London has had a simmering startup scene based around Old Street for some years now. With these startups now gaining national and international attention (see last.fm, shazam and mind candy) they are finding themselves inadvertently part of a problem that is now inhibiting new startups. With success, profits and great interest came government endorsement and a new white elephant project for the old street roundabout, surely a death knell for any cutting edge industry that thrives on attracting the young and the talented. The attempt to commoditise (and eventually monetise) the startup environment by business, government and the press is leading to a tick list of attributes that come with their own issues:

  • Based in or around Old Street?
    • Expensive rents
  • Don’t have seed funding already?
    • Success breeds success, many mainstream investors and government are conservative on risk and require reassurance and validation through existing investment.
    • So how to get the initial seed investment when investors want a sure thing?
  • Not cloning an existing proven and popular technology / application or using the correct buzzwords?
    • See above point about investors wanting a sure thing.
    • Saying you’re creating the facebook of “x” or the twitter of “y” seems to be a requirement for garnering attention.
  • Don’t have a stupid name?
    • Creating a product called Logger that performs aggregate logging on the cloud?
    • Then drop all the vowels, this is what all the cool kids do, and your name becomes Lggr