Saul Klein, co-founder of Seedcamp and one of the top VCs in europe, has a long and thoughtful post up on the evolution of Seedcamp. In it he says:
In
my mind, helping to bring some cohesion to our region’s distributed
network of talent, capital and is a 15-20 year project. ……Getting to the right point takes time, and the cycles that kicked off what we now know as Silicon Valley began nearly 50 years ago
.
Investing legends like Arthur Rock (Fairchild Semiconductor
Amazon, Google) and the entrepreneurs they backed created franchise
businesses that still dominate the technology industry today. But maybe
more importantly, all these businesses created the raw materials
(talent, seed capital and technology) for next generation of the
today’s winners like Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com and many many others.
.I
made the same point last week to Laura Rich of Fast Company who is
doing a piece on startup ecosystems. I think it is good to think about
decades when you think about the development of new startup hotbeds.
In
the first decade, you are largely making it up, copying what works
elsewhere, the VCs and entrepreneurs are largely doing it for the first
time, and while you can have successes, they are mixed with a lot of
failures. That was 1995 to 2005 in New York City and 1965 to 1975 in
Silicon Valley.
In the second decade, you start to get it right.
The entrepreneurs are doing it for the second or third time. The
infrastructure has developed (lawyers, VCs, recruiters). And it is
easier to get talented employees to do a startup. This is where we are
in New York City now and is where Silicon Valley was from 1975 to 1985.
In
the third decade, the ecosystem is fully formed and producing great
companies. That is where Silicon Valley has been from the mid 80s on.
The
only other startup ecosystem that is as fully developed as Silicon
Valley is Boston. It got started even earlier than Silicon Valley with
General George Doriot’s ARD in the 1950s. Boston is an interesting case
study because although it has all the infrastructure in place and
plenty of serial entrepreneurs, role models, and success stories, it
has had a harder time making the transition from tech deals to web
deals. It is getting there now.
So back to new startup ecosystems
developing in europe, asia, and elsewhere. It can happen and it will
happen. But it takes time. And you can’t fast forward because we are
talking about experience which can’t be manufactured. You simply have
to put in the time.
(For more from Fred, visit his blog)
