Saul Klein: Photo by Joi on Flickr. Some rights reserved
Often copied, Seedcamp remains the original and best UK bootcamp for startups, now stretching across 10 events a year in 10 locations including Paris, Berlin, Tel Aviv, London, New York, Johannesburg, New York and Mumbai. Startups apply, and the best are hand-picked for an intensive bootcamp that involves pitching, revising their business, and picking the brains of some high-calibre mentors from the investment and entrepreneurial sectors.
Today's event at UCL was a one-day Mini Seedcamp with 20 startups from across Europe. "The number one thing they want is business advice – they are hungry for it, and get it in very concentrated form," said Seedcamp co-founder Saul Klein. "The second is to build their network, and they also want the validation of saying 'Seedcamp invested in me' or 'so-and-so wrote about me'. Ironically the next thing they want is money. It's not the first thing, because they know that if they get the first three right, that will come."
It has taken four years for Seedcamp to build a network of 2,000 mentors and a programme that is recognised by and in demand from startups. So is the government's Tech City strategy really a good use of money if it will either replicate or compete with existing, successful schemes like Seedcamp? "They recognise that startups are important for job creation, productivity improvement and growth. But if I were the government I would be investing in education – that's the biggest challenge." To grow a company from zero to 50 people is challenging but possible, Klein said. But it's growing companies beyond that, to hundreds of staff, that is virtually impossible in Europe.
"The talent pool just isn't deep enough," said Klein. "Kids should be going to university and coming out like Matt Jones, as interface designers, or incredible online marketers like Andrew Hunter, or brilliant product managers like Mike Bartlett at Skype. You need armies of those people to create great businesses." Our education system, then, just isn't vocationally focused enough despite the quality of our computer science graduates, and is perhaps too detached from the real experience and demands of running a business.
Klein points to psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs to inform the direction of web businesses in the next 10 to 15 years, moving from fundamental, physical needs, through friendship and esteem to self-actualisation – though web services are actually moving from superficial, entertainment-focused services to more fundamental tools, like health, banking and travel.
Who stands out from this bunch? It's the companies going after the very big markets, like TransferWorld, the currency exchange. "Every business feels the pain of the middle man, so if you can deliver a business on that space that solves a problem, there's potentially a very good business there."
As for the investors or mentors, a common question is what they get from contributing valuable time and energy to Seedcamp? Klein likes to quote Paul Weller: What you give is what you get. It doesn't take much to recognise the strategic advantage in having access to the trends and talent coming out of cities across Europe.
• Read: Seedcamp: Twenty top ideas from Europe's talented dev pool
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/aug/11/seedcamp-saul-klein
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