|
It sounds apocryphal but I'm told it's true.
How a budding tech tycoon travelled for a solid 27 hours from Scotland's
Silicon Glen to Silicon Valley. As he emerged from LAX customs, the
venture capitalist he was due to meet shepherded him into a reserved
side room for a 3-minute elevator pitch, 5 minutes but only if there's
time.
For his entrepreneurial nous, and with his return flight home already
purring on the baked tarmac outside, our fledgling entrepreneur got the
gig.
It augers well for a trusty band of Scottish digital start-ups who are
about to hit the Valley running. A new initiative aims to rapidly
establish a new era, building on the country's age old renowned
inventiveness that brought the world the telephone, television and Dolly
the Sheep.
Of course, the ideal would have been to ease oneself into the unique Los
Angeles scene by having a power shower, then dressed casually imbibing
an LA Cocktail - just the one - followed by a spot of dinner at the
hotel. Before having an early night to ensure one was wide awake and
rarin' to go with pitch script to hand the following morning.
I have it on good authority that the likes of remote Teams and Zoom
one-to-ones are all well and good, it's just they're well remote!
However, and despite the Valley's reputation for slickness and getting
things done, they really do like to see a candidate seeking
collaborative expertise, and funds, up close and personal.
Rather old fashioned it might seem but pressing the flesh still goes
down well. It shows one has made the effort and is treating their
prospective investor(s) with a deserved reverence and respect. Realising
time is money and how Stateside VCs and business angels expect a bang
for their bucks. In short measure.
Remember the "Glen"?
Scotland's central belt triangle had its origins in the electronics
business with Ferranti in Edinburgh in 1943, joined by Marconi and Barr
& Stroud then Honeywell, NCR and IBM. Many others followed and at its
peak the country around 30 per cent of Europe's PCs, 80 per cent f its
workstations and 65 per cent of ATMs. Unfortunately, with the collapse
of the global hi-tech economy in 2000 many pulled out.
On the bright side and bringing matters up to date, today the Scotland
offers a significantly more diversified offering to the investment
fraternity, one more based on encouraging and developing home-grown
talent, as reported by my former Sunday Times senior colleague Terry
Murden, now Editor & Owner of Daily Business out of Edinburgh, for whom
I produce a monthly "Tech Talk" column sponsored by Exception the
country's leading indigenous cloud solutions expert.
To this end, a techscaler pilot hub has launched in the Valley, backed
by the Scottish Government, to help an initial dozen promising start-ups
build contacts with international investors and customers, ranging from
health to space technologies. Tech incubator CodeBase is running the
programme with the aim of making the hub in San Francisco a permanent
presence adjacent to the city's VC finance district with easy access to
the Valley tech community.
The initiative builds on Scotland Chief Entrepreneur Mark Logan's
ongoing work and the government's £42 million ($53m) investment in the
Techscaler network, a nationwide tech startup support programme to build
the Scottish tech ecosystem involving start-up education, mentorship,
workspaces and a partnerships network extending well beyond the
country's shores.
Since its launch in 2022 Techscaler has recruited 643 start-up founder
members across 517 companies. Every single one prepped by possessing the
necessary entrepreneurial skills, including being highly nimble when it
comes to making that inevitable elevator pitch... |
