FreshNetworks Blog

I’m four days into my visit to the Web Mission 09 conference, and things just keep getting better! Today we went to ‘Plug and Play’ – a business incubator based in Silicon Valley. For those of you that haven’t heard of business incubators, they’re basically offices that host and nurture young start ups. There is nothing like it in the UK, and seeing one in action was a great opportunity for those of us based in Europe. Plug and Play has three locations in California; we visited the main site in Silicon Valley, which hosts up to 50 start ups. I can say without any hesitation that for those starting-up this seems to be the perfect way to fast track your development, raise funds, make connections, and ultimately create a successful business.

Being based in The Valley obviously increases your chances of succeeding, and Plug and Play provides loads of services and support to those who have come here. We were talked through these offerings by Saeed Amini, the larger-than-life President of Plug and Play, who before Plug and Play built up ALPS into a $150M water bottling business. Having found his own success, he founded Plug and Play to help other aspiring entrepreneurs and start-ups track their success. Judging from what I saw, he’s created a great facility that will do just that.

If you’re wondering how to get involved – it’s pretty straight forward. For 3 months rent at the facility, you get:

• Loads of business connections
• Up to 30 meetings in that time
• 2 networking events a week
• Licensing, partnerships or M&A with the corporate partners
• Introductions to VCs
• Advice from entrepreneurs in residence
• Data
• IT consulting

Plug and Play is reaching out to European companies at the moment to provide them with a greater chance of succeeding in the US. Europeans can come over on a work visa for one or two years, or on a business development tour for a few months as long as you’re not getting paid. Alternatively, once you have a company established in the UK for 12 months, you can get an L1 to work here.

Still hesitating? Just think about the community of 220 start-ups that did and increased their chance of success three times over; and don’t’ forget the $700M that has been raised so far. Sixteen of the firms have also been invested in by Saeed himself. On average, 5 start ups are funded a month, there are 60 own investments and over 100 individual angel start ups – so you’d be in good company.

With that bit of inspiration behind me i’m gearing up to head to the Web 2.0 Expo tomorrow where it’ll be social media and more social media. Can’t wait to chat to more people about the FreshNetworks take on the many benefits of online communities. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Read all of Charlie’s WebMission 09 blog posts here.