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>Would you start a new business in Buffalo? It doesn't take much capital to turn a 19th century mansion into an incubator/hacker house. Sure the weather and th

>Would you start a new business in Buffalo? It doesn't take much capital to turn a 19th century mansion into an incubator/hacker house. Sure the weather and the Bills suck but inside you'll find a welcoming community spirit at a price you can start a business and raise a family at. Buffalo has also been experiencing a boom in green tech investment (http://mobile.buffalonews.com/?articleRedirect=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.buffalonews.com%2Fcity-region%2Fbuffalos-future-looks-very-green-with-states-investment-in-high-tech-facilities-20131121 http://mobile.buffalonews.com/?articleRedirect=1&url=http%3A...) As for Upstate NY in general, I think it's a great place to start a business. At the end of the day, most businessss can be run anywhere (hence the boom in remote work), and, again, putting aside the biblically shitty weather, you have an affordable region with plenty of fresh water and local farms, and isn't at risk for rising tides (NY,FL,CA), earthquakes (Cascadia,CA), droughts (CA, southwest, Midwest when the aquifer runs dry), name it. This is a great region to start a family, and at the end of the day, your best employees are the ones tied to your office and location, not mercenary college grads shopping around every couple years for a raise. In 100 years, Upstate NY can exist without desalinated/pumped life support. Not so sure about the rest...

HiLo 11y ago
Not everything can be made into a damn hacker house or incubator. That's not a business model for the economy as a whole. We're going to start seeing startups doing rollups of startups doing shared working spaces for startups making apps and productivity software for startups doing shared working spaces and online advertising.
- exelius 11y ago
  That's actually a great mental model for a scalable business: "Can I imagine Private Equity coming in and doing a regional rollup of this business model, slapping a slick marketing package on it and returning 10x the value?" If the answer is "no", then it's probably a money-losing business, because that's the exit strategy for a lot of these local delivery businesses.
  - Fomite 11y ago
    "If the answer is "no", then it's probably a money-losing business." There a numerous businesses that make plenty of money that don't fit that scenario. They're just ones that are often dismissed as "lifestyle businesses".
cachemiss 11y ago
The issue is the taxes and the brain drain. It's impossible to keep people there (I'm a native of upstate NY and have recruited developers). We kept losing people to NYC and West Coast based companies before we could even offer. Anyone we did get who wa sworthwhile moved west as well (I did too). Upstate has a lot of advantages (its a great place to raise a family), but has some massive disadvantages as well (the weather is one of them). There isn't enough tech to keep developers, because they know if your company tanks or fires them, the market isn't very good.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  > There isn't enough tech to keep developers, because they know if your company tanks or fires them, the market isn't very good. That's the big one. I moved from a "small town" with a single tech employer to the SF Bay Area to reduce the risk of unemployment. It was not a financially great decision (+50% salary, +300% cost of living) but here, if things go south, I can more easily find another employer. This is not true for most of the country. I'd gladly move back to small town America--I like backyards and big houses--but not if it means my life is at the whim of one or two local employers.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    This is true in a lot of fields. I know someone who was doing international relations work for Walmart in Bentonville Arkansas which is basically a Walmart company town. They axed his group and he basically ended up living out of a suitcase and then moving to look for a new job. (Obviously a pretty specialized role and he needed to be somewhere he could physically network with a lot of folks.)
- humanrebar 11y ago
  > It's impossible to keep people there... Seems like that's a problem that could be solved with a big enough compensation package, right?
  - cachemiss 11y ago
    It's not, the issue is that the market is so small, that even if you are paying really well, no one else is. So if things go south, you're going to have to move.
exelius 11y ago
Yeah, but unless you were from the area, you wouldn't start a new business there. Nor would you look for employment there if you weren't from the area. > This is a great region to start a family, and at the end of the day, your best employees are the ones tied to your office and location, not mercenary college grads shopping around every couple years for a raise. In other words, you take what you can get from the local hiring pool and hope your best people don't have better options. This is great if you're looking to bootstrap a small business, but once you get past that stage it can be difficult to recruit executives with the market savvy you need to a small town. I'm all for remote work arrangements, but when developing a product strategy, colocation is a huge help. Don't get me wrong; I don't mean to shit all over Buffalo -- I only used it as an example because the weather is awful. But as a city to build a tech startup in 2016, it's not high on the list. Hell, the list pretty much stops after "Silicon Valley" and "New York City" -- which leads to its own problems (like how you can't really afford to live in either city on less than $125k/yr).
- ElysianEagle 11y ago
  I can't speak for SF, but for a single person at least, $125k/yr is easily doable in NYC. Sure, you won't have a spacious loft all to yourself in SoHo perhaps, but you'll get by just fine on that salary. Now if you're talking about raising a family on a single income of that much, that's a different story...
  - bradleyjg 11y ago
    You were almost there, but your last sentence is ridiculous. The median household income for families with children in NYC was $50,800 in 2014. Even for Manhattan alone that figure is $99,000. It is certainly "doable" to raise a family on $125,000 a year or less in NYC as evidenced by the fact that millions of people are doing so.
    - exelius 11y ago
      > It is certainly "doable" to raise a family on $125,000 a year or less in NYC as evidenced by the fact that millions of people are doing so. Sure, living in NYC for less than $125k is doable under the following circumstances: 1. You have a rent controlled apartment. 2. You are on welfare or other government assistance programs (which often come with public housing). 3. You have other income (like a trust fund). 4. You live in New Jersey, Long Island or Yonkers and commute an hour each way. 5. You pay the high rent anyway, build no savings because you're spending $2,000/mo on a studio you split with a roommate, regret living in NYC - and move away a few years later. At least among my friends, NYC is a revolving door of "Yeah, New York is awesome!" and "New York is awesome but I'm a successful 30-year-old professional can't afford more than a studio" to "Fuck this place, I'm moving to Austin." The only reason there are any poor people left in Manhattan is because the city essentially subsidizes them living there. I have nothing against that, but Manhattan real estate is unaffordable for mere mortals otherwise.
quanticle 11y ago
>your best employees are the ones tied to your office and location, not mercenary college grads shopping around every couple years for a raise. My experience disagrees. In my experience, the best employees, by definition, will have other options. Worst case, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, or whoever else will be willing to pay to relocate them to the Bay Area or Seattle. The ones that are tied to your company, the ones who can't get a job anywhere else, are more likely to be a drag on productivity than a boost.
- sanderjd 11y ago
  I think you're both right: the best employees are the ones who have other options, but choose not to exercise them. Don't pine for the great employees you've lost to the Bay Area titans, seek out the great employees who could find jobs in those places but choose not to for one of the many good reasons.

HiLo 11y ago

Not everything can be made into a damn hacker house or incubator. That's not a business model for the economy as a whole. We're going to start seeing startups doing rollups of startups doing shared working spaces for startups making apps and productivity software for startups doing shared working spaces and online advertising.

exelius 11y ago
That's actually a great mental model for a scalable business: "Can I imagine Private Equity coming in and doing a regional rollup of this business model, slapping a slick marketing package on it and returning 10x the value?" If the answer is "no", then it's probably a money-losing business, because that's the exit strategy for a lot of these local delivery businesses.
- Fomite 11y ago
  "If the answer is "no", then it's probably a money-losing business." There a numerous businesses that make plenty of money that don't fit that scenario. They're just ones that are often dismissed as "lifestyle businesses".

cachemiss 11y ago

The issue is the taxes and the brain drain. It's impossible to keep people there (I'm a native of upstate NY and have recruited developers). We kept losing people to NYC and West Coast based companies before we could even offer. Anyone we did get who wa sworthwhile moved west as well (I did too). Upstate has a lot of advantages (its a great place to raise a family), but has some massive disadvantages as well (the weather is one of them). There isn't enough tech to keep developers, because they know if your company tanks or fires them, the market isn't very good.

ryandrake 11y ago
> There isn't enough tech to keep developers, because they know if your company tanks or fires them, the market isn't very good. That's the big one. I moved from a "small town" with a single tech employer to the SF Bay Area to reduce the risk of unemployment. It was not a financially great decision (+50% salary, +300% cost of living) but here, if things go south, I can more easily find another employer. This is not true for most of the country. I'd gladly move back to small town America--I like backyards and big houses--but not if it means my life is at the whim of one or two local employers.
- ghaff 11y ago
  This is true in a lot of fields. I know someone who was doing international relations work for Walmart in Bentonville Arkansas which is basically a Walmart company town. They axed his group and he basically ended up living out of a suitcase and then moving to look for a new job. (Obviously a pretty specialized role and he needed to be somewhere he could physically network with a lot of folks.)
humanrebar 11y ago
> It's impossible to keep people there... Seems like that's a problem that could be solved with a big enough compensation package, right?
- cachemiss 11y ago
  It's not, the issue is that the market is so small, that even if you are paying really well, no one else is. So if things go south, you're going to have to move.

exelius 11y ago

Yeah, but unless you were from the area, you wouldn't start a new business there. Nor would you look for employment there if you weren't from the area. > This is a great region to start a family, and at the end of the day, your best employees are the ones tied to your office and location, not mercenary college grads shopping around every couple years for a raise. In other words, you take what you can get from the local hiring pool and hope your best people don't have better options. This is great if you're looking to bootstrap a small business, but once you get past that stage it can be difficult to recruit executives with the market savvy you need to a small town. I'm all for remote work arrangements, but when developing a product strategy, colocation is a huge help. Don't get me wrong; I don't mean to shit all over Buffalo -- I only used it as an example because the weather is awful. But as a city to build a tech startup in 2016, it's not high on the list. Hell, the list pretty much stops after "Silicon Valley" and "New York City" -- which leads to its own problems (like how you can't really afford to live in either city on less than $125k/yr).

ElysianEagle 11y ago
I can't speak for SF, but for a single person at least, $125k/yr is easily doable in NYC. Sure, you won't have a spacious loft all to yourself in SoHo perhaps, but you'll get by just fine on that salary. Now if you're talking about raising a family on a single income of that much, that's a different story...
- bradleyjg 11y ago
  You were almost there, but your last sentence is ridiculous. The median household income for families with children in NYC was $50,800 in 2014. Even for Manhattan alone that figure is $99,000. It is certainly "doable" to raise a family on $125,000 a year or less in NYC as evidenced by the fact that millions of people are doing so.
  - exelius 11y ago
    > It is certainly "doable" to raise a family on $125,000 a year or less in NYC as evidenced by the fact that millions of people are doing so. Sure, living in NYC for less than $125k is doable under the following circumstances: 1. You have a rent controlled apartment. 2. You are on welfare or other government assistance programs (which often come with public housing). 3. You have other income (like a trust fund). 4. You live in New Jersey, Long Island or Yonkers and commute an hour each way. 5. You pay the high rent anyway, build no savings because you're spending $2,000/mo on a studio you split with a roommate, regret living in NYC - and move away a few years later. At least among my friends, NYC is a revolving door of "Yeah, New York is awesome!" and "New York is awesome but I'm a successful 30-year-old professional can't afford more than a studio" to "Fuck this place, I'm moving to Austin." The only reason there are any poor people left in Manhattan is because the city essentially subsidizes them living there. I have nothing against that, but Manhattan real estate is unaffordable for mere mortals otherwise.

quanticle 11y ago

>your best employees are the ones tied to your office and location, not mercenary college grads shopping around every couple years for a raise. My experience disagrees. In my experience, the best employees, by definition, will have other options. Worst case, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, or whoever else will be willing to pay to relocate them to the Bay Area or Seattle. The ones that are tied to your company, the ones who can't get a job anywhere else, are more likely to be a drag on productivity than a boost.

sanderjd 11y ago
I think you're both right: the best employees are the ones who have other options, but choose not to exercise them. Don't pine for the great employees you've lost to the Bay Area titans, seek out the great employees who could find jobs in those places but choose not to for one of the many good reasons.