非美国公司在硅谷取得成功的最佳案例

    伦敦，下一个创业乐园

    从东伦敦日趋活跃的“硅环岛”(Silicon Roundabout)可以看出，如今英国的高科技产业远比Huddle创立时更加强壮。麦克洛克林说，这种局面非常令人鼓舞。

    “我们最初创业时，英国的高科技产业规模还不够大，”他说。“一只手就能数完知名的初创公司，比如LastMinute.com, Wonga, Mind Candy和Moo。”

    今天，伦敦高科技产业的景象更接近于硅谷，尽管依然小很多。麦克洛克林说，这里是一个设立运营基地的好地方。

    “在伦敦运营大规模团队的成本要低得多，”他说。“在这里聘用一位天才工程师的成本大约只是硅谷的一半到三分之二。这一点往往会给人们带来惊喜。另一个好处是，在英国更容易招募到东欧的人才。由于宽松的人力资源政策，科技精英可以自由流动。而美国的人才储备库主要以本土员工为主，除非公司的规模足够大，有财力资助外来员工。”

    麦克洛克林说，旧金山湾区和伦敦之间逐渐呈现出双向交流的趋势。

    “美国企业，比如Yammer, Dropbox和HubSpot，已经涌入英国和都柏林等地，开始在这些地区建立二级工程中心，”他说。此外，“比起印度和中国，美国跟英国和爱尔兰的文化重合度显然要高得多。这里是创建第二团队的好地方，对于那些有意打入欧洲市场的企业来说，尤为如此。”

    尽管如此，英国仍然需要做大量的工作，才能真正打造出朝气蓬勃的高科技创业景象。

    “伦敦需要一些知名的风投资本退出案例，”麦克洛克林说。“只有看到第一波上市潮，比如Wonga, Mind Candy或SkyScanner完成IPO，人们才会对英国和欧洲的初创公司更有信心，相信它们可以走完创业历程，收获成功。到那时，我们将看到更多的天使投资，更多的收购案例，从而形成大家在硅谷时经常看到的那种良性循环：由于有人给他们投资，他们随后给予相应的回报，最终实现各方共赢。”

    Huddle正在大张旗鼓地招募人才，麦克洛克林说，他的最终目标就是促使这家公司成功上市。

    “这是一段令人难以置信的旅程，”他说。“随着公司不断壮大，日益成熟，每一年的工作都充满了新的挑战，完全不同于最初的孵化阶段。现在的工作重点在于执行，调整，产品管理，真正把它变成一家具有足够大规模的公司。谁知道未来几年会发生什么事情？这一幕将在未来某个时点出现，只是我现在还不知道具体是什么时候。”（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    Giving London a harder look

    Britain's technology scene is far more robust today than it was when Huddle was founded, with an increasingly vibrant "Silicon Roundabout" in East London. It's very encouraging, McLoughlin said.

    "When we first started in U.K., there wasn't a big tech scene," he said. "You could count the number of notable startups on one hand such as LastMinute.com, Wonga, Mind Candy, and Moo."

    Today, London's scene is much closer to -- albeit smaller than -- Silicon Valley's. It's a great place to have your base of operations, McLoughlin said.

    "London is much cheaper to run an operational team at scale," he said. "Talented engineers are anywhere between half and two-thirds of the cost in Silicon Valley. That tends to surprise people. The other benefit is the U.K. has close access to talent in Eastern Europe, and people can fly in and out because of mobility of labor. In the U.S., the talent pool is U.S. workers unless you are big enough to sponsor workers."

    It's slowly becoming more of a two-way exchange between the San Francisco Bay Area and London, McLoughlin said.

    "U.S. businesses such as Yammer, Dropbox, and HubSpot are already coming to places like the U.K. and Dublin to build out secondary engineering centers," he said. Plus, "there is a really nice cultural overlap between the U.S. and U.K. and Ireland than, say, dealing with India or China. It is the perfect place for a second team especially if you are looking to sell in to Europe."

    Still, there remains much work to be done in Britain to build out the country's burgeoning startup scene.

    "What London needs is a number of notable exits," McLoughlin said. "Seeing a few of the first wave such as Wonga, Mind Candy, or SkyScanner getting to IPO will give confidence that British and European startups can go the entire way and be successful. What we will then see is more investment through angels or acquisitions, then you get the virtuous circle you see in Silicon Valley where people make money and because someone invested in them, they return the favor."

    With more Huddle hires on way, McLoughlin says he has an eye on an eventual initial public offering.

    "It has been an incredible journey," he said. "As the company has grown and matured, it has felt like a different job each year from the initial incubation stages through the growth, and now it is all about the execution, alignment, and product management and really turning it into as big a company as we possibly can. Who knows what is going to happen in the next few years. It is going to happen at some point. I just don't know when."