impressed with the idea and says:
Yawn! I’ve heard it all before, and to be frank its getting a little tired. What is it with people and big shiny shiny central locations? What would this all achieve? Remember the dome people dummys! What about all the other simular activities going on all across the country?
And he says I should “get some action by fingering through that massive contact list you must have and pulling some strings to get something done”. Er yeah, that’s the point Ian.
So to answer his points:
• Regional efforts are great but are not a true cluster and don’t have access to the amazing international tech scene of people, mentors, VCs etc that is constantly moving in and out of London. They don’t have an international footprint. That is the harsh reality.
• What’s to stop these other regional hubs creating a network with a London TechHub anyway?
• Yes, The Millenium Dome wasn’t great but it would have worked had it been filled with startups IMHO (no, I’m not joking)
• I am not out to copy Silicon Valley as such, but I am interested in the clustering effect SV has. That’s the real point.
• What is TechCrunch UK going to do to make this all happen? We’ll do what we’re good at – creating a debate and keeping on with lobbying. And yes, I will open my contact book to help it happen.
• Viz. the TechCrunch Euro Tour: As it happens I’m prepping several articles which will link up each city I went to. I think Europe is poised to create a true startups network. But Rome wasn’t built in a day.
• Geek Dinners and other ad-hoc events are great but meeting up in pubs is always one event away from fewer and fewer people turning up. All events have a life-cycle and when key people leave they wither. A physical, geographical cluster is not like that.
I love the idea, especially with regard to the UK, and hubs outwards into Europe.
Based on my learnings as a 90’s tech guy, I’d argue for proximity to Heathrow (with access down the M4 corridor and up the M40), but we are in a more virtual world these days, so perhaps it is more the concept than the geography.
There is something about creating a critical mass of talent, experience and resources, to deliver fuel for the fire of innovation. It is much needed.
Where do I sign up?
And wherever it is, please can it have more daylight than Adam Street? (Joke…)
Benjamin Ellis – Geography is the whole idea.
Jemima Kiss – Yes, light would be good (I’m at the Hosp these days btw)
Do you mean just a building (he says “just”!) or something which would branch out and become an entire cluster a la the bay area?
For anyone who has been unfortunate enough to run into me after too many beers at a tech event, you’ll have heard my usual rant about the UK requiring somewhere that is the OBVIOUS choice for startup people – i.e. take a city, slap a massive tax rebate on it for virtually everything, including inward tech investment to that area, and then watch it florish.
The rest of the UK would scream blue murder because its unfair – well, life is. The North of the UK gets lots of EU subsidy that the South doesnt, so thats life.
So a tech centre is good – but we should look ahead. The problem with London is also its biggest asset. Everything and everything is in London (Ryan Carson will slice me into small peices for that remark
but its true that London has the money and lots of startups.
I’d argue thats because there is no where obviously better for them to go though. Otherwise, its like saying all the tech startups should be in NYC.
I’d argue that if we are SERIOUS about first becoming the tech centre for Europe (before we’re over taken by Berlin or somewhere else) then we should do it somewhere affordable.
Cambridge is the obvious choice – its nice, has a good worldwide name, is small enough to become a tech centre and not be drowned out by other things (London is famous for tons of things more obvious than tech startups!) but is also close to London and an airport.
Other choices might be Oxford or Brighton.
I’ve just moved Rummble to London because that is where everything happens. That is where the community is; but the question is whether prices and the dwarfing size of London will mean that other places -such as Berlin, which is fantastically cheap, full of young people, dynamic, and geographically better placed, will steal a march simply because London is SO god damn expensive.
The VCs can afford to go where the startups are. Cambridge is up the road. Its like Menlo Park to San Francisco.
As ever I have ideas and vision beyond my station – but I come to the bay area (where I write this from) which is literally dripping in tech startups and enthusiasm for the internet – and now for mobile. If the UK is serious about competing EVER with the west coast, then first it must become the number one choice for people in the UK, then people in Europe and THEN, when we’ve got a true cluster of talent, VC money and startups we can take on the USA.
I fear that with so many startups already in London – and currently for very good reasons – that change of course will not now happen; long term I think that will be a problem, because London as one of the worlds capital cities (in all senses of the word), is too expensive, too big and not focused enough on tech, to become the first choice destination for European startups. If we cant rival the rest of Europe, Im struggling to see how we’ll ever take on the West Coast. And that would be a shame for the brave new world of the mobile internet, which in ten years will BE the internet.
A great idea, and it would seem an obvious thing to do. However, in reality (or should that be practice), the business support environment in the UK is disjointed with a multiplicity of offerings, and then of course there is the regional issue.
The LDA has programmes in place to support start-up and early stage companies that are located within the M25, and then the other 8 regional development agencies have their own support infrastructure and schemes. So companies coming to, or leaving, London to establish in “The Hub” could lose access to business support of some form or other.
I guess the way around all of this is to get “The Hub” up and running, populated, and then go to the bureaucrats and say we’ve done it, if you are serious in supporting start-up and early stage businesses work out how you will support them.
Smaller geographies have tried this concept, backed by the government, Malaysia and Dubai are good examples. The high tech corridor in Malaysia has not been particularly successful, in contrast the Dubai high tech park is fully populated, and is quite happy to attract overseas start ups to base there. Which raises the question of why can’t the UK do it?
Apologies for waffling on.
Ian
Ian – Thanks for this great contribution. Yes, I note the Malaysia tech corridor bombed. Maybe Dubai’s tax structure (or lack of it) helps. My BIG bug-bear with all of this is that is has to be about location. Andrew’s view that Cambridge might work is valid – then again Oxford is on the right side of London to hit Heathrow easily. Yet again there might be a disused warehouse in London’s East End waiting to be pumped with 50 GB broadband and pod-style offices. This is going to take a while I guess….!
Great thoughts/initiative Mike. We’ve been campaigning hard to show you can be completely Pan European and still drive a lot of the ecosystem out of London. The 2 are not mutually exclusive (if you find detractors, which undoubtedly you will). We say, let’s accept and celebrate that a huge amount of activity – mentors, start-up culture, fin svcs, law firms, media, entertainment, politics – is driven out of London and rather than complain it’s expensive, leverage what’s already there and work w/the powers that be to improve the rest. Hence Seedcamp is driven out of London but our teams retain much of the presence in their home geography and have a few people both in London and the Valley. Even for a start-up this is very possible. Watch this space as Seedcamp and OpenCoffee do our part with you to make London a thriving TechHub!
Reshma – Thanks for the comment. I am already getting people telling me it should be in Manchester or Bristol etc, but as worthy as those places are the harsh reality is that you have to deal with what you have. The great strength of London right now is that a third of people in London *are not from London*, so it’s not so much London, as the planet on your doorstep. I am starting to think this could actually be done pretty cheaply. Real startups really don’t care if they have $1000 Aeron chairs or not – they need space, broadband, (a toilet) and a cafe. And good transport connections.
I think the main issue with London or not London is the fact that a lot of people who want to work for a startup want to live in London. London is full of talented people working in this sector already. Why not work on bringing them together rather than asking them to all leave the greatest city in the world and move to Cambridge??
To get a ‘DigitalHub’ to work, you need to be able to attract the talent…and that talent is in London…imagine asking a skilled Parisian to move to Cambridge, or a designer living in Rome to move to near Heathrow Airport. Tell them they’re moving into central London (he doesn’t need to know that the East End isn’t central) and you’ve got a chance. London attracts the talent anyway for all sorts of reasons, use that to your advantage.
Mike – thanks for the activism
Much needed. As Reshma said, we’re really actively looking at how Seedcamp can play a role in this – given the network and access to capital it can bring to the table – and also how OpenCoffee can dovetail and make the community stronger. As much as other locations have great attributes, I think London does make a fantastic hub, both for the UK and Europe — we should learn from Silicon Valley and build where we have a concentration of all the right ingredients, not just create something new. Looking forward to helping out. Nice work. Saul
The idea sounds right to have ’somewhere that is the OBVIOUS choice for startup people ‘ … but is it optimal that the ’somewhere’ be physical, eg in London?
How about a virtual, i.e. Web-based ‘exchange’ – for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, relevant government agencies (eg inward investment, RDAs…) to meet, post questions/offers etc. Also this could be an immediate link to potential global partners and suppliers/markets…something like a portal plus social networking where the world of entrepreneurs can go and look as first place to ask.
Great initative…we’d be happy to help, participate and evangelize the idea from a pan-european startup perspective. even though I’m based out of Geneva, I love the idea of London as the focal point (and by London I mean really London, not Cambridge or Brighton).
Saul/Reshma bring up a good point about dovetailing with OpenCoffee. No need for everyone to build the wheel when we can just put four together and have a car.
Mike – there are five of us need desks now
Getting a bit sick of the ‘Google’ office….also I know being a Kiwi probably means I think about London differently to most – but this place is just great 
I think this is a great idea, networks (people) and communications are so important to our sorts of businesses and making them easy to find and access is key.
I’m based in Coventry, it’s an hour to London but I still find it difficult and time consuming to get to events such as TCUK Pitch, Minibar, DrinkTank etc. as transport can be variable. Being in London is key to our success and I am spending more and more time there (even though I was born there). Having extra facilities so you can hot desk and get work done where you are there would make a great deal of sense.
These informal networks do help with business. We are in one of the University of Warwick Science Park buildings and we have made a great number of connections, leads and new business just by being in this location.
It’ll take a lot of work but be worth it.
My view would be Cambridge as well, (living and starting a company here, sort of makes my view biased though!!). The problem with Cambridge, is that the fresh raw talent is around, the university doesnt have a name for nothing, but the communication channels arn’t flowing yet, and something like this is exactly what it needs to get things moving.
Look into Cue, the science parks/innovation centre’s cambridge is starting to evolve into a mini SV, it is just more Hardware related than SV and these things take more time/investment than the web world, and as such things dont move so quickly in general! They just need the wheels of communication greesing.
Also it is a far nicer atmosphere, relaxed and chilled to the busy street of london, this is exactly the atmosphere which inspires creativity and new ideas. After all where else in the world can you go for lunch and bump into nobel prize winners at the local cafe.
Mat
Mike – good work. London is the right place for obvious reasons in my opinion.
However perhaps it would be worth bringing regional centers into the concept from the very early stage ? That would help broaden the concept from day one and not alienate those who don’t have easy access to London.
I think a venue very close to Kings Cross would work well – great connections into London, Euston, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street and St-Pancras etc.
For European travel – EuroStar is close too.
mashup* Event is upgrading over the summer to mashup* Digital and will be offering a wider suite of services, support to startups and growing digital businesses in the UK.
Looking forward to working with the community to make this happen – I assume you are taking the lead – let me know if you need anything specific at this stage.
Cheers,
Simon Grice
was going to write a comment but wrote a blog post instead:
http://broadstuff.com/archives/1109-The-London-TechHub-and-a-roundabout-in-the-Olde-East-End.html
Good idea, key is to crunch through the economics early on. Government or other subsidy is essential in my view.
Hi Mike,
). My point, though, is that tech start ups need great people – whether they are innovators or engineers, and these people tend to go to the best universities, and tend to congregate in the regions around them.
Great idea. As you might know I worked for a tech startup, and we were based in Twickenham, South West London. Location-wise, London, and SW London in particular would get my vote. Why? The answer is the nearby universities. In particular, have Imperial College, UCL, Surrey Uni – all with great reputations for Computing subjects, and of course Imperial has global reputation in many disciplines (and historically a better rowing team then either Oxford or Cambridge
Cheers,
I think this is needed for UK tech industry – and cambridge is a great candidate – microsoft and such already have campuses there – bright minds all over, a lovely city to help creativity, the only thing it lacks is the business networking of london – but with london 45 min away if this hub started up I’d see it as a great success.
“…only thing it lacks is the business networking of london…”. Nuff said. No cluster will work without mind-bending amounts of real-world networking.
Sounds good, Mike.
Realistically it has to be London though. I’m not based in London, but for most people London is the most accessible and where most of the value would be, from meetings and networking.
I’m a bit baffled by what you’d be trying to achieve with this. What has the Dublin hub done? What has it actually achieved? How many profitable (or sellable) companies have come out of it?
In London, new media companies already do congregate in specific areas – spit in any direction from Old Street roundabout and you’ll hit a web company’s offices, for example.
If the idea is basically just “cheap, small offices for web-focused microbusinesses”, then that’s not exactly uncommon. Brighton Media Centre, for example, has been around for donkey’s years, doing exactly this (and has some very nice places to drink/eat/socialise close by).
But if the idea is basically just a government-subsidised social/networking space for geeks… well, good luck with selling it to Boris
I find it astonishing that posters have said that Cambridge lacks networking. There are a huge range of entrepreneurial networking and training forums in Cambridge. In fact, I think more than the number of actual practising startups could support – busy startup people are not in talks and pubmeets that often, they are working evenings instead.
It’s true that the focus is on biotech and chip design, but there are consumer and web companies here too. And they go to London if they really want strong creative networking…
Great idea. How about Ebbsfleet in Kent?
It’s about 30mins from Canary Wharf by car (with 2500 parking spots).
Next year the Channel Tunnel high speed link will be servicing it taking you to St. Pancras in 17mins, Stratford in half that.
BT are laying fibre to ensure the network infrastructure is ready for the six million sq. ft of commercial space.
Close to London, easy access to the continent, ample space, good network infrastructure and good value for money. Seems like a reasonable spot for a group of burgeoning UK startups.
Mike,
This kind of thing always sounds like a good idea and it is great that people such as yourself, or Saul Klein, or others are acting as catalysts — because it is those catalysts who will make good things happen whatever form they ultimately take.
I always shrug a bit when people talk about replicating the conditions of Silicon Valley. Having lived and worked there I can say it is not a cluster so much as a state-of-mind. Geographically it is spread down a long peninsula from San Francisco to San Jose and I am quite sure that the people at a start-up in the Mission District are not hanging out at the pub much with their friends at a start-up down the 101 in Mountain View.
In fact people are not hanging out at the pub much at all; they are working all day and into the night and then going for some sleep back at their apartment somewhere else in San Francisco or if they have already enjoyed a “liquidity event” their nice home in Palo Alto or Atherton.
Silicon Valley is not a centre of much except for technological innovation, entrepreneurship and money. Unlike London it is not a centre for culture, art, food, ethnic diversity, music, theatre, international banking, politics and government, history — the list goes on. San Francisco has some of this, and is a fantastic city, but compared to London on these points it is decidedly second-tier, and most Silicon Valley denizens are not heading up there regularly for any of these things anyway, because they have no time.
Silicon Valley is geographically not a cluster as much as it is a sprawl, where there happen to be lots of like-minded people across this sprawl, all striving for similar things in a somewhat self-sacrificing manner — foregoing in monk-like single-mindedness many of the kind of things that attract people to London, in favor of their one goal of building a company or a product.
If you choose to live in London it is usually to partake of all it has to offer rather than forgo it. And this is a good thing. London-based start-ups are going to thrive by drawing upon everything London has to offer. So I am not sure what is gained by clustering except maybe greater efficiency, lower collective costs, greater purchasing power, etc.?
I guess my main point is that Silicon Valley and London are both entirely unique places. If you choose one over the other you are buying into the local state-of-mind. The ideal of Silicon Valley as a centre of massive wealth creation is something to strive for, I suppose, but on what terms? Wealth gets created in London too, all the time. And I would suggest people in London generally have more balanced lives.
It is all well and good to admire Silicon Valley but why do they not admire London just as much? They could use a bit of a more rounded lifestyle there.
Evan
Ian Betteridge:
“What has the Dublin hub done? What has it actually achieved? How many profitable (or sellable) companies have come out of it?” Since it was only estanblished in 2003 and the average time for most startups to achieve success is probably 5 years then I would posit that it is poised to do so – especially form the Irish firms I met there.
Brighton Media Centre – yes, but does it appear on the International and European tech startups radar? I hazard not.
Evan Rudowski:
“SV is not a cluster so much as a state-of-mind. Geographically it is spread down a long peninsula from San Francisco to San Jose.”
Yes I take your point. My thinking with this is that – having been there myself – you realise that there is a lot of fluidity to the network based around the idea that you can jump in a car and be somewhere pretty much everyone is going to be inside an hour. In the UK there is a lot of “stuff” in the way whether it be issues getting around, the expense of physically being at and getting to and from places, and lack of serendipity. Hard to get this across!
Yes, Silicon Valley is “not a centre of much except for technological innovation” which makes London all the better, potentially, right?
“I am not sure what is gained by clustering except maybe greater efficiency, lower collective costs, greater purchasing power, etc.?” Are these not worth considering as pretty bloody big benefits?
“I would suggest people in London generally have more balanced lives.” To be honest how people live their lives is their business – the point about TechHub is to make all this process easier by making it more geographically physical. That sounds like it would help achieve the life balance you are attracted to in the UK.
P.S. There is nothing to say you couldn’t base this where a lot of startups already are, like Old Street roundabout etc….
I don’t think Old Street and whereabouts will be large enough. I am thinking outside the city centre, lots of space, greenery etc. As long as it’s not Slough or Frimley…
Mike,
“There is a lot of fluidity to the network based around the idea that you can jump in a car and be somewhere pretty much everyone is going to be inside an hour.”
You have obviously not been caught in traffic on the 101 or I-280 or El Camino — trust me, it is not that easy or quick to get around Silicon Valley! It’s completely car-centric with little mass transit. Google have had to create their own bus network (larger than the regional public network) just to get their employees to work. For all its faults (and there are many) I think it’s actually easier to get around London.
“‘I am not sure what is gained by clustering except maybe greater efficiency, lower collective costs, greater purchasing power, etc.?’ Are these not worth considering as pretty bloody big benefits?”
Yes definitely. As long as they are not gained by moving people off-site and away from where the action is. In the middle of London, like Old Street or Kings Cross as you suggest — fantastic. Out near London City Airport, or in Oxford or Cambridge — less ideal.
Evan
Best wishes,
Evan
@Laurie I would agree, however I would also say the vast majority of networking done in Cambridge is behind closed doors, and if you know who to talk to and where to go, then great. However otherwise it can look like a very quiet city, and it needs those closed doors opening, and more import publicising.
Mat
Mike: “But does it appear on the International and European tech startups radar? I hazard not.”
Well it certainly helped create the thriving new media culture down there – which is enough of a culture to attract Linden Lab and NCSoft, for two.
A place doesn’t appear on the “international tech startups radar” by magic. It appears there because it’s a place with genuinely interesting companies which are real businesses with real investment opportunities. I don’t get why you think this TechHub is going to do that – other than simply by being in London.
@myself:
“I would suggest people in London generally have more balanced lives.”
This didn’t sound very good reading it back. What I meant really is that the ingredients for a balanced life full of wide-ranging interests are far more accessible in a place like London than in Silicon Valley. This is one of the great benefits of a place like London over a place like Silicon Valley. People go to Silicon Valley to keep their heads down and build a big business. People go to London because they like the eclecticism of being in London. A TechHub ought to be sure leverage that rather than diminish it.
Hopefully that’s clearer and sounds nicer
Of course, we could just go down the incubator route again… come back GorillaPark, all is forgiven! Mike, you must have been to their launch party back in 2000…
Replied Mike…. Don’t forget I still Love you Mike.
Ian Betteridge – Fine, we’ll put it in Brighton then, just for you. Oh, we don’t need to now because it’s already there? Cool.
Ian Forrester – I still love you too. I emailed your Manchester Media City UK people. Yes, they have no startups.
So where are London’s existing, organic TechHubs?
http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/07/30/so-where-are-londons-existing-organic-techhubs/
Cambridge is lovely, but I worked in the startup scene there for a couple of years after graduating (Library House is a great facilitator) and the whole community is such a slave to London. Even working with and for Cambridge startups, I was constantly on the train.
I doubt there are many better places for biotech and hardware companies to start, but if you’re centred around software or services, creative sectors or media, etc. — London’s a far better choice. Glad to see it’s already happening to some extent there.
Personally, I moved to Edinburgh and have started my business there; the support from the university is phenomenal compared to what I received from Cambridge. For the next month, this city is an absolute hotbed of creativity, but I do feel somewhat out on a limb the other 11 months of the year. I suppose I’d better resign myself to more train journeys.
Hi Mike
Potential shortcoming of blogs and online communication (I love Techcrunch by the way) is the risk to loose touch with the ‘real world’. There are a number of places/offices of startups in the UK for many years.
At eOffice, we are serving around 1,000 clients, across London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham. Many are you readers and mostly are startups in technological fields. We are mostly open plan, lunched hot desking and wifi in 2003. We partner with organizations like seedforum, First Tuesday, Mashup, Library House, Startup 2.0, D+AD, Internet World, and many more. Feel free to come over anytime, we are in Soho.
Best wishes
Pier
Founder, eOffice (established 2002)
This is so 2000 greenhouse idea-lab shit.
Real entrepreneurs don’t need this, it’s a waste of time.
To make things happen you need to set on your a** and write software,
promote it with SEO and link, come up with innovative ideas and schemes
Reading TC has become very tedious lately. Too much talking not enough doing.
Hi Mike,
I used to run a media centre with a mix of startups in it in Yorkshire in the late 90’s. It was an eye-opening experience, so I’ve written up some reflections and comments on the Tech-Hub idea here:
http://www.test.org.uk/archives/002863.html
matt
I do wonder if that campaign stand as the ultimate proof of the “failure of the Web’s 4 Os” (aka being omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolent). If there is a consensus that, even for us geeks/entrepreneurs/ultra-early-adopters, there only exists the one-way to cluster-or-fail and be-in-the-valley-or-nowhere, then how can we evangelize the very promises of The Web?
(Well, the question and argument are actually rhetoric. Maybe. Or maybe not.)
Just in case “not_commenting_to_promote_my_ego” was talking about me. I wasn’t promoting my own blog, I just don’t like writing huge comments on other peoples blogs.
One part of me also agrees with you, greenhouse/idea/space/etc is very 2k but I think some ideas and prototypes do need help to get off the ground. Support and help isn’t just about money, it could be just meeting with like minded people. My problem is that there is already lots going on and building another one, imho won’t help much.
I do like the idea of linking them up though. For example in Manchester there is NWDC (north west digital communities forum) which is where all the event hosters and mdda come together to discuss how to move forward. I know me and sarah blow did attempt to do one for London ages ago, might be worth a pursuit?
I was talking about you lot !
While I very much agree with the idea and concepts expressed in the original post I do also suggets strongly to keep any kind of governemental influence well away from any type of start-up/tech/digital hub.
If you do some research into the Dublin Digital Hub you will find that while the innitial idea is good , a huge amount of money and potential was wasted by nepotism, and incompetence. It was seen by “the powers that be” as a show-horse but ended up being a bit of a trojan horse with more emphasis on appearance thna actual results. However it looks like the Dublin Digital Hub is only now, slowly, overcoming the problems caused by this and it might even spin of some positive results in the near future.
I have been toying with the idea of seting up a smaller version of this in the middle of Ireland in order to release some of the huge potential aroud that gets stiffled by the Dublin centric-ness of the Irish technology & entrepreneurial environment.
there are several prime office buildings lying empty and with fast broadband, hot desking, shared office facilities as well as mentoring and in-house consultancy services these could be turned into a hot-bed of technology and entrepreneurial success stories.
Creating an environment where the various start-ups all sit in on weekly or daily (informal) brainstorming sessions will also be hugely beneficial.
Anyway, lots of thought here…
@Mike – Evert is right in my opinion. Stay away from the government agencies. They will add little value, force you down a certain route and then take the credit. And the project will move at a snail’s pace.
How negative that sounds… but it’s mainly true. For the record, I’m not referring to EI as I’ve been known to slag them off in the past. If you don’t know who EI is then good, I haven’t slated their name
People are already doing this on the ground. Social Media Café aka The Tuttle Club http://tuttleclub.wordpress.com/ has a thriving membership of digital entrepreneurs and practicioners, meets every Friday in Soho.
They could use some investment – they are looking for a permanent space. But, something tells me that your UK Hub concept is very probably a top-down construction which probably won’t even notice the green shoots growing underneath its feet….
BTW the ICA used to run a “new media” club called the Hub, way back when the idea was new…
Lots of interesting debate here and some facts which seems waaay off the work.
On the government money side of things, there seems to be an inclination that the dosh is all funneled oop North or into the regions. My experience is that this isn’t true. Roughly the same amounts are distributed around the country particularly by the Regional Development Agencies, irrespective of population of region and density of industry. So, if you’re in London there’s much less to go around. The less said about LDA scandals, the better.
London is *already* a technology and start-up hub. There already are centres of innovation for startups. What I think is missing, although Westminster Uni may argue, is something like the Institue of Digital Innovation in Teeside, which supports new companies with cheap space, mentorship and access to technology.
London and its environs does have all the right ingredients but this shouldn’t preclude any regions either. If anything, London could provide a testbed for startup hub’s location to build a network of centres that are hooked together. It’d make outsourcing easier and the network could be leveraged to share the innovation and knowledge love geographically.
Count Chinwag’s support on this, too. But by start-ups we mean all digital start-ups, not just web app developers and new social networks!
We are such a displaced community in the UK, I seem to meet the same startups at web drinks/networking events, but there must be a tonne of others working from their bedrooms, not out and about, etc that I never see.
Seems to me it would be a great start to try and understand the current span of the UKs startup community, the current stage of their development and what sort of support they need. Maybe a simple startup registry? Who you are, where you are working from, number of people, what you need?
I agree with @mbutcher, I dont think the space needs to be more than a warehouse, lots of pods, somewhere to get food and a fat internet connection. Maybe that’s not thinking big enough!?
There is some great discussion going on here, would be terrible for it not to turn into action… @saul & @reshma – you guys seem perfectly placed to take this forward
On this note, we’ve outgrown our serviced offices are currently looking for bigger permanent digs – we may have some extra desks at the beginning of sept, email me (andrew.bredon at dealchecker.co.uk) if you need a home.
I think a TechHub in London would be an awesome, and much needed idea.
You should check out The Hub: http://www.the-hub.net/home.html – a hub for social entrepreneurs and social businesses – they have a great and replicable model, which could be looked at.
Location-wise, I think, for the reasons Mike outlines in the original post , London would work, the only challenge (beyond the cost of living) could be London’s size, the Valley also works because it is clustered around universities, established companies etc. beyond just startups and that uniquness is complex to replicate.
On funding, in theory agree with Paul (Walsh), in practice, I think it really depends, espeically if in the context of public-private partnership : look at is 22@ in Barcelona (gov. money was also used and it seems to work) http://www.22barcelona.com/index.php?lang=en
Dear Dean Whitbread – I haven’t noticed The Tuttle Club have I? Perhaps you’d like to ask Lloyd Davis to show you the PayPal receipt I gave him for my £50 donation 6 months ago to get the thing going and then go read this: http://mbites.com/2008/01/08/social_media_cafe_as_flash_mob (it happened, and it worked)
Frankly I think the Tuttle Club is nice, but I am talking about something bigger here. And I am VERY focused on true tech startups, not consultancies, designers, agencies and the like. They are a “nice to have” but frankly I have written about this industry for 13 years now and these business come and go. What I want to see is something like TechHub help give birth to a massive Internet company like Skype / Last.fm etc. That’s my ideal. I can dream can’t I? Or has English cynicism overtaken us all yet again?
Plus, I am also extremely disappointed in the kind of attitude that says “Yawn, seen it all before, we’ve already got this going on in [insert other UK city here]“. After 13 years I am astounded that a single post on this issue on this blog elicits the sudden realisation that London – through which regularly pass some of the most talented people on the planet – has rarely (bar the half-heartedly named “Digital Ditch” (Shoreditch) in the late ’90s) had a definable, internationally recognised cluster of tech companies, and I am sick of no-one paying attention to this fact. Listen people, I speak to startups EVERYDAY. They like the idea. And frankly, if it turns out to be “Silicon Rondabout” or whatever (a concept created BY A STARTUP, Dopplr, which broke in the media *on the same day* as my TechHub post) then fine. But this definable, recognised cluster is important for the future.
The idea is good. I bought ventureIQ.com a while ago to try and do something (and venturetogether.com a number of years back). Hard to get moving.
To start, what about a clone of StartUpSchool with one company per city in the UK (up to say 30)? Add in some experts to help things along and try getting a few companies out of it. There is something to be said for simply getting a bunch of interested, smart people in a room and trying to create something.
I’m not a huge fan of it being in London (mainly coz everything else is) but i am a fan it the idea. We need to reach higher then being web consultancies (which is why i keep hacking and not joining one!).