London's start-up community is spread over the city with clusters around the Nathan Barley-esque “Silicon Roundabout” (map) and Bermondsey St.. Most of the companies are well networked, and getting to meet a cross-section of the people involved is surprisingly easy with membership to a bunch of groups on meetup and ning.
Saul Klein's OpenCoffee group is probably the best place to start. OpenCoffee meetings are free, weekly meet-up of entrepreneurs, investors and service providers and are a great way to get a feel for what's going on. OpenCoffee meetings are spread around the globe, so if you're not in London the odds are there might be a closer meeting.
Meetup.com has a number of other groups worth checking out, from Bootlaw, providing free legal advice, through the more exclusive DrinkTank and into the punitive beer-sodden monthly shout-fest that is MiniBar.
There are a host of periodic events, some of which are worth checking out. First off, TechCrunch UK's TechCrunch Talk events are usually interesting, and Seedcamp is fascinating for the events and noise it generates. Seedcamp brings together a lot of smart individuals, strong advice and great resources, but the process involves offering up more equity than many might expect for €50,000.
Other events, like Future of Web Apps are worth a look in, although perhaps more out of technical interest than for any networking they might offer, and there are plenty of similar events like Future of Mobile and Internet World.
There are plenty of other investment-focused groups and events, but they're for another post. Feedback on your experiences at these events -- or others -- would be appreciated!
The last TechCrunch Talk in London was a hoot, with some good discussion on the importance of micro-proofing and finding angels.
Aidan and Andrew will be at today's TechCrunch Talk, so if you see us, say hello and ask how we might help you start up!
If you missed FOWA 2008 in London last week, the videos and keynotes from the conference are slowly coming up on the FOWA site.
We attended the whole conference and enjoyed many of the presentations. A few needed some work! We can particularly recommend presentations by Blaine Cook and Jason Calacanis. Ben Huh's presentation hasn't been uploaded yet, but it's well worth checking out when it is.
On Wednesday I was at the first of the Bootlaw sessions (also known as the 'Barry and Danvers show'). Bootlaw is a fantastic new idea from Barry Vitou and Danvers Baillieu from City law firm Winston & Strawn, offering legal tips to startups, along with lashings of beer and pizza!
This first session covered NDAs and termsheets - both of which are key documents that startups are likely to encounter quite early on in their business life. Barry and Danvers are able to turn what could be quite complex subjects into clear and easy to understand language, and I look forward to future talks. You can find out more about Bootlaw at their website.
As well as the practical knowledge gained at these sort of events they can also be a good way to bump into like-minded people. With over 30 people attending the first session we see future Bootlaw events as being a good way both to learn useful information and network with other startups and entrepreneurs. I was particularly intrigued by a number of non-profit and social enterprise startups that seem to be evolving - more on that in a future post.
The event was covered by the good people at Newspepper, so video and/or pictures of the event should be available in the near future.
New founders are a funny bunch. In a two-day period this week -- and aside from the usual serviced offices and hubs -- we've managed to meet them at:
