Where is your Bucks of Woodside?
February 26 Mike Butcher
Over many years Bucks of Woodside in Silicon Valley has become known as a place where entrepreneurs and venture capitalists meet over coffee or brunch to discuss their next project. As you can see from the video of owner Jamis Macniven below, Hotmail was started there, at table 15. Of course, other ‘normal’ people go there for breakfast, but it helps that you can ‘run into’ fellow startups and VCs there. Even Valleywag has looked for spies there. Today there are many more places in the Valley where startups go to network, even kite-surfing.
However, here in the UK and wider Europe we are only just really getting going with the whole startup schtick. We need places to hang out in and meet each other. Yes, OpenCoffee has been a great engine of networking startups and investors across Europe. But this is essentially a networking event and although it happens in a real venue, what do you do the rest of the time? Simultaneously, many startups are grappling with the high cost of office space, especially in the UK. Projects like the Social Media Cafe, established by Lloyd Davis, are proving to be a great success amongst consultants and agencies, but that is focused on social media, not on startups (and fair enough).
But there are things we can take away from Social Media Cafe and Bucks which would help startups. These are: desk space (or ‘cafe table’ space) for on-the-go working, coffee, the right ‘crowd’ of similar minded people, an easy to access location (with public transport). It goes without saying that you need WiFi. It would help, also, if it wasn’t so out in the wild country that the odd VC or Angel investor could not stop by. Perhaps the obvious choice - at least in London - might be a converted warehouse near the Heathrow Express in Paddington!
So, here’s the question: Where do you hang out to work on your startup? Do you hang at the local coffee shop? Would you love to have a place where other people like you could run into each other? And are there any cafe/restaurant entrepreneurs out there who would like to create a franchised brand of tech-focused restaurants across Europe? Hell, a guy can dream…
Comments
February 26th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Maybe the UK equivalent of Bucks is a greasy spoon?
Would be great if there was a place where us start-up types could drop into, grab a coffee or lunch with other like-minds… I’d certainly go on my trips down to London (Which are becoming much more regular)
Although to some extend some of the new start-up tech help work around this. A tweet saying “I’m in Soho, anyone fancy a coffee” makes any coffee shop a Bucks (If you have enough followers).
February 26th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Mike, Bucks is more of a meeting place. You wouldn’t really see a start-up “working” there. They may be “working” an investor to get at their money but that’s about the extent. What makes Bucks successful is the rich residential area around it where a bunch of VC’s live. So, technically a VC easily goes to breakfast and bangs out a meeting or two at the same time before heading into the office (or the golf course). I totally agree though that this “style” of working or networking needs to take a far greater hold in Europe. I was just recently twittering on how rare it is that I do breakfast meetings here in Germany. At the same time, whenever I go out to the Valley for a week, I have breakfast meetings every day!
I like your approach of recommending something near Paddington. Everyone passes through that area when in London. May be a good start.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Hi Mike,
Indeed there is a great need for a Bucks type of place here in London. Before we found our offices we used to meet very often at the 5th View Bar in Piccadilly, where we bumped into other entrepreneurs from time to time.
Oddly enough it is in this same bar that we had a chance encounter with Ivan Storck an entrepreneur from San Francisco early last year, you can see the little video we did of this chance encounter: (http://trustedplaces.com/blog/2007/03/16/its-a-small-world/)
In general we support initiatives by Lloyd Davis and look forward to spending more time in the Social Media Cafe ourselves
Walid
February 26th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Paul J - Ok, so in that case we have to find out where all the London VCs live and then start a breakfast place near there? Hmmnnnn….. Ain’t gonna happen! Unless we can catch the money guys at some kind of hub. It looks like I’m going to go research cafes in Paddington…
February 26th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Good point Walid: Here’s the 5h View site http://www.5thview.co.uk/
Maybe that’s our “default Bucks” for now?
February 26th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Watershed ( http://www.watershed.co.uk ) in Bristol is the place to be in the West Country. Lots of like minded folks, an environment which positively encourages digital media and people who like it, and a city centre location. Macs that you can use, every second person is actually using a MacBook or similar, coffee on tap, power too. If you get bored you can always go see a film!
Lots of people use the cafe space as a workspace its also very popular as a meeting space, in fact the only problem for VC’s would be working out who was just looking cool with their MacBook and who was actually doing something interesting! Perhaps those people should invest in signage?
The problem is, I don’t think there are many potential investors around, which is a shame and also they seem slightly more risk averse in the UK, which makes it much more difficult.
Watershed is still great though
Drop by if you are in Bristol.
February 26th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Mike, let me know when you find it. Or build it and they will come!
February 26th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Mike, thanks for the mention - we’re going to keep pushing on - I’m encouraged by the experience we’ve had so far, but also by what you’ve been writing about.
And for your readers who don’t know, I consider there to be quite an overlap between the people we’re trying to serve and the tech-startup crowd. Most people I’ve met at Open Coffee for example are interested if not fully involved in some sort of social media or online social networking activity. Everyone’s welcome at Social Media Café! Though we haven’t seen many VC’s hanging out there… yet.
Paddington is a really good idea, in fact I was sent details for a couple of places that way when we first started. And now I know it’s on the way to watershed…
Walid - looking forward to seeing you one Friday, I know you know where we are
February 27th, 2008 at 8:03 am
In the mid-90s people would hang out at Cyberia in Whitfield Street. In the late 90s the locus of startup interaction moved to events such as First Tuesday. The places such as the Media Club made a bit of a bit to attract the new media crowd. But in the current era there has been no locus I have been aware of. Part of the problem is that the group of ‘players’ has increased in size and geographical distribution, making it more difficult to go to one place to network. Despite Silicon Valley players being geographical dispersed it is easier to get around by car, particularly if you can avoid highways 101 and 280. Getting to Bucks is probably a good deal easier for most than getting to Cyberia ever was.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Whereas I realise the UK does orbit around London, Regional Development Agencies, and the Wales and Scottish governments have done much to create convivial spaces around incubation units with nice stylish caffs and spare low-cost hire meeting facilities: - Presentation facilities to impress your investors, privacy to talk to your patent attorney Many of these are linked to the local university. The London Development Agency and the many London Universities will have done the same- you do not have to be a spin-out. But there will be ambient tech-biz speak. (I have just moved into http://www.wda.co.uk/index.cfm/cast_technium/technium/en6311)
Surely the idea that hanging around some coffee house, thinking cool thoughts, on the off chance that Michael Morritz will plonk his espresso doble next to you is mythology. getting that right attention is a lot harder than networking - although that is part of the mix.
I used to work in the Watershed building and I can confirm it is a cool place to be - but it isn’t the place to seek investors. Is Soho House so Web 1.0? In London I sometimes use the Royal Society for Arts - but that may reflect my generation.
NESTA seem to want to develop rich creative mixes - perhaps they can establish the Lloyds Coffee House of the C21st!
February 27th, 2008 at 11:20 am
In Edinburgh it has to be Black Medicine (http://www.list.co.uk/place/100776-black-medicine-coffee-company/).
Good coffee, free wireless but the seats are none to comfy so it isn’t one for spending all day at. Also the guys next to you are more likely to be talking about local gigs or their history essay than fund raising and term sheets that seems to be all the conversation in University Coffee in Palo Alto!
March 1st, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Mike, as you well know, and shame on you for not mentioning it, Brighton is where it’s all happening. And you may say that it’s more about agencies *so far* in Brighton, but there is hush hush and strictly on the QT talk of some kind of startups environment here, not of the predictable university kind but more influenced by things like Y Combinator. No more can be said, but Brighton it is…
Secondly, The Breakfast Club cafe, D’Arblay Street (IIRC), Soho, as anointed by the legendarious Russell Davies in his nice cup of tea and a sit down blog, offers free wifi, wobbly wooden stalls and is rammed to the gills with young people leaning over laptops plotting startup type adventures together. And just over the road from your old muckers NMA too - well worth a visit for any in-town laptop-lugger needing wifi and a caffeine hit.