81–88 of 88 posts
He obviously has a vested interest in lauding his backers. If the European ecosystem is actually so great then why did it take the author three years to raise $1.3m?
The first comment is correct - this is the UK scene more than the european scene. My real problem with the UK scene is the relative lack of talent available to startups. Where do talented graduates from the UK want to work? Banks, consultancies and accountancies. How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please. With the cost of living being so high in London, why wouldn't they? Unless you can raise enou…
I do get a fair amount of job offers from startups in London, but they are very inflexible about remote working (I'm in Scotland). Want me to move to London ? Sure, double whatever salary you're offering and I might consider it. Otherwise it would be a big drop in my standard of living - nice big apartment up here for cardboard box down there. There is a lot of good talent in the UK, the problem is we have a massivel…
I think what would help you getting remote working jobs are
1. knowing people down there, that know you're good/professional/trustable/likable/[insert social-binding characeristic] enough
2. raising the number of people from pragraph 1 by networking or getting down there for like 3 months and do some work.
In my experience its all about knowing people who have worked with you and know that you can deliver. they will hire/recommend you or let you know if they hear anything about new jobs, fitting for you.
If you are working in the same industry, those people will still be in the same industry in years. And if not, you propably won't get any jobs either by then. Plus, people swith employees over the time, so your 'eyes and ears in the field' increase.
He obviously has a vested interest in lauding his backers. If the European ecosystem is actually so great then why did it take the author three years to raise $1.3m?
I believe GroupSpaces raised an angel round in 2008 and only started looking for the VC round in 2010.
Occam's Razor therefore suggests to me that it actually took forever to raise a round (despite nominally ideal conditions, such as a well-connected founder with a CS degree from Oxford, trip to SV, liked by startup media, simple to understand product, etc).
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I do get a fair amount of job offers from startups in London, but they are very inflexible about remote working (I'm in Scotland). Want me to move to London ? Sure, double whatever salary you're offering and I might consider it. Otherwise it would be a big drop in my standard of living - nice big apartment up here for cardboard box down there. There is a lot of good talent in the UK, the problem is we have a massivel…
There's plenty of affordable housing a stones throw away from London on the train if you're prepared to commute. I did it for a couple of years (1 hour each way).
Where did you live? Even with the costs of commuting was it cheaper than living in London?
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There's plenty of affordable housing a stones throw away from London on the train if you're prepared to commute. I did it for a couple of years (1 hour each way).
1 hour = a stone's throw? Anyway, I highly doubt there are any places cheap enough to make commuting cheaper than living in London (not in West Sussex or Surrey anyway.) Where did you live? Even with the costs of commuting was it cheaper than living in London?
Go to Portugal. Great weather with amazing beaches and country side, low cost of living and lot's of engineers that can speak fluent English. Also the government has subsidies for tech companies, specially in the IT sector. Spain is ok as well, but I find that people there have a hard time with English and like to party a bit too much. And the comments about London are true. It is very expensive to live here and the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe GroupSpaces raised an angel round in 2008 and only started looking for the VC round in 2010.
seedcamp invests about $80k, which is nowhere near enough to fund a London-based startup with 3+ people for more than two years. although the official story may very well be that they "only started looking" in 2010 this does not match up with this simple fact very well. Occam's Razor therefore suggests to me that it actually took forever to raise a round (despite nominally ideal conditions, such as a well-connected f…
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Out of curiosity, what do you consider the other startup hubs in Europe? Guessing from your comment that this is the UK scene, there should be others.
Berlin has a very active, vibrant startup scene.