Can UK tech firms crack America?

Founded in 2005, Brandwatch is a social media monitoring company based in Brighton, and additional offices in Stuttgart, Berlin, New York and San Francisco. Working with more than 700 companies, since 2011 the company has had access to Twitter’s ‘firehose’, which allows 100% coverage of tweets sent out through the network.

Cloud collaboration service Huddle was co-founded in 2006 by Alastair Mitchell and Andy McLoughlin. It's now used by more than 100,000 organizations worldwide, including 80% of central UK government departments, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, NASA, Unilever, Kia Motors, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, National Grid and AKQA.

Why did you decide to set up a Silicon Valley office?

Will McInnes, CMO Brandwatch: It was always ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ for us. We decided to go to New York first, because it’s where our early customers were, but when Apple bought Topsy we saw an opportunity to grab some talented partnership and sales guys and put down our West Coast roots.

Alistarr Mitchell, CEO Huddle: The US is still the biggest collaboration and tech market globally and we already had customers, partners and investors there.

At what time in your funding cycle did you decide to do so?

Huddle: After closing our Series B round, we decided to set up our first international base in San Francisco.

Brandwatch: At a point when raising money was more about picking who with rather than where from.

How easy is it to hire local talent there and does it present any specific difficulties?

Brandwatch: Mixed. Talent is abundant, but so is competition, so you have to work hard to get good people. In San Francisco, there’s a greater emphasis on lifestyle, on networks... and which of the abundant food options to have for lunch.

Huddle: Hiring talent is a challenge anywhere and European startups setting up in the US are often faced with the challenge of brand recognition. Just because you’re well-known and loved in Europe, doesn’t mean people are going to recognise your company in the US.

How do you differentiate yourself to US companies?

Huddle: Everyone offers free food and the vision of being the next big thing, so it’s very important to differentiate yourself in the US. We hope our Huddle Foundation also helps to make us stand out.

Brandwatch: We’ve really come in with an attitude of ‘you guys are the locals - you tell us’. Plus we have a culture of fairly brutal honesty and telling it how it is, which goes down well here on the West Coast.

Does 'Britishness' work when it comes to talking to clients there? Is such quirkiness good or is it a hindrance?

Brandwatch: It definitely does. Our US team members assure us that the accent means that people will assume we’re smarter than we really are - an awesome and deceptively subtle insult if you’re listening for it!

Huddle: People like the idea of being able to make a real difference and turn a British success story into a global one. British bands that broke America (good and bad!) are also a big help.

What's your advice for UK startups about setting up in Silicon Valley?

Huddle: If you’re a mid to late stage start-up, you’re more likely to get large scale investment over here to turn a good business into a phenomenal business.

Brandwatch: Go big or go home. Yes, it’s such a cliché but I was given this advice by a Brit who has run businesses here for decades. You’ve got to be prepared to be all in, to invest big, or don’t bother.