Dean Hopkins, CEO at OneEleven, on what London can learn from Toronto’s tech scaleup scene.
Amid the praise for the UK’s tech startup success stories of recent years, there has been a nagging criticism that founders have a tendency to sell themselves short by exiting ‘too early’. While there is evidently a combination of factors behind this ‘early exit syndrome’, one often-touted reason is a lack of ambition. To my mind, that’s harsh.
Of course, the UK and Europe have produced unicorns (from Spotify to Skyscanner, Darktrace to Monzo), other success stories that compete on an equal footing with Silicon Valley peers, and others still that have moved to the Valley and grown. But it’s understandable that some founders might be intimidated by the idea that success is a question of ‘the Silicon Valley way or the highway’, and decide to hand over the reins....