

Newcastle startup scene reaches 'critical mass' [video] - dan1234
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21329832

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beatpanda
"Why can't football fans talk about football online?"

Why indeed? Are they? Did anybody check? I suspect they may already be!

You could take that clip out use it to build the script of "This Is Spinal
Tap" for UK startups.

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petercooper
Hehe. We actually had one back in the dot com era called _Attachments_ ;-)
Oddly, the BBC seems to have disowned it and it's very hard to get a copy of
now..

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amouat
I remember that. There was an episode where they played a game where they
typed in random domain names and bet on whether or not the site existed.

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meaty
Having been in the "industry" for a large number of years now, I genuinely
don't find that any of the startups are congregating around the these new
areas unless they are VC funded burn-out outfits which to be honest I wouldn't
poke with a stick.

Most of the genuinely interesting ones seem to be running out of people's
houses with no specific location. They're also making cash without VC
intervention.

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thisone
You've got a good point. We've been profitable from day one and never had
investment until very recently, not even a bank loan.

However, we are in Newcastle. Why? Because that's where(ish) we live. As a
developer, it's nice to be able to get out a couple times a month and meet
like minded folks at things like SuperMondays and talk about specifics at user
group meetings.

Personally, I'd rather work down in York but from what mates tell me, the
community isn't quite there.

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meaty
Bytemark are in York. I don't know anyone else up there but it's nicer than
Newcastle.

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thisone
I have to agree. I did my MSc at York. I really miss the place.

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neebz
I did my MSc from York. The new Ron Cooke Hub holds good potential. There are
a couple of startups I know doing interesting work there.

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nicholassmith
I work in Newcastle, live in Middlesbrough. It's becoming surprisingly strong
for a developer community now, when I left Uni about 5 years ago there wasn't
really much going on.

There's a lot the North East has going for it, living costs are pretty
spectacularly low in most parts, office space is cheap, there's reasonably
strong transport links between the hubs (ish, it's still British transport).
It's nice to see it being represented nationality, the focus often swings back
to the London community.

The biggest criticism I've heard it's there's a lack of angels and VCs but it
feels like a chicken and egg situation. Do startups flourish in areas with a
large amount of VCs, or are VCs drawn to areas with a large amount of
startups?

For those further interested there's also Sunderland Software City and the
Middlesbrough Digital City project outside of Newcastle.

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ig1
Many European VCs will invest in cities where they're not based. Most will
have offices in a few major hubs but for a lot of the time VCs will be on the
road travelling to other cities to meet startups.

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nicholassmith
Which is what I thought, but when the TechCity initiative in London was
ramping up there was a lot of fanfare about it putting startups with VCs as a
selling point.

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mrkmcknz
Newcastle is a great city to take a startup from napkin to reality. It wont
take much to open the door of any business or investor and the community is
generally welcoming (Kind of un-British) in some respects.It's also beautiful
city and happens to have one of the lowest costs of living in the UK.

However Newcastle and the North East in general suffers from a shortage in
quality developers. Primarily because they're either entrepreneurial with
their own startup or finding offers from startups in London with double the
salary on the table.

Newcastle isn't really trying to be anything other than itself, it understands
that there isn't an abundance of developers and it's trying god dam hard to
bring the right talent to the area.

Newcastle university offers a great CS course headed up by Professor Aad van
Moorsel and with the right startups keeping that talent in the area shouldn't
be hard.

If you're located in London and looking to take that idea into a reality,
Newcastle and the North East(York & Durham) are great choices. £10,000 can
give you 6months of decent living up here. As opposed to 2-3 in London.

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sycren
Super Mondays, monthly startup event in Newcastle -
<http://www.supermondays.org/>

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junto
Super weekends, weekly event in Newcastle:
[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=newca...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=newcastle+typical+night+out&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch)

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damian2000
Favourite soundbite: "When I arrived the first thing I saw was vomit on the
floor. But it was real, it was a _real_ place."

~~~
thisone
considering I work at a start up in Newcastle, that was a great bit.

The walk from the station to work is all "very real" on Thursday and Friday.
Keeps me on my toes.

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simonbarker87
As someone working out of, literally, a tin shed in Byker (a stones through
from the Tyne river in Newcastle for those unfamiliar with the area) it's nice
to see the city getting some good PR. One thing I would add is that there are
plenty of businesses outside straight up IT/Tech in the city and as a result
there is a really great and diverse business community.

If you are looking for somewhere to start a company that involves
manufacturing (as ours does) then you could do a lot worse that the Northeast
- the legacy of ship building and the presence of the 500,000 cars per year
Nissan factory make it a great place to get stuff made.

Alos, London is great an everything but for quality of life and low cost of
living Newcastle knocks spots of it. Something that, as a cash strapped
founder, is really useful and on a good day it's only a 2.5 hour train ride to
London.

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LogicX
Great video I can empathize with. We're building a startup community in Myrtle
Beach, SC, US (www.coworkmyr.com). We aren't quite at 'critical mass' yet, but
share a lot of the same sentiments about it being somewhere to focus, and so
long as it has some community and access to the same resources it can be a
great place to do a startup.

Perhaps even a better place than major hubs where cost of living is so high
that your runway is necessarily shorter.

We wrote about it recently: "Get Your Ass To Mars: Making a case for tech
startups in Myrtle Beach" [http://coworkmyr.com/get-your-ass-to-mars-making-a-
case-for-...](http://coworkmyr.com/get-your-ass-to-mars-making-a-case-for-
tech-startups-in-myrtle-beach/)

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ceeK
This is just up the road from my hometown. It's a breath of fresh air to see
startups in the North of England, especially as it is one of the most
deprived. Hopefully it's sustainable as I'm getting tired of all the Tech City
talk by the government.

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thisone
It's also not just Newcastle. Sunderland and Middlesbrough have communities
that are coming along. York University has expanded their incubator so I'd
expect to see more in that area as well, although my friends in the area
bemoan the lack of community at this point in time.

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petercooper
Tech Britain maps UK startups: <http://techbritain.com/> \- it shows Newcastle
as the 4th hottest spot after London, Manchester and Bristol.

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mattbee
Nice. I just put York on the map :-) (cough -
[http://blog.bytemark.co.uk/2013/02/05/bytemark-to-get-
their-...](http://blog.bytemark.co.uk/2013/02/05/bytemark-to-get-their-first-
wholly-owned-datacentre-online-by-may))

Come on York.

~~~
petercooper
Oh nice, I'm the sole pinpoint in the middle of Lincolnshire, so not too far
down the road! :-) I had no idea Bytemark was in York though had heard of you.
Will you be doing any colo? We've been tempted but the thought of going to
Manchester or London hasn't been appealing so far.

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jmcdowell
Awesome to see this video. Currently down in London on an internship before I
go back to Newcastle University next year. With the amount of startup events
going on down here (highly recommend the HN London meetup if people haven't
been) I was pretty apprehensive about going back up but not as much anymore!

Definitely feel a bit more excited now. Apart from Super Mondays, are there
any other events I should remember for next year?

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twitchhiker
Help to help you out with contacts - I'm the guy from ignite100 in the
feature. Also, if you'd like to work with any of the ignite100 alumni, more
than happy to connect you.

P

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jmcdowell
Wow, that would be an awesome opportunity and I'd really appreciate it. Any
chance I could contact you in a few months when it's closer to me moving back
up there?

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mozboz
Isn't there just too much benefit to being in a large city (in this case,
London)? Specifically: established and well attended social groups, like
meetup groups focussed on your particular technology or vertical? The
possibility of an encounter with someone who either has an invaluable piece of
advice or wants to join your team must be exponentially higher.

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meaty
Well actually the only real benefit is staff availability if you scale up.

We've gone from 8 to 150 staff in about 8 years and I doubt we could fill
those positions if we weren't close to London.

