Could Britain produce a YouTube?

YouTube has been the undoubted success of 2006. Bought for $1.65bn (£883m) by internet giant Google before winning the acclaimed Invention of the year award from Time magazine; it has been a business phenomenon.

Mike Herd executive director of the Sussex Innovation Centre and an expert in business growth asks the question: Could a phenomenon, initially dreamt up by two twentysomethings at a Silicon Valley dinner party, be recreated in the UK?

YouTube expanded from a garage concept to a billion dollar acquisition in just 18 months: a dream shared by every entrepreneur in Britain.

Examples of web 2.0 success such as YouTube and growing technological developments such as Apple’s hugely successful iPod, have shown us that new business models need to be in place to reap the benefits of today’s fast paced society. But, as Mike points out, Britain’s entrepreneurs have been slow on the uptake and a success of YouTube’s magnitude does not look like it is on the horizon.

Despite this British entrepreneurs should not feel pessimistic. Mike believes that the problem is not Britain’s lack of innovative ideas; in fact we have plenty of these. The real problem lies in the fact that most UK companies lack the knowledge, confidence or support to turn their IP into commercial products or services.

YouTube’s success was not down to technology innovation, but product innovation and British entrepreneurs need to follow in a similar vein if they are going to replicate the success of our friends over the pond:

‘The essential technology for running a business is available more or less off the shelf, allowing rapid prototyping and scaling once an idea is generated. This means you do not need £millions of venture capital to get a product like YouTube to market. Interestingly the key to YouTube’s success was not in the technology they invented to run the site but the new business model, based on social networking, that has been put in place. This has developed a brand new way of reaching potential customers and given them a prominent position in an emerging market.’