Two Banks of a Technology Pond

The British persona tends to be self-deprecating and reserved when it comes to trumpeting our successes and rather backwards at coming forwards when it comes to converting innovation and research into commercial reality, particularly when compared to our US counterparts.

There is a tendency in the UK to wait until something is proven before investing in it, whereas the USA has more of an appetite for risk. Americans will try something new, if it works they embrace it and believe more, if it doesn't they purse another opportunity. This non-deterministic approach contracts sharply with our tendency in the UK to want to make managed stepwise progress that avoids the risk of failure. The fact of life is that no matter how carefully you plan, you can't avoid some false starts and the need to backtrack and admit making mistakes are all part of the journey.

Having lived and worked on both sides of the pond, my experience is that its the balance between three essential elements of tech success: IP, management and money. And the stigma attached to failure. In the USA there are more tech entrepreneurs prepared to back early stage ideas that VCs or bankers (right so!) wouldn't take even a first look at. This business angel involvement at proof of concept enables new ideas to get one foot out of the lab and onto the radar screen of serious funders with some management DNA already spliced in. Similarly American VCs employ (or are started up) by more tech-savvy people, rather than being top heavy with lawyers and accountants (not that these skills aren't important!). American VC tend then to step in an put serious money into fewer companies that are in better shape to progress than those in the UK enabling a more of a seamless transition from idea to commercialisation

So maybe we need a little more joined-up thinking that combines money, enterprise, innovation and management...

Making Your Own Luck

Gary Player once remarked "It's funny, the more I practise, the luckier I get". So should a failed entrepreneur be given a second chance? The argument goes that you learn valuable learn valuable lessons from failure, so you should be more likely to succeed second time around. But others argue that experience gained from one failed business is unlikely to apply to a second, due to the unpredictability of chance. "You can't learn to win the lottery" No, but if you are lucky you can influence the amount you win (my tip, don't select the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 as 10,000 others have then!).

Getting into a position to profit from being a little bit lucky is probably was differentiates successful entrepreneurs, but no one is lucky all of the time. So whether you eventually profit from a bit of good business fortune is very much down to the experience of the management team. All you can do is deal yourself a good hand, but whether you win a particular pot or hole a specific putt is partially down to fate. Embracing this risk is what equity investing is all about. So if anyone says they have only been associated with success they have either are a one-trick pony or very, very lucky! In business, lessons are best learned from those who have been mainly successful...