

Ask HN: Where are all the London hackers working on startups?  - nickwsmith

At the London HN meetup last night I was amazed at how few people raised their hands when the group was asked "who is working on, or planning to work on a startup?".<p>Regardless of how one defines a startup/how the question was phrased/whether people just didn't bother to raise their hands, am I wrong to assume that a room of HN faithful should have more than ~5% of people trying to turn their software in to viable businesses?
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LHNanon
Logging in anonymously, because it lets me be slightly more direct.

As someone who does work on a startup in London, but didn't go last night,
it's because I've found the HN London meetups to be chock-full of people who
don't work on startups, but simply talk all evening about recycled opinions
they've garnered from reading HN posts.

Not an interesting way to spend an evening.

~~~
intranation
HN is probably quite an aspirational thing for those still stuck in the
perceived drudgery of enterprise and large scale software development for
established companies. It's their dose of inspiration, I feel.

I agree it doesn't add a lot of value to the community, though. Speaking for
myself, as someone who works at a startup, I was actually busy working last
night. Like most nights.

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Rygu
Yeah, instead of talking about starting, how to and when to start... Just use
your time well! Voted +1

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coderholic
Rob actually asked "who is thinking of starting a startup soon, or has done so
in the past couple of months", which may have prevented people who have
started a startup or have been employed by one from raising their hands.

~~~
ordinathorreur
Exactly, most people at the meeting were working on startups, just currently a
little later in the life-cycle

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andysinclair
I live in London and am currently trying to get my startup off the ground. I
am also an avid reader of HN, and was considering going to last nights event.

Due to work pressures, i.e. launching soon, I saw it better to spend my time
working on my startup than going to the HN event. I have 2 children, and work
from home, so I need to grab any opportunity I can to work.

Also, there are now lots of startup events in London, and if you are busy then
you really need to pick and choose which ones you go to. In my case I am going
to the lean startup one next week, which I see as being currently more
relevant (and maybe more useful) to me than the HN event.

~~~
flog
We're all busy working, I think is the answer.

Like you I'm working away furiously trying to get the MVP out the door so we
can start doing some testing.

While I'm very positive about HN, I feel that in some ways attending stuff
like HN meetups seems like a bit of a popularity contest, "look at me!".

~~~
dmitri1981
I am not sure why you see socialising with fellow geeks in the real world as a
popularity contest.

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ig1
The HN meetup clashed with the Springboard mentoring & networking event hosted
at TechHub. There must have been about 50 startups there (+
VCs/angels/jurnos/mentors). Quite a lot of HNers were there so I wouldn't be
surprised if that had a negative impact on the number of startups at the HN
event.

(For future reference if Springboard runs one of these events again, it's
definitely worth going. I got a lot of practical advice that's going to have a
major impact on my business, plus I had an early stage VC ask me for a pitch
deck. I'm not sure how the event could have been any better.)

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adamcharnock
That really surprised me too. In my experience there certainly isn't any
shortage of web startups in London, so I have to wonder why so few of them
come to an HN event.

Off the top of my head, possible options:

1\. Startups don't engage on HN, or don't feel part of the community. This
seems pretty unlikely.

2\. (London) HN readers are predominantly people in full time jobs, or just
not entrepreneurial.

3\. Startups are too busy working.

But none of those seem particularly probable. Maybe it is a cultural
difference?

Or maybe it was just a bad night for startups :)

~~~
madaxe
It's a combination of 3 and 1, I'd wager.

I've worked in startup environments in both the UK and the US.

In the US, being an entrepreneur is seen as a good thing, and people bond,
mesh, and engage as a result of their common interest in stepping off the
standard path.

In the UK... not so much. The vast majority of founders I know are a) busy
working their nuts off and b) pretty bitter, due to the UK attitude to
entrepreneurs (urgh, why would you do that? Starting your own business is
_stupid_ ).

I guess what I'm getting at is that entrepreneurs in the US and the UK are
pretty different - in the US, they rely on a support network of other
entrepreneurs, and are part of a community. In the UK, you're on your own,
definitively, and entrepreneurs shy away from potential support networks
because they're so used to any large group of people being overwhelmingly
comprised of naysayers.

Oh, and finally, London isn't the entire UK. You want to see startups? Get
yourself out of the city. Bootstrapped startups start elsewhere in the
country, as London is so disproportionately expensive - Bath, for instance, is
chock full of 'em.

~~~
adamcharnock
> pretty bitter, due to the UK attitude to entrepreneurs (urgh, why would you
> do that? Starting your own business is stupid).

I have heard this attitude mentioned a few times but it is something that I
have never encountered (I really cannot think of a single instance). I feel
very lucky for this, but also surprised/dismayed that people can be so
negative about others who go an such an adventure.

Keep your head down, know you are doing the right thing. Speaking of which, I
need to write some code...

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rlivsey
I live in London and am working on a startup.

I used to go to quite a few tech events in London but found I was spending too
much time with like-minded people (techies) and not enough with people who had
other backgrounds and interests.

These days I pretty much just go to LRUG once a month to socialise with the
good friends I've made there over the years.

HN strikes me as a fairly diverse group though, so I'd be interested in going
to the next meetup.

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wzdd
I am working on a startup, but didn't raise my hand. I should have.

Honestly, and this is not a criticism, that evening felt much more like "talk
about programmer stuff" than it did "talk about startup stuff". There were a
couple of good talks about the business of startups, and the rest felt like
coding, or pitches, or both (and again, this is not a criticism).

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piers
Where was it advertised? I heard about it on twitter DURING the event, but I
would have been interesting in going.

~~~
dmitri1981
Hi Piers, this is the meetup page <http://www.meetup.com/HNLondon/> . We'll
announce the next event shortly, expect it will be at some point in March
depending on venue availability.

I did not advertise the last event on HN because it got booked up very quickly
and were at pretty much full capacity last night.

~~~
Swannie
Get it on Lanyrd.com please! :-) TYVM

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adw
Where are all the London hackers working on startups? Places like TechHub and
White Bear Yard, mostly. Working.

(Speaking of which, nearly everyone I know – including us – is hiring.)

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JonoW
I went to the HN meetup last night, and I'm in full-time employment with no
start-up experience; just some ambitions to do something in the future. I go
along for a little inspiration and to talk to other developers - do people
object to folks like me coming to these events?

~~~
dmitri1981
Absolutely not. You are very much welcome.

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coderholic
It'd be interesting to see what level of involvement HN members have with
startups generally. I've submitted a poll here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2179696>

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rlpb
At the pub afterwards, about every other person I met was working at a startup
- especially later on when it wasn't so packed. The pile of business cards I'm
going through now reflects this. Perhaps there was some self-selection amongst
the people who stayed on at the pub for a while?

(I regret that I missed the talks - unfortunately I was held up by a meeting
that ran late).

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Hates_
Sadly missed last nights HN meetup. But just wanted to say I'm a London hacker
working on a Seedcamp '10 winning startup.

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lukepublic
I went there with the rough expectation that I might find some people to co-
found something with, but since I'm a wuss I didn't talk to anyone I didn't
already know.

If they're not already working at a startup, are people who attend these
events likely to be open the idea of work for equity or co-founding?

~~~
sdrinf
Yes. Even if they're in a startup, the best is usually keeping an eye on the
menu, and options available (knowing your opportunity cost allows you to make
more informed decisions).

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jaggs
I'm in London and we're working on a startup, although it's been going for so
long it's more like a bootstrapped company type affair by now. We didn't go
because of time issues. We don't have enough of it! I would like to attend one
of the meetings though, when I get a chance.

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lucasr
I live in London and work for a Boston-based startup with a small office here.
So, not actually a London startup. But I'd be interested in attending one
those meetups in the future. Where are those events announced btw?

~~~
dmitri1981
<http://www.meetup.com/HNLondon/>

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martinc
Judging by the number of people in shirts and ties there, I'd imagine a large
proportion are in full-time employment and on the periphery of the startup
scene.

~~~
ncameron
as one of the suited and booted attendees, I'd just like to say I'm running a
startup but selling into conservative / corporate organisations so the shirt
and tie helps.

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revorad
Sorry I've missed the last two meetups. I'm in India currently, about to get
married :-)

 _Raises hand_ (see profile for details)

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malux85
heya, I was wondering the same thing. I'm busy working my nuts off, and wonder
where I should be networking.

If you use MSN messenger ... add me as a contact. (That goes for everyone
else) alainrichardt [at] hotmail.com

cheers

Alain

