@ Future of Web Apps: What's great about London, by Huddle
Andy McLoughlin from Huddle did a cracking job at tackling the rather dumb session title: how to survive outside Silicon Valley. "We want to do more than survive - we want to prosper," he told the crowd. He reeled off the list of networking groups in London: DrinkTank, OpenCoffee, Tuttle, YC Hackers, FB Garage, Silicon Stilettoes, Geek Girl Dinners, Internet People, Second Chance Tuesday... is that a sign of a struggling industry? We don't think so.
So what are the benefits of being in London over Silicon Valley?
Audience: there are 7m people in central London and 20m within an hour of London.
The collapse of the financial system means (apologies) a lot of good people are becoming available to hire. That, and the combination of excellent tech graduates from Imperial, Oxford, Cambridge and the rest, many of whom want to work for startups.
Niche industries - Silicon Valley doesn't have the breadth of culture that London does. We have finance, legal, creative, advertising, fashion, music...
Europe: We're far better at remembering that there's the rest of the world, but Silicon Valley is more inward facing. (See the use of 'international' to describe anything outside the US...)
We're well catered for venture firms, but earlier stage funding is one downfall. We might have Seedcamp, TAG Ventures and a handful of others, but where are the British Super Angels? Where are the Reid Hoffmans? It's not about the money, said McLoughlin, it's about mentoring.
McLoughlin sent a panicky Twitter before he presented, asking what he should tell people ot prepare them for working in London "Bring an umbrella?" suggested one.
Guardian.co.uk is a silver partner of Future of Web Apps