Earlier this week, Andy and I submitted our application for Web Mission 2008.
The event will see 20 UK Web 2.0 companies travel to San Francisco to explore new opportunities for growth with key people in Silicon Valley. It will be showcasing innovative UK web talent, seek meaningful assistance for companies ready for expansion, and provide a platform for those involved to gain valuable media and business exposure.
Serial networker and entrepreneur Oli Barrett has joined forces with social impact facilitators Polecat to organise the event which runs from 19th-25th April.
The chosen companies will have their trip subsidised, and partners of the event include UK Trade & Investment, Doug Richard (Dragon’s Den and CEO of Library House), TechCrunch, HSBC and Make Your Mark. Also assisting with the event are Bob Goodson, Kirill Makharinsky and the guys at YouNoodle, Michael Birch (CEO, Bebo) and various other ex-pats who are now making a name for themselves in the Valley.
Having visited Silicon Valley last year, Andy and I have some idea of the value of these sort of experiences. Michael’s comments affirmed this:
“The Web Mission represents an amazing opportunity for the best of entrepreneurial UK talent to visit Silicon Valley, and learn for themselves the differences that make the US a breeding ground for innovation and more importantly successful execution of ideas.”
And I particularly like the point about execution. How many UK Web companies have successfully executed ideas on the global stage in recent years? LastMinute.com, Last.FM, Skype (not UK founders though). How many other technology-based Web companies? There are embarrassingly few. How about the US? Well, already this year we’ve seen MySQL exit to Sun Microsystems for $1 billion, Microsoft bid $44 billion for Yahoo! (albeit in vein so far), a TechCrunch source says that an acquisition of Bebo (built and executed in the US) for $1 billion is “definitely happening”…and we’re only just over half way through February!
With the right network of contacts – the right investors, partners and market specialists, there’s no reason why the UK can’t produce successes with much higher frequency. Web Mission is a firm step in the right direction.
We want GroupSpaces to be further evidence that it’s possible to build globally successful companies from the UK. We want to be part of this event.
Wish us luck!
Posted by davidlanger 
Freed from The Matrix 