Cambridge Cluster

Yvonne loves to go to the auctions and I go along.  Learning so much not only about the amount of junk so many of us hord but also all about people.  I am not a great fan of the Apprentice and the dreaded “Lord Sugar” – not sure he could run any Cambridge Cluster company – but the TV series does have a very important point about buying and selling.  It is so easy to sit back in an auction and buy but it takes a very different mindset to rise early on a Sunday morning and queue for the honour of having a stand at the Newbury car boot sale.  The skill is of buying in the auction for the customers at the car boot sale and not buying for your taste – not that it is better but it may well be different. It takes effort and concentration.

You see it so often in Cambridge Cluster companies (and we have done the same with the graphic novel The Entrepreneurs) that it is much easier to look inwards to build the product and a very different skill (and very difficult to do simultaneously) to intereact with customers and investors.  The latter takes effort and energy and usually travelling.

The other lesson we can all learn is to build a business lean and not mean.  But what about the entrepreneur who bought two pictures from the Wellington Gallery in Birmingham for a total of £10,000.  They were knocked down at the auction for a little more than 10% of their cost.  Stay lean and buy the luxuries from the proceeds of the sale of your business.  When items are entered for auction by the agents of Liquidators or the High Sheriff there is usually no reserve so a good time to try a low bid.

But it is very sad to see dreams shattered and not to think for too long about all the human tragedy behind some of the sales.  At least the entrepreneurs can start again but some auctions reflect the unhappy lives people have lived leaving behind a house to be cleared by agents and not loving relatives.

How I love people watching at the auctions.  The highest bidders are often the least well dressed.  The auctions are being changed by the Internet with a representative of The Sale Room sitting at the front.  Often the auctioneer gets frustrated by some of the Internet bidders being slow and brings down the hammer.  But if serious money is being offered the auctioneer has plenty of time!

The auctions we have attended are Jubilee Auctions in Pewsey, Mays Auctioneers of Shipton Bellinger, Stroud Auctions, Thimbleby & Shorland of Reading (sometimes five simultaneous auctions!), Wessex Auctions.  And closer to home is Cheffins Auctions with their very knowledgeable team including George Archdale and Sarah Flynn.

To buy or not to buy is easy; to sell, how and to whom is the question!  Something we all face in the Cambridge Cluster.

Great article of an interview with Greylock’s Henry McCance on why they are moving their HQ to Silicon Valley.  And so many lessons for the Cambridge Cluster.  It is sad and depressing that some of the so called movers and shakers of the Cambridge Cluster do not think that spin-outs of companies are important to building a cluster.  It is essential to keep the Thought Leadership motivated and generating the next generation of companies and technologies.

One interesting comment is McCance makes is ““At the margin, there are small things that can be done to make the climate more attractive for startups. An example is to change the non-compete laws that are much more restrictive and enforceable in MA than in CA. ‘Hot’ engineers don’t want to worry about ending up in lawsuits and court if they leave one company to start or join a new company.”  Guess it was a shame(!) that we linked with MIT and not Silicon Valley.

Also depressing in Cambridge that great successes such as Xensource are funded outside the Cambridge Cluster and then the success hushed up in case anyone on the fringes is unhappy.  I guess that this is Britain and no one likes to see a winner especially when they are public sector employees of Cambridge University.  Where else would a great success such as Xensource be hushed under the carpet?  Are there other Xensource type successes of which we have never heard?  Time to get out the business plan resource and start building great companies in the Cambridge Cluster.