BTW - Very nice discussion…

I’d make two exceptions:

(i) I think Martin Owen makes a good point - it is imho an untested trueism that 2nd / 3rd time entrepreneurs are actually the better bets. Many (most?) of the big home runs in each Tech Wave are 1st timers

(ii) if you look at the funding evidence, VC’s will often fund c Numbers 2-4 “Me-Toos” in any sector seen as high potential.

Anyways - I myself am a secong time startup looking for investment in a Local Business Reviews website http://www.thebusinesshours.co.uk and I would say that I have 75% completed product that just needs enhancing. But I am still trying to take this to 100% as soon as possible without wasting my time on chasing VS’s. Now, tha may be costing me a lot in the long run because the earlier I go globa- the more market share I will get, but quite frankly, there is always room for ‘’significant advance on current state of play”

Backing already successful winners is a good strategy …. but it means the odds the bookmaker will give you ain’t so good. By the time I have got a production prototype, patent, BOM, and production/distribution/revenue models sorted I think I will be a bit choosy about who I look to finance the exploitation.

You can develop with a mixture of personal financing,working part time and working evenings and weekends, and regional development finance, for those who are willing to stray form London. We may not go to the “right” networking meetings when you are some distance from Soho or San Jose, but there are other ways of making it.

@jamescoops - I think you are right, there isn’t enough co-foundering (if that’s even a word) going on here in the UK. I’m not suggesting we need more networking events, maybe people just need to pluck up the courage to say ‘I need help, will you join me’

The important part of his comment is the note that he is seeing no let-up in quality concepts coming to his doorstep. This has enabled him to raise his bar to look for quality across the deal - from concept to management team to market to proof-of-concept. In and of itself, this isn’t a bad thing, as long as there are others out there willing to provide capital for the deals which don’t reach Robin’s (and the other institutional VC’s) bar.

Bootstrapping a technology-based business is great if you’re a programmer or technologist with access to all of the tools of your trade. However, it is not as easy to achieve if an entrepreneur originates from the ‘commercial’ side — perhaps with detailed knowledge of a market and a potential area of need. Such an individual is less able to build a prototype him or herself, and will need funding to recruit the technical talent to do so. Is this commercial entrepreneur less valuable than the technical entrepreneur? Is his knowledge of a market less valuable than a technologist’s knowledge of the engineering? Is his start-up idea inherently less valuable than the technical entrepreneur? Robin’s statement — or at least his criteria — would seem to imply so, but I would disagree.

So if Robin and his ilk aren’t willing to kick in the initial seed money, where will it come from? In Silicon Valley (where I spent most of my career), this space is filled by the ample number of business angels - frequently ex-entrepreneurs who have made some money and are interested in staying in the game as an investor. The robustness of the Valley networks enables a smooth flow of information between would-be entrepreneurs and the informal investor community, such that quality ideas are able to find willing investment (and vice versa) even in those circumstances where all of Robin’s criteria are not met.

But here in the UK, despite recent developments, such a fluid network of investors and entrepreneurs does not yet seem to exist. Robin’s statement seems to imply that this vacuum should be met by friends and family. I believe this is a simplistic response. If the start-up ecosystem relies on such, it limits itself to those start-up ideas coming from people wealthy enough, or with friends and family who are wealthy enough (and I’d guess that there is a strong overlap between these two groups) to provide seed funding. But does this community represent 90% of the good start-up ideas? Or 20%? If the latter, then the UK clearly needs some facility to fill the capital vacuum left by the institutional investors. Otherwise some great UK ideas, and great potential UK start-ups, are going to fall through the cracks. And the US, with its wealth of angel investment and support, will continue to dominate the space.

Granted, I would challenge the first point. If I was a minted entrepreneur on my 2nd or 3rd outing, I would in theory have enough contacts and experience to trump the rest of Robert’s list quite easily (see Jason Calacanis, Loic Le Meur, Kevin Rose, etc).