Six years ago, Henry Nurser was driving through the dry and dusty valleys of California, and found himself at a crossroads.
He was presented with a choice: The West Coast or the West Country.
Take a well-paid senior position in the USA鈥檚 hotbed of tech innovation; or stay in the UK, form a start-up and spend a year-and-a-half without a salary.
Speaking to 老九品茶Cloud, Nurser recalled: 鈥淚t was April. I was over on the West Coast and it was dry – San Jose is not the most attractive of places. And then I came back to Bristol and drove around the Downs, it was sunny and there were flowers everywhere.
鈥淸Moving to the US] was a big change. I like Bristol, and I want to do something innovative and different.
鈥淚 thought 鈥�50 is a young age so I鈥檒l form a start-up鈥�. Although moving across to a position where I had no salary for a year-and-a-half was a hard sell to family.鈥�
Perhaps Blu Wireless Technology鈥檚 MD was unfortunate to be driving through the West Country on a rare sunny spring day.
However Nurser is forthright about why he saw Bristol as a great place to start a business: it has a high concentration of digital companies and growth in the sector grew 87 per cent between 2011-15 to 拢8.1 billion 鈥� the UK鈥檚 third-highest.
According to the Tech Nation 2017 report, 17.4 per cent of those firms are classed as high-growth, and provide more than 35,000 jobs.
鈥淏ristol is a nice place to live,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ecause of that you鈥檝e got very loyal employees, and nobody wants to leave.
鈥淚t鈥檚 known to be a sticky city, so if you鈥檙e given interesting things to do and give out exciting jobs, you can do very, very well.鈥�
His 4G and 5G network firm now employs around 55 people and has raised around 拢8m in funding to date. Despite Nurser鈥檚 love-letter to the South West, starting out in the UK rather than the US can be difficult: money over here is not 鈥減atient money鈥�.
鈥淚t was extremely difficult. The investment community in the UK, unlike the US, is technically ignorant,鈥� he said.
鈥淚鈥檒l be explicit: you go along to VCs in banking and things like that and you have to simplify your message so they understand what you鈥檙e attempting to do.
鈥淭here are always risks associated with any project, in technology or any venture. And if you try and explain some of those risks, as you think is a responsible thing to do, they get frightened and run away.
鈥淭echnical risks are seen as being frightening when actually for most engineers it鈥檚 seen as being a big positive. If there鈥檚 a risk, it鈥檚 difficult to do and you can generate a barrier to entry for others.
鈥淪o, we need to build difficult things to generate real stickiness in the market.鈥�
It is an adage among some that on the other side of the Atlantic there is more shame attached to a VC not investing in a business and it being a success, than investing and it being a failure 鈥� or even 10 businesses and them all losing money.
Nurser added: 鈥淭hat promotes a gambling mentality in the VC world because they鈥檙e all looking for the home run so they can then shuffle the others under the carpet.
鈥淭hat means they are always being encouraged to look for something that can give you the 20, 30, 40 times return rather than something which is slightly less risky, a little bit more stable but will give you a five times return.鈥�