

Ask YC: are you a UK-based hacker, or working on a startup in the UK? - dood

I'm suprised how few UK startups and hackers I've seen here. Where are you, and what are you working on? Or have you all moved to the valley?
======
ian
Hi, ian here from Songkick (YC summer '07 batch). We're based in East London.
If you're UK based get in touch - can introduce you to other hackers in the UK
doing/interested in start-ups. We'll organise some drinks soon. You can reach
us at founders at songkick dot com.

~~~
dood
Huh, I hadn't seen Songkick before, it looks great! I had the same frustration
with finding shows from bands I like, and wanted to make something similar.
I'm sure it'll be a hit if you get the data and some half-decent
recommendations.

~~~
ian
Thanks man! Hope to meet you in person soon.

What do you think of our recommendations right now? We're taking a different
approach to the 2 most popular paradigms: collaborative filtering on your
userbase (e.g. Last.fm) or expert hand labeling (e.g. Pandora).

Instead we consider any implicit or explicit relationship between two artists
expressed on the web as a data point for our recommendation engine to analyse.
This could for example be that Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem were mentioned
in the same review. We also incorporate data from our users' listening
histories. You can see the recommendations at work on artist pages and on our
Band Manager.

Our goal is to generate recommendations that harness the wisdom of the biggest
crowd possible: all music lovers anywhere on the web. We're not there yet but
would love to hear what you think of the first results.

~~~
dood
I had a look around the artists pages; the recommendations are good, each set
seems fairly solid with mostly nothing too irrelevant, the main associations I
would expect are generally there, the results seem fairly consistent across
genres, and pretty good for niche/non-mainstream bands too. If this is all
hand-rolled from web crawling and that sort of thing, rather impressive!

A couple of thoughts/ideas:

It'd be good to have more recommendations for bands who have dates coming up.
As someone wanting to see shows, I'd generally like to see at least a couple
of recommendations for specific tours, as long as they're fairly relevant.
Though I imagine the main issue with this is tour data, rather than
recommending. Also, If I'm looking for touring bands, it doesn't seem quite
right to get several recommendations for bands I know I'll never see, like
Nirvana and Biggie Smalls, so maybe you could provide separate result sets for
bands that are touring and bands that aren't.

Another suggestion is to have a little more randomness, or a little more
tolerance for less-close matches, or different types of closeness. The results
tend toward big names/popular bands, but it may be good to throw in more that
are more closely related by genre/style, and less by prominence. You may even
consider randomly removing some of the biggest bands from results, otherwise
you end with e.g. Metallica recommended for every band when browsing around
any vaguely rocky bands.

There are a couple of cases where it seems maybe you've sucked in some related
but irrelevant data, and end up giving word-concept recommendations, e.g. for
Underworld I got [Gods, Hades, Orpheus, Doom, Demon, Witch, Terror, Curse,
Warrior, Dawn]

Of course all this depends on the user and context. A disclaimer then: I'm a
huge music fan, but my comments are probably coloured by my (generally,
somewhat) less mainstream tastes. Sorry to go on so much, but I'm very
interested in both music and recommendations, so I'm finding it hard to stop
myself. But good job, it looks to be a very useful site that I would use. I'd
very much like to hear more about it, and what you plan on doing with it when
this meetup happens.

~~~
ian
Thanks very much for your feedback man. We're aware of the issue that occurs
with a few bands (e.g. Underworld) and are fixing that. Imagine my horror when
I was listening to one of my favourite London producers Burial and got
recommended bands like Grave, Funeral, Resurrection. That'll be fixed soon.

We're also going to make the recommendations much more tour focused as you
suggest. The goal is to really separate the signal out from the noise so you
know which of the hundreds of small gigs going on are most likely to interest
you.

We're also going to have user preferences for the recommendations
(particularly how obscure you want them to be and whether you only want to see
artists on tour. RIP B.I.G.)

Really interested to talk more at the hacker meetup. I've got a ton of emails
so should be a good group.

~~~
neil_cauldwell
Hey Ian

You'll like this;

I've been in talks with a London-based investor. At the end of one of our
meetings, the investor was checking his emails and pulled-up the Songkick
powerpoint via an angel network they'd signed-up to! Then the following week
you guys hit TechCrunch! That was pretty exciting and inspirational for me!

I'm eager to meet some fellow founders & hackers - so I've got to make OCC
London and these hacker meetups...

~~~
ian
Thanks for letting me know!

Look forward to meeting you soon.

------
kul
There are several UK startups funded by YC, so we exist! Auctomatic, Sitepass,
Songkick and a few in the new batch.

Visas are difficult but otherwise I'd recommend moving to the Valley, or at
least visiting.

How about getting together at this?

[http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/events/Silicon+Valley+Comes+to+Oxfor...](http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/events/Silicon+Valley+Comes+to+Oxford+2007.htm)

Myself and Harjeet will be there.

~~~
tpatke
To be honest. That event just doesn't interest me at all. The speakers are not
going to say anything that is not already on the web. ...and if they do, it
will be on the web the day after.

I want to meet hackers. The best way to do that is probably over coffee. Not
in the context of someone delivering a speech.

~~~
danw
Perhaps you'd prefer Barcamp London? It's happening 24-25th of November.

<http://barcamp.org/BarCampLondon3>

------
Prabaker
I am just starting out and trying to get a couple of start-ups off the ground.
I am based in Leeds
([http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=leeds&oe=UTF-8...](http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=leeds&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl))
and my current concern is about finding talent in the north. Everything I have
read so far - including most of the stuff on YC News - suggests that I will
have to go down south to London or Cambridge, or up-sticks and move to 'the
valley'. However, recent networking events have introduced me to local talent
and so things are looking more optimistic.

~~~
drofnil
A hacker who lives in the north (in the countryside between leeds and york),
and commutes weekly to London on contracts. There is talent in the north, you
just have to be quick to snap it up, coz the first place we all look for work
is in the biggest and best paying market, which of course is London.

------
tpatke
In London. Working on collaboration software.

If anyone has the leadership ability to organize a meetup - I would be very
interested.

<http://www.jettask.com/>

~~~
ian
We'll do it. Hit us with your emails: founders at songkick dot com.

~~~
dood
Probably a good idea to start a new thread for that sometime. Its about time
for a UK meetup so thanks for taking the initiative!

------
eugenet
Come and check out London OpenCoffee

<http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1056/>

------
weebro
Yup, niche market for mining and quarrying: quarrysell (dot) com. We are based
in Loughborough (outside Nottingham/Leicester)

Join out network on Facebook if you are around:

[http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6710636524&topic=3...](http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6710636524&topic=3935)

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inovica
Hi. We're here - based in Newcastle. Existing business, however we've two
startups underway that are being run by two independent teams. I'm trying to
oversee them and help where needed as at 37 years old I get too tired for all-
nighters!! Just as a note though, I often go out to San Jose etc to meet up
with people

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dereference
I'm in Southampton, Hampshire. Currently hacking away at a web app which has
something to do with online storage. In the progress of registering the
company.

Will be hopefully moving to Cambridge at some point (that is if I don't run
out of money entirely).

~~~
tpatke
I am working with online storage as well. I see it as a smaller part of a
bigger system. Get in touch - it would be good to swap stories.

------
pierrefar
In Cambridge incubating an idea. Cambridge is a great place for
entrepreneurship.

~~~
axod
Cambridge does seem to have a lot going for it with the science park etc (I'm
based not too far away in Ipswich).

Would be interested how other peoples experiences have been regarding getting
funding though (I haven't got that far yet).

------
kajecounterhack
I'm here from Ambush Networks (<http://www.ambushnetworks.com>)

Not really a hacker, more of a computer security consultant.

------
vikram
I'm in London, working on a journey planner. Keen to meet hackers in the UK.
Drop me a line at enginedriver at telltrains dot com

BTW, my site is www.telltrains.com

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moomerman
I'm working for 'social betworking' starup <http://www.bragster.com/> in East
London. I'm originally from the North West and often keep an eye out for jobs
back there but they usually pay ridiculously low amounts so all the hackers
congregate in or around London. Also there are loads of opportunities to
network around London which are all but non-existent in the North.

------
helptheworld
London based, and lecturing at London South Bank University. Just put up a few
social networking sites around climate change, poverty, peace and wildlife.
They're gathered on <http://www.bippr.com>.

Good to see what else is going on.

I'm on twitter at <http://twitter.com/helptheworld>.

------
NickSmith
In Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

Two of us working on a web service that should make blogging more 'two-way'
and social, as opposed to the rather one-way broadcast activity than it is at
present. Hopefully it will help web-surfing be a far richer reading experience
and encourage higher quality Internet conversations.

------
louisadekoya
I am in the U.K - Milton Keynes, which is less than an hour from London. I
dabble but I am no hacker by any means. I do however design software for a
living and I am looking for a hacker co-founder for a startup. So if anyone is
interested, do get in touch - initially by reply here and we'll take it from
there.

~~~
vikram
I am looking for a co-founder. drop me a line at enginedriver at telltrains
dot com

------
whyleyc
I'm one of the co-founder's of Zamzar which has been live for about a year
now. (<http://www.zamzar.com>)

I'm based in Southampton and interested in the meetup that the Songkick guys
are mooting - you could always post the details on Hacker News ?

------
SamanthaG
Hi, I don't think I'm a hacker (unfortunately I'm a lawyer) in Birmingham UK,
but may be looking for any interested hackers to collaborate with me in
overhauling the provision of legal services to people via a personal startup.
If anyone wants to share any ideas or comment,I'd be grateful.

------
jhm198
Hi, I'm in Central London currently working on a start-up part-time and
looking to pursue it full-time from early next year. I would be really
interested in meeting hackers to share ideas, if you guys at Songkick organise
something count me in.

------
JohnN
I'm in london, working on a citizen journalism site (www.scribblesheet.co.uk)

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vide0star
Hi, we're two American hackers in London starting a betting exchange to take
on Betfair. Would love to meet up with hackers/startups in
London...jason@binaryclub.com

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Prabaker
Hmmmm, just as I thought, everyone is down south! Could people please expand
on the merits of being down south: is it easier to find funding, hackers, etc?

------
kieranoneill
I'm dropping out of the University of Bath to work on tech startups full-time
in London. Also in Winchester quite a lot as from there.

~~~
danw
I'm over in Bristol. If you feel like having a chat about your startup ideas
get in touch with me via newsycATdanshub.com or come to Bristol OpenCoffee
sometime

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danw
Bristol based here. There plenty of UK startups but they're mostly busy
working isntead of posting on here :p

------
piers
In Guildford, have a few ideas for startups, but not gone as far as actually
doing anything about it. Yet.

~~~
britman
I'm in Guildford too although my day job sees me around the SE hacking ahem I
mean consulting.

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DarrenStuart
I am in Devon hacking away at my ideas. Doing client work to pay the bills at
the moment.

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nicoperez
3 guys in London, and myself in Bristol working on our project concept at the
moment

~~~
danw
I'm also Bristol based. You should come check out openCoffee Bristol at the
Watershed.

I'd be interested in hearing about your startup, feel free to get in touch
newsycATdanshubDOTcom

------
cmcc
Irish hacker here. We are currently in stealth mode while we work on our
project.

~~~
DogThreeZero
Heh, I'm in Ireland too. We should meet up.

~~~
pc
Me three. Drop me a line -- patrick#collison#ie.

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dood
I'm in London, working on a web app for helping people share and organise
stuff.

------
gordonguthrie
Gordon

Hypernumbers.com just gone into alpha...

Linlithgow/Edinburgh

------
surya
I'm in Edinburgh. Working on a collaborative web search startup.

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jamescoops
In East London, bootstrapping a social mobile music thing :-)

------
lucraft
I'm in London, finishing a PhD actually, but after that...

------
jsmcgd
I'm scraping something together in Edinburgh.

~~~
gordonguthrie
hypernumbers.com in Linlithgow - drop me a line...

gordon blah-blah hypernumbers dot com

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echion
I'm london - hedge fund.

~~~
bosshog
London.

echion - I'm doing some research in the healthcare area for a startup and am
interested in speaking to anyone involved in a hedge fund and healthcare that
works with firms like Gerson Lehman Group. Do you have any suggestions for
appropriate individuals or organisation in London to contact?

~~~
echion
Not really, unfortunately. Good luck.

