| Completely true. In the UK there's a lot of emphasis put on what's seen as the normal progression from school to higher education to employment. Startups are rarely mentioned in the media, and mentioned even less outside it. The only exception I can think of is Dragon's Den on the BBC, where people with little experience and even worse ideas sell half their business for a pittance in order to entertain the country. I guess that about sums it up. I think another issue may be the different views on business. In the UK, businesses are seen as entities that must be restrained, otherwise they will do Bad Things. This is reflected in the immense amount of legislation regulating businesses, employment, consumer rights, etc. There's much less of this in the US - businesses are an integral part of the culture, and you can't really go anywhere without being reminded of that. In a way it's comparable to the mild distrust of government in the US: just as Americans look to the constitution to protect them from government, Brits look to the government to protect them from businesses. |
I don't think I've met a single startup in the UK whose main problem with the UK was legislative or regulatory.