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I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

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Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#31

Post by eganist »

jgrahamc wrote: post #6

Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively. The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from…

In fairness, Cloudflare's public perception as a disruptor already did Cloudflare's marketing for it in 2017 onward when y'all opened your London office; Eigen doesn't seem to have that advantage.

I can imagine the sales landscape being a bit better with those tailwinds.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#32

Post by eganist »

jgrahamc wrote: post #28
KaiserPro wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London does sales well, if you want a sales office you open it in london. What it doesn't do well is spaff money indiscriminately at any old idiot with an idea. Even less so to someone with a crap idea. Despite the article author's claim, most of the startups in the generation that I joined (2018+) have focused on getting a decent business model, rather than hyper growth above all else. They also had to do much more…

I mean, good luck to him moving his HQ to NYC etc. but if I were an employee in London HM The Queen's tea cup in Windsor would be shaking from the sonic boom after I lit the reheats on my CV.

> I mean, good luck to him moving his HQ to NYC etc. but if I were an employee in London HM The Queen's tea cup in Windsor would be shaking from the sonic boom after I lit the reheats on my CV.

I wish I lived in London just to use this expressive nugget of gold.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#33

Post by iso1210 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #22
jgrahamc wrote: post #6

Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively. The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from…

London does sales well, if you want a sales office you open it in london. What it doesn't do well is spaff money indiscriminately at any old idiot with an idea. Even less so to someone with a crap idea. Despite the article author's claim, most of the startups in the generation that I joined (2018+) have focused on getting a decent business model, rather than hyper growth above all else. They also had to do much more…

> What it doesn't do well is spaff money indiscriminately at any old idiot with an idea.

That's what government's for

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#34

Post by jgrahamc »

eganist wrote: post #31
jgrahamc wrote: post #6

Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively. The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from…

In fairness, Cloudflare's public perception as a disruptor already did Cloudflare's marketing for it in 2017 onward when y'all opened your London office; Eigen doesn't seem to have that advantage. I can imagine the sales landscape being a bit better with those tailwinds.

The 2017 date you mention is not correct.

I was Cloudflare's first employee in London in 2011. Cloudflare went all in on London shortly thereafter and at one point 50% of Cloudflare engineering was in London and 50% in San Francisco. We had sales very early on in London covering EMEA. At the current time the London office is "full stack": engineering, operations, support, sales, legal, HR, finance, ...

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#35

Post by secondcoming »

jgrahamc wrote: post #6

Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively. The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from…

> prioritised technological purity over commercial success; it was almost fatal for us.

A leadership failure, exactly. I thought I understood how business worked until I joined a startup. It was eye-opening hearing how Sales people did their jobs and the pressures they were under. Personally, I'd fail at being a Salesperson, it's a special talent. If a business allows its tech team to dictate a "better late than never" attitude then it's quite likely doomed.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#36

Post by Ragnarokk »

mg wrote: post #7

Are there any European websites in the Alexa top 50? https://www.alexa.com/topsites For all I know, Europe mostly missed the internet. Will the same happen with AI, data centers, solar, crypto and biotech?

It is kind of biased if you take global raw data as the US and China have a bigger share of global internet users. Baidu is 6th but I doubt that it is highly frequented by American or Europeans. However, the problem shows when you search by country. Top visited sites in Europe are still American.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#37

Post by eganist »

jgrahamc wrote: post #34
eganist wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, Cloudflare's public perception as a disruptor already did Cloudflare's marketing for it in 2017 onward when y'all opened your London office; Eigen doesn't seem to have that advantage. I can imagine the sales landscape being a bit better with those tailwinds.

The 2017 date you mention is not correct. I was Cloudflare's first employee in London in 2011. Cloudflare went all in on London shortly thereafter and at one point 50% of Cloudflare engineering was in London and 50% in San Francisco. We had sales very early on in London covering EMEA. At the current time the London office is "full stack": engineering, operations, support, sales, legal, HR, finance, ...

Thanks; I googled it and the press was heaviest in April 2017 for a new London office, so this is a helpful correction for me. Though deeper inspection found 2013 (https://www.facebook.com/Cloudflare/posts/10151742549255432), so I probably should've just googled harder.

It also changes the equation substantially since the rest of my assumptions were based on 2017, though I wonder how much the environment also changed between 2011 and 2021, brexit aside?

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#38

Post by dbolgheroni »

matthewmorgan wrote: post #29

It's pretty common in Europe for people to get a socially-funded education then go off to the USA. It's called brain drain and has been happening for a while, not sure why this guy needs to write an article pretending that's not what's happening here.

I also see a lot of brain drain in Brazil. Most are from public colleges, and they go mostly to Europe.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#39

Post by Terry_Roll »

jgrahamc wrote: post #6

Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively. The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from…

I was going to cite the same section, but what the author fails to notice or mention is a massive amount of inflation circles the planet right now that has not been seen since the 70's, which is perhaps before his time, but he may have noticed being based in London the BBC's Faisal Islam has already dropped it into a report that the Bank of England is seeing 5% interest rates in 2022 with inflation remaining on its current trajectory! When money becomes tight due to things like inflation, selling becomes harder because people want quality because it adds value and this "London-based employees who prioritised technological purity over commercial success" is to put it another way, quality, which will hurt the competition. When money is cheap due to low interest rates, people throw it around like confetti, when money becomes expensive, we will see who is not wearing a swimming costume when the tide goes out. Helicopter Ben is at it again. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59358070

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#40

Post by goldcd »

KaiserPro wrote: post #27
goldcd wrote: post #18

I work for a company head-quartered in one continent, listed on another and I work in a third (the UK) - and sales are based all over. Not for one moment saying there aren't local issues/idiosyncrasies - but I'm unsure how moving your company solves them, and article seems to overlook all manner of problems: Aren't you going to lose staff when you move? Is everybody going to have to get up really early to talk to Eur…

Well precisely Moving to NYC/silicon valley is going to mean fishing in a very over fished pool. There is a reason why "meta", Google and amazon are expanding engineering over here and the wider EU: lots of (comparably) cheap talented labour. Even if you don't loose staff, operating an engineering team over large distances is a challenge unless you know what your doing. Given that he's blaming the engineers for conce…

Yes, there was a subtext of:

1) I'd like my company to be doing better ("what an innovative thought")

and

2) It isn't, because the engineers are trying to make the product better and sales can't shift it (but these two things definitely aren't connected and due to me not being in NYC which will magically solve these issues)

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