You start out ordering a hamburger and you end up with a meal for three. In fast food, upselling results in larger meal portions – and larger clients. In enterprise software, upselling leads to a much more expensive result: Complexity.

In a case study published by a market leader marketing resource management solutions, one client’s story starts like this:

Initially we set out to create a marketing asset library

We all know how this goes:

The solution … evolved into much more than the simple asset library [we] initially set out to create

Of course it did. Do you want that digital asset management solution supersized? This wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t result in such complicated systems and long implementation times.

According to Gartner research, the average time it takes to implement the leading marketing resource management solutions is 5.9 months. So from the shaking of hands and lifting of glasses in the meeting where you decided to get your marketing assets in order you still have to wait almost half a year to see the plan bear fruition.

In 5 Reasons why Digital Asset Management is broken we outlined different reasons why digital asset managment software is still in the stone age. Why can’t you try a digital asset management solution as quickly and easily as you can try a customer relationshiop management solution (CRM)?

One of the culprits is the upsell. The vendor wants you to talk to him directly so he can estimate how much he can sell you. Following this they set out to write lots of tailor-made software which results in higher bills and a more complex system.

Brand Regard is changing this. Our mission is to fix digital asset management:

• You can start a 30 day free trial in minutes
• It’s a fully hosted software-as-a-service solution
• There are no set-up fees
• Most importantly of all: It’s as easy to use as Google, Amazon or Facebook.

Forget about ending up with a bells-and-whisltes solution that requires staff training. Forget about a 5.9 months implementation period. Brand Regard is easy to use and you can have your assets in our cloud within minutes.

This post originally appeared on the Brand Regard blog.

My talk was titled “Why Tech City?” and was about our experience of running a company in Iceland which is targeting London as its first market for international expansion.

About us: A tale of two cities

For a company like ours it makes perfect sense to base our development team in Reykjavík rather than London. Office space in London can cost more than fifty times what it costs in Reykjavík per square meter, the talent pool in Reykjavík is rich and the work ethic is strong. Skype was originally developed in Tallin, Estonia, which is still the company’s largest office.

But business development is a different story. With under 320 thousand inhabitants Iceland isn’t a big market. So every Icelandic startup is founded with the idea of expanding outwards. So where do you go? Silicon Valley? Berlin? Shanghai? We chose London.

The opportunity: London is huge – and it’s not just a technology hub

“Why London rather than Silicon Valley?” We get asked this a lot. Our flagship product, Brand Regard, is a software-as-a-service brand asset management application. Our target users are marketing and branding professionals and one of our routes to market is via advertising and branding agencies. There aren’t many cities in the world that rival London when it comes to targeting these kinds of companies.

Would it be easier for us to raise more funding if we were based in Silicon Valley? Maybe. Would it be easier to get traction? Not necessarily. And funding usually follows traction – not the other way around.

The challenge: London is huge – but the startup scene can help

Finding decision makers, setting up meetings, closing deals – most of this is harder and takes longer in London than in Reykjavík. Both because your support network won’t relocate along with your business and because London is one of the biggest cities in the world. This is where the city’s startup scene can be helpful.  Places like Tech Hub and networking events like the Silicon Roundabout Social Club (and many more) are full of people who, despite being busy building up their own business, are eager to help. This leads to introductions which lead to deals.

It remains to be seen where London’s recent growth in tech startups will lead and there is no cliché more tired than comparing a burgeoning tech scene to Silicon Valley. But thanks to the know-how that has been built up in London over the last decade, the city has become a very viable place to build a technology startup. And for enterprise software companies like ours, proximity to the client is at least as important as proximity to funding and early adopters.

Which is why we choose London.

By far the most enlightening articles I’ve come across on the  matter are two recent reviews of the Galaxy Nexus on TechCrunch:

• Pro-Android blogger Jason Kincaid decides in favour of the Galaxy Nexus: There And Back Again: A Lengthy Weighing Of The Galaxy Nexus And iPhone 4S
• Pro-iPhone blogger and tech writing heavyweight MG Siegler decides in favour of the iPhone 4S: An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Galaxy Nexus

Although the two authors reach two different conclusions, the unsurprising consensus is that the iPhone has a superior user interface. But it’s intangible. It’s the attention to detail, the little things. And it’s hard to describe. So, Siegler comes up with an analogy:

I imagine it’s probably hard for a Mercedes owner to describe to a Honda owner how attention to detail makes their driving experience better when both machines get them from point A to point B.

Superblogger and Mac enthusiast John Gruber concurs and adds that:

You either see [the iPhone's UI superiority] or you don’t. If you don’t, that’s cool, enjoy your Nexus.

Joshua Topolsky however, who writes for the tech blog Verge, does not concur. He writes a response to Siegler’s piece titled “Horseshit“, where he contends that only elitist capitalist pigs use Mercedes analogies when discussing mobile phones. MS Siegler responds here.

This is all very entertaining, but where does it leave us? Galaxy Nexus or iPhone? Marx or Engels?

I’m leaning towards the Nexus. To stick with the automobile analogies, I’m going for the somewhat clunky Batmobile rather than the super smooth Mercedes. Maybe because the Batmobile is better integrated with the various Google services, because it plays nicer with 3rd party apps (even if they always look uglier) or because Google strike me as being less evil than Apple – albeit, only slightly so.

I can see that the iPhone has a superior UI – I get it. But I’m still probably going for the Nexus.

Research shows that more than half of Silicon Valley’s tech startups are founded by immigrants. Someone noticed. Tech City, the UK government’s initiative to turn London into “the digital capital of Europe”, is now doing its utmost to reach out to European startups and convince them to set up camp in London.

One of the most important factors about Tech City is that it’s not just a government initiative. It wasn’t designed by a committee or dreamt up by a think tank. It’s an organic product that grew out of a unique set of circuimstances: Talented techies, (relatively) cheap office space and a city that is a world leader in countless industries. Over the last five years or so there has been an explosion in the number of tech companies starting up in London and Tech City is starting to get more and more press (see the Guardian’s “The Magic Roundabout” or Business Insider’s “Get To Know The Startups In London’s Tech City“).

I’ve been very impressed by the effort being put into Tech City recently, especially on the international side of it. The company I co-founded, Transmit (some know us as Brand Regard, which is our flagship product), has its headquarters in Reykjavík, Iceland. We are convinced that Tech City is the right place for us to expand our operations. From what I’m hearing from other European entrepreneurs, we’re not alone.

Mysterious looking Google-sponsored cocktails, VCs from top-tier funds, entrepreneurs ranging from the almost-started to the Y-combinator graduated to the fully VC funded, representatives from France (NOT Paris), Slovenia, the US and China. It can only be: The Silicon Roundabout Social Club (#SRSC).

Hosted by Mixcloud and sponsored by Google, Accel, Springboard and IC Tomorrow, SRSC is becoming one of the better startup related networking events being held in London. Yesterday was the third meetup and it was a great success.

There is substance behind the “Silicon Roundabout” hype. The area around Earth’s most uninviting road junction, next to Old Street station, certainly is becoming a hub for startups and the events hosted by companies like MixCloud and TechHub are both useful and entertaining.

Gluggers chatting in Cargo's beer garden

On one hand it is the hip and cool hub for both the technological and creative side of the UK’s digital industry, the birthplace of Last.fm, TechHub and numerous cutting edge agencies. On the other it is a slightly run-down and rough area, named after a king’s mistress called Shore who died in a local ditch. It is Shoreditch.

With its mixture of cool and slightly rough Shoreditch is the archetypical London neighbourhood. It is also home to the UK’s answer to Silicon Valley: The Silicon Roundabout.

In yesterday’s networking I managed to drop by at both the tech and creative side of the Silicon Roundabout. At TechHub the Roundabout Brewery was launching and nearby the club Cargo played host to Glug London, a bi-monthly gathering of agencies and creative folk.

Glug was a blast, as always. Where else would you meet freelance flash artists, founders, managers and account directors of various digital agencies that work with global brands – and a comic artist? Since I was killing two birds with one stone I arrived a few minutes late. And my tip for future Glug visitors: Don’t do that. The vault where the talks take place was packed and I couldn’t get in. Which did leave more time to meet people in Cargo’s excellent beer garden.

Sampling the Roundabout Brewery products at TechHub

The Roundabout Brewery Launch at TechHub was also very good. Apart from the always interesting mix of entrepreneurs there were also some excellent samples to be had of the Roundabout Brewery beer, complete with the opportunity to provide user feedback.

One evening, two events, lots of interesting people and no one I know got mugged. All in all, another successful networking evening in the Silicon Roundabout.

Today at the farmer's market in Bloomsbury, next to the Open Coffee venue

Every week in the heart of Bloomsbury, London, entrepreneurs, investors, techies and other like minded people meet up at a café in the UCL University campus and brainstorm. Most of them have never met before. Some are looking for feedback on their ideas, some are looking for potential business partners or co-founders and some are doing market research. Everyone is trying to make new connections.

They’ve shown up for Open Coffee.

Open Coffee was started in early 2007 by Saul Klein of renowned VC firm Index Ventures.  After being covered by Channel 4 News it exploded. Every week dozens of people would show up, looking to fund their startup, invest in a startup or find an already funded startup to work for.

What’s remarkable isn’t the above sequence of events. What’s remarkable is that Open Coffee became self-sustainable. In 2007 every other person would ask you: “Where’s Saul Klein? My startup is the next MySql!” Today, people ask: “What are you up to? How can we help each other?”

I haven’t been to a single Open Coffee event yet that hasn’t resulted in new, useful connections. Today was no different. I met people from startups such as vouchAR, a technologist from the Technology Strategy Board and many others. Walking out into the sunshine and heading for the Farmer’s Market, which is right next to the Open Coffee venue, I decided I would have to incorporate going to Open Coffee into my routine. After running every week for four years – it still really is that useful.

“Pardon?”

“BLADDERED AGAIN?” I repeated.

She looked at me like I had delivered the worst pick-up line in history.

“Oh, erm, you misunderstood. I’m married.”

“I can’t hear  you!” she said, shaking her head.

“I’M MARRIED.”

She peered her eyes at me, shaking her head, and then turned abruptly around and walked away. Apparently, she wasn’t there for the networking event. Oops.

Yesterday I went to an event called Bladdered Again. It’s one of the main networking events for London’s creative industry, which is a part of Brand Regard‘s client-base.

At networking events, normal rules of etiquette are suspended. It’s perfectly fine to address a stranger or join a random ongoing conversation. People are there to meet others, make connections and drink beer while their at it. What makes Bladdered Again slightly different is that it’s held at the local pub of whichever agency is hosting it. Which means mixing pedestrians with networking-crazies. Worlds collide. It’s part of the charm.

Yesterday’s Bladdered Again was an excellent event. I met entrepreneurs, art-directors, copy writers along with lots of other interesting people. Regulars told me the last event, which apparently had a tequila theme, was much wilder. Last night’s event was very good though, and hosting it in various agency-frequented pubs in and around Soho is a good idea. Even if it can lead to misunderstandings by the bar from time to time.

©TechHub

Fred Destin, partner at Atlas Venture which has companies such as Daily Motion, Zoopla and Seatwave in its portfolio, gave a talk at TechHub today (I told you TechHub was doing lots of quality events). Atlas has been an early investor in some interesting companies and Fred offered 30 or so TechHub members some insight and advice on the complete cycle of starting a tech venture, building it up and then scaling it to the stars and beyond.

The lean methodology is all the rage these days, and it was a big part of the talk. The jist of the talk was this: Don’t treat it as a religion, it’s a method. And it applies 90% of the time.

For more on “Lean Startups”, Fred recommended a trinity of thinkers:

• God: Steven Gary Blank (of Four steps to the epiphany)
• Jesus: Eric Ries (of The Lean Startup)
• Mary the honorary European: Alex Osterwalder (of Business Model Generation)

Other resources recommended were David Skok’s site if you’re in the enterprise business, and Dave McClure’s “startup metrics for pirates“. According to my father in-law, the uglier the cake, the better it tastes. The same applies for the metrics for pirates talk. Ugly as hell, but very good (my words, not Freds!).

For those who haven’t heard of it, TechHub is a co-working space and community where tech-oriented entrepreneurs meet, work, socialise and learn from each other and leading figures in the industry. They’ve hosted Jimmy Wales and been name-checked by Eric Schmidt.

But TechHub is not only a hub for the London startup scene: They’re a fast growing startup in their own right. It will be interesting to see where the team behind it take it.

This particular members’ drinks event was a blast and as always, there were lots of interesting people with interesting companies and ideas. Among them were Doublas Clark from 360 Amigo, Dimitar Stanimiroff from Stack Exchange, Anna Hill from Space Synapse, Saif Bonar from Freelancer, Fabrizio Bartolini from Imbarco and Andrew White from FundApps. From mobile CRM systems to hedge funds and space travel, it was a diverse crowd.

TechHub has lots of other events coming up, and I look forward to attending many of them.