Sylleptic

This article in Director (the monthly magazine of the Institute of Directors) contrasts the start-up options of the US with those of the UK. The US situation sounds extremely favourable:

• Rents are low
• Investors are very open to investing in start-ups
• Bright people want to work in start-ups, rather than big established businesses
• The market is huge compared to the UK, meaning you need a much smaller share of the customer base to be a success, and you don’t have to do lots of translating if you don’t want to

There are several people in the article who started out in the UK and moved to California to really get their businesses off the ground. From personal experience, I’ve seen a wide range of ways that funding can be obtained for start-ups in the UK, but it is really hard work, and it sounds a lot easier in the US.

It was nice to read about some UK success stories, though, including Zoomf.com:

But a growing cluster of successes is beginning to provide UK graduates with an alternative. Zopa, Garlic, Monitise, OnOneMap, Nestoria, Zoomf and Zubka are all original, scalable UK tech firms. Says Klein: “Not only is there access to an amazing ecosystem of talent, but you now have sophisticated venture capital. People are being myopic when they think of Silicon Valley as the only place to build Web businesses.”