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back to article How's Cameron's favourite Shoreditch startup doing? Oh.

If Cameron and his Number 10 advisors are to believed, the future of the British economy powered by Shoreditch web startups is going to be so bright, we'll all need sunglasses. The Conservatives have sought to promote Old Street's webtastic firms as epitomes of entrepreneurship. So how are they faring? Let's look at one that …

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  1. J P

    So last.fm losses were £2.1m greater, but Admin costs were £5m greater - which presumably means either debt funding of Cost of Sales dropped by £2.2m (balance covered by T/O increase of £.7m)?

    And that was all for 2010 y/e; what have they done in the last 12 months? Financial reports are pretty much useless to investors looking at startups (and selected out of context figures doubly so) you need management accounts to get anything even approaching a current picture. Which may of course be even worse...

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  2. dotdavid
    Meh

    Concern

    "US broadcaster CBS acquired Last.fm for £280m in 2007 and treats it (somewhat generously) as a 'going concern'."

    I'm sure they are concerned.

    Personally, I moved away from Last.FM when I discovered Spotify. I generally found that listening to music I want to listen to rather than music "like" what I want to listen to is preferable.

    Not to say it isn't quite a good music discovery service; it's just that I'd rather not pay for it. And I suspect I'm not alone.

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  3. SJRulez

    More Sucess

    David Cameron wants more successes like Last.fm

    Strange statement, so he wants more web startups that are losing money??? Has anyone also thought to mention to Cameron that the time for web startups has pretty much been and gone, very few actually become a success these days.

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    1. fatchap
      Reply Icon

      These days????

      Simple fact is very few ever actually became a success. That is the nature of start-up business I am afraid.

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    2. TheOtherHobbbes
      Reply Icon
      Stop

      He wants more startups

      making quick cash for 'investors' and keeping a few token 'culture workers' off the streets.

      World leading innovation in IT, etc.

      He did say that he thought startups taking on one or two people each would solve the UK's unemployment problem.

      So that'll be millions of startups then.

      Since his arithmetic can't be wrong - he went to a good school, you know - he must be serious about this.

      The reality is that most people working in startup land know that the object of the exercise is to create something plausible sounding, sell it to a Greater Fool for too much money, trouser the profits, and be somewhere else when it goes tits-up.

      The success rate of tech startups - especially webby wobbly 2.0 social ones - makes winning the lottery seem like a sure thing.

      7 1
  4. Anonymous Coward 15
    FAIL

    More Web 2.0 bullshine?

    Can someone actually invent something please?

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    1. Munchausen's proxy
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      Wouldn't do you any good

      "Can someone actually invent something please?"

      Sorry - it's already patented.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    "Brought to you by 70 passionate kids "

    Aftering reading this and overcoming the nausea (bad timing on my part - I've just had lunch), I couldn't shake the flashback to "Summer Holiday " and Cliff Richard - "I know, why don't we do the show right here!?".

    Kids indeed.

    It's no good, got to ...

    BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRFFFFFFFFFFF

    5 1
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Silicon Roundabout

    There is probably more work, more business done and more profit made in your average industrial park on some wasteland near Reading.

    Not sexy enough for the folks at the Guardian or our PM but, like it or not, more beneficial to our country's economy.

    15 1
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Moshi Monsters is an Old Street firm, they seem to be doing OK if my kids and their mates are to be believed this Xmas!

    1 1
  8. GettinSadda
    Alert

    Hang on...

    Total loss since founding ~ £29m

    Recently sold for £280m

    Profit for founders ~ £251m

    That is quite a success!

    I actually know someone that runs quite a large online business that loses money like it's going out of fashion, but this is fine by him because he is banking on a big company buying the business for more than the losses at some point! He will probably manage it too!

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  9. KnucklesTheDog
    Thumb Up

    Well that area is specifically disadvantaged to making a profit as a whole because the other companies around there have to make £5m+ profit just to offset Last.fm's "success"!

    Maybe someone should let the government know about this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble ?

    They probably haven't heard of it as it didn't primarily occur in London.

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    1. KnucklesTheDog
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Ooops

      That was meant as a reply to AC's "Silicon Roundabout".

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  10. fixit_f
    Happy

    Bloody Shoreditch people

    It would be an amazing piece of irony if a bunch of Nathan Barley types making "portals" help drag the country out of recession! Don't see it though, somehow.

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