Katie Fehrenbacher gives us her lowdown on Tech City
I’ve been in East London a little over three weeks now. I think I’ve finally got the hang of what time to get to Google London Campus before the good seats get taken (early), and I just figured out which Vietnamese places on Kingsland Road will let you bring in your own wine (OK, most – I’m a slow learner).
I’ve come to East London for the summer, in part to write for GigaOM about the unique characteristics and characters that are making London’s emerging tech startup scene one of the most vibrant new ecosystems in the world.
I’ve been a reporter covering entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley for the last decade, and there is something infectious about the East London tech scene right now. There’s also a bit of hype going on, as it’s totally natural for the government putting up the funds, the investors backing the companies, and the entrepreneurs actually building them to start to drink their own coolaid (this one tastes like Ribena).
Here’s 5 lessons I’ve learned over my last few weeks of being a noob reporter in East London.
1. It’s still early days
There’s not much tangible proof yet – in terms of both large exits and the creation of billion dollar companies – that the East London tech scene has matured into an ecosystem that is making a lot of people a lot of money. Sure, there’s jobs created, and innovation happening, but everyone seems to be waiting for the big IPO.
In San Francisco the Facebook IPO seemed to lead to an influx of Facebook millionaires in my hood buying up real estate – a lot of young people are getting wealthy.
That type of thing hasn’t happened yet in London and I’m not sure how long it’ll take.
2. British characteristics and entrepreneurialism
OK, this is a big generalization, but there seems to be something about entrepreneurialism that is slightly at odds with some of the more common British qualities, like being reserved, not being self promotional, and being slightly conflict and risk-averse.
The average American entrepreneur in Silicon Valley I meet is so cocky, aggressive and obsessed with their startup vision that they can be rather off-putting.
But I think they need those crazy qualities to survive in such a harsh environment as Silicon Valley. The moment you stop believing you’re going to be the next Mark Zuckberg is the moment when you’re not.
In comparison, a lot of the British entrepreneurs are rather lovely – charming and humble. Hopefully “the nice guy” and that British charm can still make it through the startup grind.
3. More New York than Silicon Valley
Some of the startups that seem to be uniquely London home-grown are those in the fashion, media, design and finance sectors. Which is closer to what New York (Silicon Alley) produces than what’s coming out of the Valley.
That means looking at how New York’s startup tech scene has emerged could provide some good lessons for London.
And by the way, New York just recently hit a big proof point with one of the biggest exits it’s ever seen (that would be Tumblr and Yahoo).
4. West London. . .where?
The East London tech scene is very insular. It’s a little mini bubble of maybe a square mile. It seems like the government and the companies like this, but to me, it makes it feel small to be so compact.
One morning I ran into two people I knew walking to a co-working space. It’s like a college campus. I took the 45-minute train trip to West London the other day, to interview a startup that actually prefers a more quiet area, and realized how big and sprawling London actually is.
5. One way to cultivate a tipping point
While everyone is trying to grow the London tech scene organically and inorganically, the scene needs some more big celebrity wealthy evangelist founders.
Yes, there’s a lot of enthusiastic people, but the ecosystem needs some more really powerful big names to take more risks on the emerging scene, like staying in London when they want to IPO their company, instead of going to the U.S.
Someone like a Tony Hsieh of Las Vegas or what Elon Musk has done for the clean tech sector in the U.S.
Sometimes one or two crazy, passionate people (they usually need to be wealthy, powerful or both) can really change the game.
If you want to meet the rest of the GigaOM team, we’re throwing a Pub Summit on Monday night, July 8, at Cargo – come have a pint with us and argue with me about these lessons.
GigaOM is a media company that writes about tech entrepreneurs and innovation. We’re growing our presence in Europe, and particularly London, and we’re hosting our second annual Structure:Europe conference in London on Sept 18 and 19.