Ezra asks Mike Butcher of TechcrunchUK what he is looking for in covering a startup in the UK and Europe. Mike says most startups are not great at explaining the “problem they are trying to solve” and are not “explaining who their competitors are.” Mike says, “you must focus & communicate on solving a real problem.”

Mikes advice fro startups: “Don’t just dribble out what you are doing” or “Learn how to pitch & actually practice your pitch!”

TechCrunch UK & Ireland is a blog covering Web 2.0 and Mobile start-ups. TechCrunch UK is part of the TechCrunch Network, which includes country-specific blogs for France and Japan.

TechCrunch UK & Ireland is edited by Mike Butcher. Mike has written for UK national newspapers including the The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times and magazines including The New Statesman. He is a former editor of New Media Age magazine, the leading new media weekly in the UK, and The Industry Standard Europe and he has launched or re-launched several media web sites. In 2000 he was nominated as NetMedia’s European Internet Journalist of the Year. In 2004 he was voted ‘One of the 100 Innovators of the UK Internet Decade’ by GfK NOP, the fourth-largest custom research business in the world. In July 2008 Mike was put at No. 47 out of the Top 100 people in London’s creative industry the UK by The Independent newspaper and The Hospital Club. He has appeared on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 and Bloomberg, commenting on technology and new media. In August 2008 TechCrunch UK was named the best “Web 2.0 and business blog” in the UK, by the readers of Computer Weekly magazine. Mike’s personal blog is mbites, while he Twitters as @mikebutcher.