Someone over in the UK needs to start setting up social events at a bar/lounge and just start networking…

Justin Gough
http://www.championassistants.com

But who cares. In absolute numbers the start-up pool is growing, there are more meetups popping up in every single country. It’s getting more crowded and competetive which is good news if you’re a VC, a consultant, an angel, media person or event organizer. If you’re a founder it means you’ll be getting more access to better educated and experienced workforce. And more expensive too

In Western Europe there is Seedcamp of course but let’s not forget about Central and Eastern European events mentioned by Berislav. Namely TMT.Ventures events and 7 minutes contests:
http://www.smart-up.eu/2008/09/10/tmtventures%e2%80%9908-zagreb/
Next one is happening in Zagreb on October 28th

There is life in the east and promising start-ups too!

We were surprised for a couple of reasons: a) we were a bit like ‘fish out of water’ with our technology in a sea of Web 2.0 apps so didn’t really expect to become a finalist (but you have to be in the game to have a chance to win it). and b) I certainly think that the UK has some of the most talented software engineers in the world.

As a result of presenting at TC50 we had a meeting with a US VC and have 2 meetings lined up with VC’s in the UK. Had we NOT presented this would not have been the case. The show also forced us to hit the deadline with our beta release – you probably don’t realise it but the company has been around since Jan 2004, has invested over 40 man years in Blueprint, and seemed to be in the position of continually ‘going to beta soon…’ Well we now have which of course now brings a whole raft of new challenges.

We enjoyed the experience of a few days hanging around the Silicon Valley crowd (or at least on the very fringes of it) and would like to thank every involved at TC for their support.

Lets hope the Brits get a better showing next year

More seriously, I see Plastic Logic (a Cambridge company) demonstrated its e-Reader at DEMO.

http://tinyurl.com/56m5h7

In Scred’s case Seedcamp actually felt more relevant so gained the majority of our own attention. Whether that was wise or not, time will tell. Not to imply TC50 is a bad event and I do think European companies should definitely have applied.

Jof Arnold – With respect I don’t the the US is a place you just come to “sell”. It’s more of a place you come to “scale” in terms of reaching a big market. No investor here is going to want to just buy you up at the drop of a hat unless you have some kind of unique intellectual property. Much more likely they would ask the startup to move to the States or establish a significant presence here first.

Kyle MacRae – Fair comment!

Liam Lowe – Rectifying that today – slight problem with the time difference right now.

And because for a new launch it’s better to wait ’til the noise has died down. Give the two Mikes something to write about a month from now rather than competing with the current clamour.

Being there to network would justify going for most companies but not, imo, the effort of pitching.

1) Small startups
More likely to be self-funded in Europe and therefore either a) too poor b) too busy trying to make money

2) Large startups
More potential customers in Europe. More fragmented. More opportunities to make money. Less competition – less noise. Why bother going to the US at all? (Except when you are looking for an exit, possibly)

When there’s an equivalent in Europe, maybe then I’ll enter my startup.

I think for many European startups it is not worth the hassel. It costs a lot to go to one of these conferences for Europe and for many European startups the audience is not seen to be the one they want – either as users or investors in the company.

I’m not sure the audience reason is necessarily a correct assessment. My impression is that investors are getting less tied to geographical region. Audience really depends on what the product is.

In the end for most European startups the cost-benefit analysis doesn’t add up. There should probably be a TechCrunch50 run Europe rather than specifically TechCrunch50 Europe.

Of course there is Seedcamp, but by the end of this year we also have Social Networking Conference and Mobile Web Europe in London, EASY in Prague, FOWA Expo in London, Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin, Semantic Web Conference in Karlsruhe, TMT.Ventures’08 in Zagreb, biZbuZZ in Serbia, European Venture Summit in Düsseldorf and LeWeb in Paris. And for the next year there is already a great line-up consisting of Plugg in Brussels, The Next Web in Amsterdam, next09 in Hamburg and Web.Start in Zagreb.

We have invested many hours in application forms over recent months. We have had a ‘no’ from NESTA, seedcamp and TechCrunch50 and we have had no feedback.

It would be really useful for us to know if we failed on some specific criteria/they didn’t like the application/they didn’t like the business model. We could then make amendments as necessary.

I would be happy if the reason was simply – Europe?

For an early stage startup it can be cost prohibitive to travel all the way to the west coast without knowing what the benefits may be. I think EU tech scene in general is a bit more fragmented and less social than in the US which means going to these types of events isn’t as much as a given.

We’re looking to take part in more EU events later this year and that may lead us to start reaching out more and going further distances. I think an Techcrunch UK 50 would be a great idea and would attend.