What is missing from the tech scene in the UK?
We have almost everything we need for a tech start up revolution in this country…we’re only missing one thing: momentum.
When you Google UK based CRM systems, you find us and a few other providers. You also find a lot of people selling or re-selling US based CRM systems.
Go ahead and look, I’ll wait here.
If you then go and look for UK VOIP providers, instant messaging tools, whatever other software your business needs, you will find what I did. There are very few that were developed in the UK (compared with that big country across the pond).
There are a lot that now offer hosting and support over here, but so many were developed in the USA.
I don’t believe for one moment it is because they have more technical ability or even infrastructure support there when compared to here.
The main reason is that strange thing called Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley, as we know it today, exists because there was money, via investors, and knowledge, via a convergence of techy universities, and a place people wanted to (and could) run away to and build a life.
Today Silicon Valley still has lots of money and knowledge. People also want to live there, but it is much harder to start out there as a fresh out of uni student…it’s just too expensive.
So where are these technologically minded people going to go?
Well, let’s be honest, they’re still going to go to Silicon Valley, even though it isn’t as easy as it was back in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
Part of that is because of the lifestyle that is advertised there, but mostly because of the momentum. There is this idea that, if you want to start up a tech company, you need to get yourself to California.
And it just isn’t true.
What we need to build a new Silicon Valley is knowledge, money, and the idea that the place is a great place to live.
All over the UK, there are great universities with strong technical departments whose young people are running off to other parts of the world to build their companies. We’ve got investors, they just need to turn their focus towards supporting and encouraging technology start-ups in the UK. And we’ve got great places to live…I’ll even admit that there are some benefits to living in London…not as great as rural Yorkshire, but still, maybe the odd perk.
Now we just need to start up the momentum…so to anyone out there looking to build a new tech company, I am offering a personal invitation to come up to Yorkshire and get stuck in.