startups

There were lots of highlights to this year's Digital Mission to New York, but one that stands out for me was the visit to the NYU:poly Incubator @ 160 Varick Street.

This initiative was announced by New York's Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, in February of this year, so it's still in its early days, although you wouldn't know it from looking around.

As the Digital Mission companies were given a tour by Micah Kotch, Operations Director and general making-things-happen guy there, the first thing that struck me was the scale of the facility: 16,500-square-foot, a whole floor of the Varick Street building, with over 20 companies, and even more associated indirectly with the incubator. There is everything a start-up business could want, including a receptionist, meeting rooms, mail facilities and so on.

A short pause for breath in the Digital Mission activities provides an opportunity to blog about the investor breakfast yesterday morning. It was organised in conjunction with The Hatchery and UKTI at the very digital Roger Smith Hotel - more on that in a moment.

The companies and investors mingled over breakfast, then both groups gave a short introduction before we dived into a roundtable Q & A session. I was struck by how frank the investors were. I've been dealing with VCs for more than a decade, and it was one of the most open exchanges I've seen, and with a broad range of investor types too. There were lots of sound bites and snippets, I'll share a few...

The Digital Mission to New York are ensconced in the Big Apple's frenetic networking scene making contacts and wrapping their heads around the US market.

Contacts are being made, meetings followed up and progress made in building overseas partners, trade and investment for some of the best the UK digital sector has to offer.

But things don't go quiet just because they're out of the country...

For the debt-riddled graduates flooding the jobs market, an internship is an essential bridge to full-time work and enthusiastic young, relatively cheap, talent has its own rewards for employers. But stay on the right side of the law.

Employment law can be a tricky business and the fallacy that an internship equals free labour could potentially land a company in hot water.

There are a few basic legal rules worth bearing in mind should you wish to offer an internship.

Danvers Baillieu, technology lawyer at Winston & Strawn LLP and Bootlaw founder addressed this very issue at a Bootlaw meetup evening earlier this year:

"The shades of grey apply particularly in relation to the requirements of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 (NMWA 1998)"

Under the National Minimum Wage Act (NMWA 1998), anyone who is a worker, that is a person who is employed by you and no one else, must be paid, the minimum wage and according to the act a worker is defined as:

“an individual who has entered into or works under (or, where the employment has ceased, worked under)" is an employee and must be paid accordingly.

Exemption from the rule are builders, accountants or other types of contractors. The minimum wage for over 22 year olds is £5.73/hour (£229.20/week based on 40hrs) and £4.77/hour (£190.80/wk) for 18-22 year olds.

Digital Mission to SXSWi is back for it's second year after the success of the mission to Austin in March 2009.

The mission to SXSWi is a great opportunity to take advantage of the publicity and profile from a group of British companies attending SXSWi.

The applications for the mission are open until Fri 4th December. The form is pretty painless and shouldn't take more than 20 mins to complete. There's also lots more info about the application criteria on the Digital Mission website.

The Digital Mission companies have arrived in New York and are well into the first day's activities, which kicked off with the Master Class session at Winston & Strawn's offices.

It's amazing to think that a year has passed since the previous Digital Mission to New York, but the view across New York from the Met Life Building brought the memories back. New York is a unique city, with a very distinctive vibe and culture. Doing business here is both challenging and exhilarating.

The panels were a pleasant mix of new and familiar faces, kicking off with the basics of setting up in the US, including dealing with general legal issues, employment law, Intellectual property and tax. You might be a UK business, but US courts can claim jurisdiction over you. The US legal systems operates at a state level, which raises the spectre of 50 different courts reaching their long-arms out to you.