[SandB0x]

I believe London has co-opted (in the Naomi Klein sense) the US startup scene. We do all the superficial activity: incubators, pitches, hackathons, and so on, but it is driven by government initiatives and established businesses.

- There are many copies of the US startup accelerators, but the people running them do not seem to have the same level of experience and connections as in the US.

- Much of the activity is due to business students, both at bachelors level and MBA, who are somehow "trained" in "entrepreneurship". They "win" startup pitch competitions based on some slides and sales forecasts, then troll CS departments, alumni mailing lists and tech meetups looking for coders. I know this is an old stereotype (and that business skills are critical too) but it is very true here.

- The government is often heavily involved. I wouldn't call myself a libertarian, but I think we would be better off without cringeworthy gov initiatives like "tech city", state-funded startups (https://interact.innovateuk.org/) and university entrepreneurship schemes that look a lot like a way to boost new grad employment figures.

It all feels like a pale imitation of the US tech industry. Obviously there is some bias in terms of the US companies we hear about, but most people are thinking very small here.

A few years ago a friend and I coded up an idea we had over a few weekends. It was more complex than a straight CRUD app and had some nice visualisations, but nothing too crazy. We met several "startup advisors" through our contacts and at meetups. Every time we finished describing our idea, people would ask us if we were having any luck "finding programmers" to implement it.

[logingone]

I've long considered London to be nothing more than a giant PR exercise. Of course the prime minister is an ex-PR guy, so a connection wouldn't be surprising. I'm not sure it delivers on the image it projects in any respect. Except the new trains that have started on some lines - nice to have room to breathe when you're stuck on a track waiting for a signal failure. Even the new double decker busses with the aero fronts. What's the real difference? Nothing. In fact the new appearance doesn't even last beyond the front of the bus which is what people see when it approaches - the rear of the busses is unchanged. So we don't have impressive new busses, we have busses that look, upon first glance, from a specific angle, as though they are. Everything is careful illusion. People buy into perception. Look! We have silicon roundabout! Seriously?

[martiuk]

The problem is that even if it is a giant PR exercise, it's still sucking talent away from the Midlands and the North.

There's a somewhat large group of startups here in Birmingham and there is a significant lack of talent (unless you want cookie cutter Microsoft technology developers) and investors. I started my own company to work on a project and I'm contracting at the moment to keep myself going and I still get asked if I want to join someone's startup as their first software engineer.

[jlangenauer]

This reminds me of Australia's startup scene too: it's become something of a "game" with accelerators, advisors, incubators and even stranger things, often lead by people whose business experience (let alone tech startup experience) would be politely described as thin.

It's definitely a case of form without content, and no-one should be surprised if the results from such an ecosystem are less than stellar.