Posted on March 20, 2014

Jase writes about his his third day in San Francisco which includes: the British Consulate, venture capital and how to do business in Silicon Valley.

Our sleep pattern hasn't improved at all. We were both up at 3:30am today and in the empty hotel reception working on our pitch by 4:30am.

Today is our 'being Welsh' day. Organised by the Welsh Government, we are visiting the British Consulate for some talks on how to do business in Silicon Valley, how businesses are set up compared with the UK, and how to obtain cash from venture capitalists.

So, after another paper plated breakfast buffet, suited and booted, we met the rest of the group in reception at 8:30am in time for our bus to the consulate.

The Consulate is located in downtown San Francisco, the financial district. Located within the maze of skyscrapers within a 10 block radius here are the homes of Twitter, Airbnb, Instagram, Dropbox and many many more. It's basically the home of 90% of the apps on your smartphone.



First up was Jill Scott from the Welsh Government who is based here in San Francisco welcoming us to the consulate and briefly introducing us to what today would bring.

Eric Bakken, the Vice-Consul with UK Trade and Investment, came next to speak to us about why the area is so conducive to tech start-ups and why so much money gets sunk into start ups in the area. It's all about attitude.

There seems to be a massive difference in attitude towards innovation here. There are so many venture capitalists just waiting to find the next big thing and make even more money. They realise that not everything will make them money but they're attitude is more 'if you plant enough seeds'.

It's a very different way of thinking to how projects are funded in the UK where investment is so much harder to find, and when it is, it can sometimes come with so many conditions that it instantly becomes counter productive to true innovation.

There really doesn't seem to be any fear of failure here. It's almost welcomed as a badge of honour... that you've tried to do something, and aren't going to give up until you've made your mark on the world.

Next came a seasoned San Francisco lawyer to tell us about how doing business in California is different to the UK from a legal point of view.

Imagine a typical American hard ass, larger than life lawyer. A character straight out of 'Law and Order', or 'The Good Wife' and you will instantly get the kind of guy this is. I was willing someone in the group to shout 'objection!!!' mid sentence to see his reaction. This was definitely the guy you would want on your side of the fence.

So to reduce his 20 minute talk into one easy sound bite..."it's very complicated, and very expensive... but look, it's so sunny here."

Lastly, a representative from the worlds largest venture capitalist company, NEA spoke about the practicalities of obtaining venture capital.

After making it sound very straight forward to obtain millions of dollars of funding, a very astute member of the group asked about the chance of a UK based company obtaining funding in this way to which we were told... practically 0% unless you relocate. Useful! There were a few nuggets of information that he provided that proved useful in pitching our ideas to games publishers etc however.

Over of the best things about San Francisco, downtown in particular, is that free, fast Wi-Fi is rife. Dan and I managed to FaceTime our family whilst standing right there on the sidewalk outside the Consulate. A very surreal experience.

We then caught a traditional 60's streetcar back up to Fisherman's Wharf and back to the hotel for a change of clothes and another couple of hours of working on our pitch.

This evening we visited the British Consulate Generals' residence for a drinks reception located in a street of mansions and perfectly landscaped gardens. Our bus pulled up and we all streamed in.



Many canapés and much red wine was consumed by all and these smart little pin's were presented to us all.



Our full photoset of the trip can be found at our Flickr pages.