It’s rare that I find myself in a situation where I read something at work, and feel the need to reply right away.
Posts like the original rallying call and the reply to it, is simply rehashing the same arguments over and over again; more importantly, it’s doing something that I hate – playing the blame game.
On one hand, some say that we need better and more support and coherency for entrepreneurship in the Universities (especially in Glasgow, rather than Edinburgh which is where I think Chris and Michael were referring to). On the other, some say that you should get on with it. So, who is it? Who is to blame? Is it the universities that aren’t pulling their weight, or is it that entrepreneurs are lazy and want everything handed to them on a plate?
These arguments are a complete over-simplification of the problem.
Universities need to provide the RIGHT type of support
The universities need to provide a culture of entrepreneurship – especially in the digital sectors. Rather than making abstract, broad brush points, let me anchor it with real life examples I’ve seen.
Before Mike Clouser started running the Informatics Entrepreneurship course, I couldn’t remember where a young, bright computer scientist from Edinburgh Univ would even begin to hear, let alone want to create startups. I will not hesitate to say that if every CompSci/Engineering dept in the country ran a 10 week course where the students would learn to i) write a business plan and ii) have to prepare a pitch, as part of their coursework, we would sooner have a nation of bright-eyed, eager geeks wanting to create the next Facebook instead of walking to JPMorgan or Accenture.
This isn’t “support” — what I’m talking about is true commitment to entrepreneurship by universities on a deep and fundamental level.
And sometimes, the Universities’ Innovation Support hit wide off the mark. Not just by a little. But spectacularly. There might be “support” available, but the skill is providing the RIGHT type of support. It’s not enough to roll out a Powerpoint presentation and list all the courses and schemes that they run. Part of the skill for those in Innovation Support has to be i) listening to entrepreneurs, ii) providing the right type of support, iii) providing hands on, one-to-one support even if it takes more time, more effort and more resources — which is often deemed un-scalable.
Part of the reason why the EPIS scheme succeeded so well is because it provided true one-to-one support by someone who has been there, and done that. Adrian Smith (EPIS Director) would personally ring you up and find out how you were getting on. He made personal introductions and FORCED you to talk to customers instead of building product. You had regular weekly meetings in which you felt COMPELLED to have done something that week in order to report back on. EPIS never accepted more than 3-4 entrepreneurs per quarter. That’s about 12 a year (until its last tranche). Part of EPIS’s strength was that it provided an environment for a small dedicated group of people with similar ambition and desire to pull together. It’s strength was that it only accepted people who really wanted it. More importantly, Adrian wouldn’t let you sit in a seminar where you simply get TALKED at. You are forced to contribute. In fact, you can probably think of it as – not so much support – but more like coaching instead.
Entrepreneurs: You don’t get away with it either …
The entrepreneurs need to not play the underdog card either. Believe me, as much as there is the temptation to moan about the lack of support, at the end of the day, we have to make do we what we have. Entrepreneurs make the lemonade out of lemons. It is an unique combination of skill and desire that make the difference between a good business-person and a true entrepreneur. To truly succeed in a startup you need the right combination of work ethic, competitiveness, hunger and expertise. Don’t even begin to think about a work/life balance. In fact, when your workaholic friends start telling you that you work harder than they do — that’s when you know you’ve hit the right level of work.
“You find out life’s this game of inches. And so is football. Because in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small. I mean… one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the f***ing difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying! I’ll tell you this – in any fight, its the guy whose willing to die who’s gonna win that inch. And I know if I’m going to have any life anymore, it’s because I’m still willing to fight and die for that inch. Because that’s what living is! The 6 inches in front of your face…” (Al Pacino, Any Given Sunday)
So what now?
So, where does that leave us? Can we quit playing the blame game, and instead, invest our energies in each other.
Innovation Support people should listen more to the entrepreneurs and prepare to do whatever is necessary – no matter how resource intensive it is … believe me, producing 30 2-3 person companies is nowhere near as comparable as producing 4-5 £5mill companies.
Entrepreneurs – if you want specific help then be prepare to say, but make sure you’ve done the hard grafting too. The more successful you are, the more weight you add to your voice. Remember, always fight for that half an inch – because it’s often the difference between winning and losing.
Kate,
well said ‘The more successful you are, the more weight you add to your voice’
This kind of writing and the blogs to which it is responding, RT’d out to the world, are a huge help. Fred Wilson and Brad Feld blog about their successes and supporting actions in New York and Boston – Scotland needs a couple of investors to complement the startup viewpoint, to blog regularly about what works for them.
Anne Johnson
Brad Feld’s in Boulder, not Boston .. it’s still early here (sunny Silicon Valley)
Such a great post Kate. I’m glad you mentioned Mike Clouser and Adrian Smith. Both have done so much for local start-ups and also for the start-up culture in Edinburgh – I can’t say enough good things about those guys.
Innovation Support people – please understand that our start-ups are our lives. They’re not just jobs to us. If we seem aggressive at times it’s because we’re often, as Kate says, fighting for inches.
You’re in a position of great power over start-ups in many ways. Please take the time and energy to properly understand the playing field you’re operating in and get into dialogues with start-ups directly, openly and honestly.
Anything worth doing gets criticism and I really believe you can learn the most from your most critical customers – please don’t alienate them. I’m so grateful to the people who have cared enough to take the time to give me criticism about Vidiowiki and their efforts have made the site a much better product.
Overall, I love the Edinburgh start-up scene and I think it’s great that people like Kate care enough to give their own free time to helping it 🙂
Nicola
Anne – I completely agree. Would love to see more Scottish-based investors blog about their experiences. In fact, we would love to see someone like that post on startupcafe.
Nicola – thanks for you kind words. The Edinburgh startup scene is fantastic and we’re all so passionate about it because we want to see it grow and grow further. I hope we can be one of the coolest places for startups founders to be!
Kate – great post!
To my mind, the best companies are those who are just getting on with it: building and selling things that customers want. They aren’t always the ones turning up to all the events and making the noise however! Especially when they are B2B sales, they can’t necessarily shout about their achievements for reasons of confidentiality.
This leaves a gap, in that the startup scene doesn’t see successes of specialist companies with B2B markets because they don’t get value from the “scene” and thus don’t participate. Gigle is the perfect example of a hugely successful Edinburgh tech company (a $75m exit to Broadcom last year) that no-one I meet in the startup scene has ever heard of!
It would also be really good to have someone actively working to tell the stories of such businesses – seeking out those companies that are not shouting about their achievements, but yet are great examples to follow!
Maybe the best investment we could make would be to get someone full-time to for StartupCafe (or even TechCrunch!) to do this and so others have the opportunity to be inspired by their success!
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Great reading youur blog post