

Open letter to a depressed VC (state of funding) - daleharvey
http://techmeetup.co.uk/blog/2010/05/a-letter-to-a-depressed-vc/

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aditya
I've heard this same story everywhere outside Silicon Valley; Not enough big
exits, means not enough angels, means not enough seed capital, means too many
service companies and almost no product companies.

pg's talked a lot about being ramen profitable and as a decent engineer you
should be able to put away $15k and take 3 months off to go build a startup.

Except capital is only one piece of the puzzle. Building a real product
company takes a lot more than just capital. I don't know what a good solution
is, but atleast NYC seems to be solving it with pumping more early stage money
into the system and slightly easier access to mentors. But even here we don't
have a lot of people with the time, inclination and big exits behind them the
mentor and nurture younger entrepreneurs...

~~~
sachinag
You don't need mentors to have your company take off. You need a good idea,
the ability (which includes runway, meaning cash) to execute, and the wisdom
to learn from your mistakes. If you're a decent engineer with a little saved
up, all you have to do is come up with (1) and recognize if you're capable of
(3).

~~~
hga
You might not _need_ mentors but I'll bet good ones help.

There's a lot to learn in so many domains and good mentoring can speed up that
learning substantially.

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daleharvey
At the techrunch+engage event yesteday held in edinburgh, one of the investors
bemoaned a lack of innovation in scottish startups.

We have an excellent grassroots community growing and an abundance of
engineering talent but still a relatively minor successes.

The letter is from a local startup founder (who also started techmeetup) to
the vc about the lack of bottom tier funding.

~~~
timcederman
I wonder if it's a similar problem that is seen in Australia. Plenty of
talented folks, but a real lack of innovation/big thinking. There are two main
problems in Australia.

1\. Lack of capital. Larger Australian companies and investors don't "get" the
value and potential of startups, and there isn't a strong network of angels.
I'm also shocked at some of the valuations I've seen in Australia for
companies that end of raising a lot more overseas. A company that may be
valued at 100k in Australia would be valued at 3 million in Silicon Valley.

2\. Lack of gumption. There is this very odd cultural thing called "Tall Poppy
Syndrome" in Australia, which is essentially that everyone should know there
place - if you rise too high you'll get cut down. People aren't encouraged to
think big.

~~~
starkfist
Tall Poppy Syndrome is not a cultural oddity. It's prevalent (but named
differently) in Japan, Scandinavian countries, UK, Ireland, Germany, Canada,
New Zealand, the Netherlands, economically depressed areas of the USA, most of
the Midwest, and so on and so forth. I would wager that at least half of the
world's cultures have the tendency to try to cut down the tall poppies...

~~~
gordonguthrie
Its a line from Livy's history of Rome.
<http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=24381>

An early King of Rome sent his son out as a spy pretending to have run away
from the tyranny of his father.

Rome's enemies promoted him to a senior position. When their spys told him
that his father was cutting down the tall poppies, this was the signal that he
should mount a coup against the leadership of the enemy towns - which he did
and they all fell under Rome's control.

