HN Explorer

London Startup Map (roundabout.io)

74 points by sarhus ↗ HN
Inspired by http://mappedinny.com/ (and the recent siliconvalley one) here's a London version. It was built as an excuse to learn about Backbone.js and play with MapBox API.

Source code available here: https://github.com/rosario/digitalmap.

32 comments

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sarhus
Inspired by http://mappedinny.com/ here's a London version. It was built as an excuse to learn more about Backbone.js and play with MapBox's API.

Source code here: https://github.com/rosario/digitalmap.

Any comments and feedback are always welcome

wlj
Great tool. Thanks for this. Can already see a few neighbours I didn't know we had.

Edit: Can I suggest the addition of a "construction" category to your sector list?

sleepyhead
Any plans to add any license to that code?
fabrygio
very nice, do you think it is possible to make it available also for other cities?
harrytuttle
Social, social, social, social, social, social.

I was expecting to see some "non-social" startups in the city...

simonbarker87
Most non social start ups in the UK are outside London in my experience
_mulder_
I Agree. Where are all the entrepreneurs doing 'proper' stuff. I don't want another way to connect to a niche group of geeks using a very specific app.

London is the heart of Finance, there must be someone developing advanced trading algorithms or something cool. Perhaps they don't spend their days on twitter advertising their services so much.

harrytuttle
There are a few of us on HN. We're not startups though :)
simonebrunozzi
Amen. Finally. I keep seeing too many "social" ones, they grab all the attention. Where are the others?
harrytuttle
Probably not trendy and useless enough to get funded :)
zcrar70
we[1] are a fintech startup based in london... There are a couple of others too - Seedrs are based in Shoreditch, MarketInvoice is in W1, but a few of the others are slightly further out (e.g Nutmeg is in Vauxhall from memory, we're in Crouch End.)

Edit: a few I forgot - and I'm surely missing several more - Zopa (W1), Abundance Generation (W12), and of course - Wonga (W1)...

[1] http://www.rplan.co.uk

phames
Nice idea. But I'm either being stupid or it's barfing - have completed all fields but getting an 'all fields required' error.
sarhus
It's probably a typo in the email or url field. I really need to put better validation messages. Sorry about that.
mattbee
I've just added my hosting company - we're a little outside London though (York).
phames
Hurray for Bytemark! :)
simonbarker87
Glad to see a non London company added themselves - there's a lot more to the UK startup scene that what is going on in London. In fact there are many reasons against starting a company in London
ottbot
Could you share some of these reasons? High rent, high salaries I'm sure, but I'd be interested to know what other reasons have.
simonbarker87
You've hit the two main ones on the head but the third is more intangible. In London it seems (to outsiders) that people are just trying to emulate SV, this means that you're competing in an international and, most likely, saturated market that doesn't align with what the rest of the UK is traditionally best at.

The UK was built on trade and engineering that mostly started outside London to avoid the Guilds and their stupid rules. I think being outside London gets you closer to these skills and experience and makes you focus more on building a business and less on following international, sexy hype.

I say it a lot but the best place to make money is in unsexy markets, and outside London there are a shed load of unsexy markets desperate for young start ups to dive in.

Don't get me wrong, there are some incredible companies in London doing amazingly well but there is a lot of dross too.

seddona
Nice idea, just added CircuitHub
groundCode
just clicking around and hit a link to aquafide who: "develops and distributed innovative and sustainable water treatment solutions for municipal and industrial customers" but seem to have a website that is "First Car"? very very odd.

other than that - neat idea

killermonkeys
This map and many others include digital/creative agencies. They may be startups in the sense of new companies, but if we accept that definition why not include every new lawyer, restaurant, or retailer? Agencies are contractors and they don't own the value they build in a product. I hate to be bitchy and don't begrudge agencies but I think they're fundamentally different to tech startups.
kvcrawford
As an agency developer, I agree wholeheartedly.
jongold
Good stuff - just added Makeshift :)

Such an exciting time to be in London; the scene here is kicking ass right now!

andyjohnson0
Is there any reason why this site is limited to London startups? Does this geographical restriction add any value over a national startup map?

Hint for Londoners: Zoom the map out at bit and it shows other places. These places have names like Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, and are located in the areas of the UK that are not London. People live in these places, and there are startups there too.

In fact, there's already a good UK startup map: http://techbritain.com/

sarhus
Andy, the only reason it's because I live here. I'm happy to see marks also in Bristol, Manchester, etc etc.

Also, the frontend code is on github, feel free to grab it, modify as you wish and add another city.

simonbarker87
Well said, it's difficult to describe the uk vs london feeling their is right now (in most secotrs, not just start ups) but this does a good job at getting the sentiment across.

I think the reason comments like this (and mine in a lower down thread) are made is because, unlike SV, London doesn't have a 50 year history of producing tech and innovation en masse yet seems to grab a huge portion of the start up attention and energies.

knes
Pusher.com isn't even listed. I sent a request.
damianmcmillan
This is a really cheeky one, but is (sortof) relevant. I run an IT consultancy doing the usual desktop/server support work, and have worked with a couple of startups. Both decried the lack of decent (cheap!) IT support for developers, so they could focus on developing software rather than fixing PCs, and setting up networks.

Does anyone have any suggestions where would be the best place to network with other startups or techie businesses to offer our services to them?