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????A guide for westward expansion

????McLoughlin hopes that Huddle's transatlantic success will inspire other British startups to look westward for growth.

????"From day one, we have always tried to position ourselves as an international business," he said. "It helps the name is quintessentially American-sounding. People assume if you are called Huddle you have to be from California. The brand has really been a big part of the success. Traditionally British enterprise companies haven't been good at branding and brand awareness, and we've concentrated a lot on that."

????Partnering with existing U.S. companies also helped Huddle enter the market, McLoughlin said.

????"Being able to launch the product in the U.S. with significant early partnerships with HP and LinkedIn, especially when we were just a very small company based in south-east London, was key. Obviously a lot came down to the quality of the product but also a lot of hustle from Alastair and I not being afraid to go and have those conversations with these big American players."

????It's important for British startups to not get intimidated by the aura of Silicon Valley, he said. It's far better to take what works and learn from it.

????"A lot of British companies struggle with having the confidence to really put yourself out there," McLoughlin said. "When you look at American companies you realize the very best American leaders have a mixture of operational excellence but also showmanship. Look at someone like Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com and Larry Ellison of Oracle. These are fantastic operators with an element of showmanship which you tend not to see so much in U.K. and European leaders."

????Still, Huddle started locally. Its first venture capital came from U.K.-based Eden Ventures in 2008, when the global economy was retracting. Only later did the company pursue U.S. investment.

????"The investment we took in the U.K. was classic early stage," McLoughlin said. "We were basically two guys in a room with little more than a beta software product and a grand vision. What we found when we came to the B round when we had traction, customers, and revenue, was the American investors were a lot quicker to move. Americans are prepared to take more risk and bigger bets than British VCs. It is changing, but traditionally the Europeans have been more risk-averse. They want to dive in to the metrics and really pick apart the business before they are comfortable talking about investment."

????In 2010, Huddle felt it had enough traction to open its first U.S. office in -- where else? -- San Francisco.

????"Being a British company in America has pluses. People tend to assume because you have a British accent you are more intelligent than someone with an American accent," Andy said with a laugh. "That is massively untrue, but we're not going to dissuade them of that notion."