Silicon Valley Isnt The Center Of The World

Herb Kim has a problem. The American CEO of British company Codeworks thinks there are a few things that people tend to get wrong about his adopted homeland. The biggest?

The obvious thing I disagree with is that trying to do a tech startup in the U.K. is hopeless that you should move to Silicon Valley if you want to have any hope at all, he says. Trying to do a tech startup anywhere in the world is bloody hard work, as we all know. To say that successful startups can only happen between San Jose and San Francisco is a bit of a joke: its lazy journalism and almost antithetical to the very nature of creativity and innovation.

He should know: as the head of a business that focuses on development and investment in Englands North East, hes seen plenty of growth despite being far removed from the West Coast bubble. This week his Thinking Digital conference, for example, will start having doubled in size since 2008, with more than 700 delegates in attendance. Hes also helped push investment in local companies, whether from nearby angels like the founders of software company Sage, or from broader sources such as the European Development Fund or British government.

The primacy of Silicon Valley is hard to get away from. Its a view thrown around regularly by many people, from Y Combinator founder! Paul Gr aham to the legion of foreign entrepreneurs who shift to California to try for the big time. And Kims got a vested interest in opposing them. Although hes a native New Yorker and former IBM manager, he moved to the U.K. more than 15 years ago. Since then, he has tried to help build up the local tech culture, particularly the area of England where Codeworks is based. Its been a tough job, not least because the area is traditionally pretty deprived.

That isnt to suggest there are no benefits to Silicon Valleys startup-friendly culture, of course. Lets be honest, the area benefits from decades of corporate technology investment and a huge venture capital base which together mean that the tech and startup industry has, in some ways at least, become the regions governing body. By comparison other areas, including the U.K., have governments that are sometimes too desperate to try to fill the gap. Kim recognizes the problem.

I do think countries and regions who want to compete in this space need to get their act together on facilitation and support of a digital or creative economy, he points out. But I emphasize facilitate and support as opposed to intervening with shiny new buildings and large wads of public money. Those things might be PR-friendly but they often cause as much negative distortion as they do positive results.

Indeed, Codeworks knows better than most that government support can be fickle. It started off as part of a regional development agency, but when a change of management changed the investment priorities soon afterwards, the cash ran out and the business span out on its own. Instead of turning tail, heading off to better climes, or simply shutting down, Kim stuck in there with serious benefits.

If something is a good idea, or answers a genuine need, you can find a way to do it even if traditional sources of investment are pulling out, he says. Our credibility with local industry has gone way up becau! se of it . We didnt just pack our bags and chase the money somewhere else. Weve stayed true to our original purpose and mission, and thats been well-received.

Its now a few years down the line, and things are starting to turn around locally.The development business is run as a non-profit, and Kim says the pump is primed in terms of angel money and venture capital, which is starting to flow in the North East. But he also wants to point out another misconception that lots of people make the idea that local investment and Silicon Valley are diametrically opposed. While launching outside the technology industrys traditional center of gravity is possible, the fact that youre outside Silicon Valley doesnt mean you have to pretend it doesnt exist. In fact, it works best when one can connect the two threads together.

Its easy to either be completely inwardly or outwardly focussed, but in our case it was really important that we both did good work within the North East, he says. But made sure we were relevant and connected to good people outside the North East.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription reqd):