Break this out when you’re trying to explain what you’re up to, to non-startup friends and family.
Startup Ecosystem
First, what makes a startup ecosystem? A bunch of stuff really. The founders with their ideas, the folks who work with them to make it happen, the money that oils it all, the spaces they congregate around to actually get the work done, the caffeine that fuels it all, the tools everyone uses to collaborate with each other (hey there Slack!), the programmes and camps and workshops and meetups and demo days and demo lunches and hackathons and accelerators and incubators and Terminators (jk, anyone seen Genisys yet?) the government instruments that help shape everybody’s movements; there’s just a lot out there.
Breaking It All Down
It’s all quite hard to break down, because there’s just so much stuff out there. One way to approach this exercise is to think about the stages in a startup’s life. We’re talking about something like this:
A mango seed stage is really just a bigger seed round. If you’ve chopped up a mango before, you’ll know those seeds are bigger than life, hence the term.
And next, we decided to include what people tend to ask us about. All this stuff should make it easier for you to have discussions over coffee/preferred poison, because you’ve now got a starting point — a table to point at, scribble on, do what you may with.
All. The. Stuff. But not quite all of it, no? What else should we add to this?
Ta-dah!
And here it is. A table easy enough to dive into that you’ll require little to no knowledge of what’s happening in the UK startup ecosystem as a whole (perfect for explaining what you do to non-startup friends, family), but it’s also hopefully useful enough for folks who’ve been around the block too.
As with all things startup, a lot of this is generally right, but your mileage may vary. A lot of startups based in the UK will fit neatly into these descriptions, but there will always be some that won’t, for whatever reason. Take for example, probable valuation ranges. How do you value an idea? Or an idea with a prototype, but ultimately something that hasn’t quite found it’s legs yet? It’s definitely an art and a science, combined. We’ve also not included an exhaustive list of programmes for startups at each stage, of which there are many, including a lot of industry-, skill- or sector-specific ones.
It’s not an exhaustive table, is all we’re saying. Nevertheless, we hope it’s a table that will fuel discussions (maybe invite us to some too!), give you a starting point before diving deep, and generally prove useful all around. :)
We’re thinking we’ll probably expand on this in the next few months, so let us know what you think we should be adding, or deleting.
The UK startup ecosystem, ladies and gentlemen.
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This post was written by YeeMun Thum, @thumyeemun, Entrepreneur in Residence at Potential VC, with contributions from YC Ng, @yichungng and Paul Smith, @paul_a_smith. An ex-digital agency content strategist + corporate affairs manager from Malaysia, she is co-founder of UK online subscription eyewear startup @ScarlettofSoho. She likes pugs, iced coffee, and helping startups wherever she can.