5 ms·

NYC vs Silicon Valley

34 points by MediaSquirrel 17y ago

MediaSquirrel 17y ago
a take on this from the Founder's Perspective...
shanedanger 17y ago
this is a great freaking post. smart notes on all points.
carterac 17y ago
Matt, I'm reprinting my reply on your blog here: Duuuude, NO! Or at least, that's what I want to scream at you after reading this. But it is hard for me to refute your logic around investors. Of course, SV has a larger and older network. Can't deny that. But, of course, in SV there are also waaaay more entrepreneurs vying for VC dolla bills. Having spent time in both locations, I wouldn't say it's any easier to raise funds in SV, although they do have more smart money for sure. But now with FRC, Flybridge, and Founder's Collective (among many others) stepping up in NYC, I think we're just seeing the beginning of an awesome growth curve. Plus, haven't you been reading Dave McClure's blog? It's not about the tech, it's about the design and marketing. Which NYC has in SPADES. Alright dude, enjoy SV!
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  New York will succeed as a startup hub if the rents come down fast enough. Right now, they're still too high; you pretty much have to work a Wall Street job or be parentally supported to live here, and this is a problem.
  - sak84 17y ago
    Not true, you can find cheap places to live, if you're willing to live outside Manhattan. Jersey City, Queens, BK, are all viable options for the scrappy founder.
    - pw0ncakes 17y ago
      I agree, but it's a pain in the ass to get into the city from those places. Brooklyn Heights is close to Manhattan and beautiful-- probably one of the nicest neighborhoods in New York-- but it's almost as expensive as living on the island. There are also affordable, beautiful places in the outer boroughs, but an hour's commute away.
      - sak84 17y ago
        Again, not true. Have you lived in Astoria (N train to Manhattan in half hour), Fort Greene (so many choices and 15 min to manhattan), Jersey City (path train to manhattan in less than half hour). Brooklyn Heights is a terrible example. It's where the executives who work across the water live. Of course that is going to be super expensive. There are lots of places that you can find, that are comparable to SF & Boston, and sometimes cheaper. Let me know if you need help here!
        bwh2 17y ago
        Just curious, do you live and/or work in NYC? I find the rent (even in places like Astoria and Fort Greene) to be unreasonable, especially once you consider broker's fees. The best values IMO are in the NJ suburbs, where you can catch a 40 min direct train into Penn Station, but pay half the rent of Manhattan, Hoboken, Astoria, etc. But that's obviously not quite as sexy and appealing. I think a point everyone's missing is that even if you both live and work in Manhattan, you could have a 45 minute commute each way.
        sak84 17y ago
        I do live (fort greene) and work (manhattan) in NYC. You should never use broker's though, they're a waste of money. It does take a little work to find a good deal, but you definitely can if you look early enough. Overall, I would agree. NJ seems to have the most cheap places. Great point about 45 commute just inside Manhattan. EDIT: I live in fort greene and I pay 735 a month -- for validation purposes.
hypermatt 17y ago
I don't it helps that most startups here in NYC are pretty lame, ripoffs of yelp or really weak ideas. I have been very unimpressed and stayed away from both startups and wall st.
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  I work for a startup in New York. We have a really cool idea, but raising money has been a bitch and a half. We've decided to bypass the VCs almost entirely and focus on customers.
  - char 17y ago
    In my opinion, this is exactly what you should do! Build a really great product and perhaps even become profitable on your own before you try to take on capital.
- kschrader 17y ago
  That's bullshit. There are a lot of impressive startups here and a number of others that are about to come out of the gate that are going to kill it. I lived in SF for a number of years, and the mix of impressive to unimpressive start-ups is fairly similar in both places. If you can't find anything interesting it's just because you aren't looking.
yummyfajitas 17y ago
a) Wall Street has been a huge talent suck for a long time...the default dream...: Work for Lehman. Actually, there is a bigger talent suck than Lehman. I can easily see the appeal of working for a startup rather than Lehman: don't wear a suit, don't deal with bureaucracy or MBAs, technology rules the day. Less money, but a lot more fun. Now, consider many small hedge funds: don't wear a suit, no bureaucracy, maybe one or two MBA's who handle clients, technology rules the day. Bring your dog to work, but the CEO's dog gets veto power. Both seem like fun places to work, but the hedge fund can compete on price.
- OmniLarry 17y ago
  I read that as a stand-in for "Wall St", probably also because my friends usually go for Goldman now, but hedge funds are definitely where all the action is at.
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  The technological problems that you work on in a hedge fund are less interesting than those you do in a startup. On the other hand, making actual money has benefits.
  - mtalantikite 17y ago
    I don't know, I disagree that they're not solving really interesting problems. My first jobs out of college were at hedge funds, pretty much by accident, and I got the chance to work with a ton of really smart people -- many of whom were math or engineering PhDs -- in a very challenging environment. One two-person team I got to work with was doing something resembling stat-arb, and was pushing about $250 million of trades in the last 10 minutes of the market. Beyond getting to be hands on with some crazy math, building a system to make that happen isn't exactly trivial.
    - pw0ncakes 17y ago
      Fair point. At a quant hedge fund, you do get to work with some awesome people, and you learn a lot from after-work conversations.
bwh2 17y ago
[Wall Streeters turned venture capitalists] are people who do dumb shit like ask about pricing for a premium version of a genuinely novel product (in a category with no existing market) that hasn't even launched yet...in the first meeting. Right, because asking about pricing (you know, the process by which you charge actual money for a product, thus generating revenue and hopefully profit) is a completely unreasonable thing for an investor to ask about.
- pchristensen 17y ago
  When the product hasn't launched and there's no existing market, the questions should be around finding customers, distribution, and technology risks.
- MediaSquirrel 17y ago
  I agree that focusing on the biz model is important, but determining price pre-supposes finding product-market fit. Real discussion should be around that.
sak84 17y ago
VCs/Angels in NYC(northeast as well) are just not in the same investing environment as the West Coast. And it's solely because this area is just not as mature as there. There are the investors that are smart and are willing to take the risks (Founder's Collective, USV, FRC, Flybridge etc.), but the problem is that they are few and far between relative to earlystage VCs and angels on the west coast. Therefore, because they're smart, have branding and don't have serious competition, they DON'T have to take the risk. And why would they, who would blame them? They can wait until the company is almost completely de-risked before they move in. (I guess an argument here is that it's a good thing that the early stage investing industry is small and less risky here. If they succeed more will come.) The other investors here (the wall streeters turned VCS) just don't get it. They're not investing, as you say, in "change the world" ideas. They're investing in stuff that can make money right away, which is probably why they ask about pricing prematurely. NYC is frustrating in this respect, and it's easy to see why you're thinking about the West Coast. They're just way more intelligent, early-stage investors. That's changing though, I believe. It just sucks to be a startup in this sort of purgatory. The more Ron Conway's that come to the east the better!
- gyardley 17y ago
  From personal experience, I can tell you that's not remotely how Union Square Ventures and First Round Capital invest. (Can't tell you about Founder's Collective or Flybridge because I haven't taken money from them.) They're certainly willing to put money into companies before the risk is gone.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
eirene 17y ago
Sorry to hear about your feelings re: Boston. I really enjoyed it during my trip this week and briefly considered moving as FC has an office in Cambridge. I do, however, feel your ecosystem pain. NYC is such a money town, and while there are pockets of sun, air, & water here and there, they don't instantiate enough to be completely nourishing. That said, culture evolves and history re-writes itself with every passing second. Given time, I can see the city reaching her potential as a startup hub; she will make her inexorable way forward. Certainly it's time that neither you nor I can afford to let slip by, but if it's not people like you and I (& other like-minded folks) who help move this city forward, people who give a damn and follow passion up with action, who's it going to be? I realize that you've got to put your company first, but the two (help NYC/grow company) aren't mutually exclusive. For instance Mouse.org -- I'll be chatting with them soon, & if SpeakerText is still in town, would love to place a capable high school intern from one of their squads with you. We (NYC entrepreneurs & investors alike) might make more progress if we could set aside more than a couple hours a month to work concertedly on building culture and making history.
dgallagher 17y ago
I hate Boston. Would never live there. So ignoring that city, where are you going to find, ohh, let's say Speech Engineers? Why hate Boston? I would disagree. Boston's a great city to live in. It's much smaller than NYC so you can walk from one end to the other, is a lot more scenic, and my favorite part of all is that it isn't gritty/dirty like NYC is (unless you head out to Boston's outskirts like Ashland/Brighton/Somerville). Whenever I've visited NYC, all of the pretty parts (outside of Central Park) were tucked away in some place most people can't afford. Being rich in NYC looks like fun, but most people aren't rich. NYC feels like an extension of an office cubicle to me. Crammed buildings. "Rat Race" economics in full effect. No nature, no beauty. You're insulated inside a sea of cement and brick. The only thing that's missing are the metal bars. IMHO of course. Boston isn't perfect either, but I wouldn't dismiss it as a startup hub. Great universities, plenty of talented people available. No, it's not Silicon Valley, but an admirable alternative none-the-less. NYC certainly is too, regardless if I personally like it or not.
- MediaSquirrel 17y ago
  Boston is f'ing cold. And I'm from SoCal. Plus, it's a bit more blue-blooded. And honestly, I love the NYC grit. Big selling point for me.
- mtalantikite 17y ago
  Boston occupies a strange place in my heart. I grew up in and around Boston, but am now a New Yorker, and I don't think I could ever move back. There are definitely worse places to live, but Boston has always felt more like a really big small town than a city to me, and the amount of close-mindedness and racism I've found in Boston has always been surprising to me. I just often don't feel comfortable in Boston. While Manhattan might feel crammed, it's part of the appeal for us. Everything is always open, everything you need is within a couple blocks, you can get anywhere anytime in the city via 24 hour public transit. You walk down the street and hear tons of different languages constantly. The diversity in ethnicity, cultural backgrounds, and experiences is mind-blowing. It's one of the world's cultural centers. Art and music is everywhere all the time. We have enormous, beautiful parks all over the place, Central Park only being one of them. Gorgeous brownstone neighborhoods with tree lined blocks. Old factory neighborhoods repurposed into everything imaginable. Is there trash on the ground? Yes, everywhere. That fades from your perception into the landscape within weeks of living here. Maybe Brooklyn would be more your thing (it is for me) -- it's more laid back here and less crowded, but gives you easy access to all the amazing parts of being in NYC. 'No beauty' really is hard for me to swallow -- I look around me here all the time and am always amazed at how beautiful and diverse this city is.
char 17y ago
Having lived in both NYC and the Bay Area for extended periods of time, I would say that at least in terms of rent and location, that there are many more options for running a start-up cheaply in the Bay Area. You might be able to find a decent deal on housing in, say, Astoria, but if you look in Silicon Valley, Berkeley, Oakland, or even certain areas of SF, you'll find many cheaper options that give you twice the space and are just as conveniently located.
carterac 17y ago
In further defense of NYC, I want to address this whole rent/commuting argument. We are comparing this to Silicon Valley, where the freeway is packed with traffic both ways every morning and evening. That same commute in NYC means you could live in very affordable places in Brooklyn, Harlem, Queens, and NJ. Another founder I know, after exiting his company, moved to NYC from SV mainly because he couldn't stand being stuck in traffic all day. Commuting in via the subway or NJ Transit is no longer than the time a lot of people spend in traffic in SV. And the best part? You can read a book. I just finished another chapter in Founder's at Work on the subway back from a meeting. Awesome. And since when was SF and Palo Alto that cheap anyway? Plus in SV you need to own a car and car insurance. That is expensive. I couldn't afford that so I had to borrow a bike. That bike had to get me EVERYWHERE. Want to go to a meeting in SF? There goes half your day because you're at the mercy of the caltrain. Anyway, I could go on, but you get the point. I would argue that NYC will save you time and money when it comes to transportation and rent. OK /rant ps SV and Palo Alto will always have a place in my heart :).
- dnsworks 17y ago
  Just a quick point, you do not need to own a car and pay for car insurance in SF. I've been car-free for two years. Whenever I need to go somewhere that isn't convenient to my schedule or by public transit, I use zipcar, which is very convenient (at least in my neighborhood). Between car payments, insurance, maintenance, fuel, parking, and parking tickets I used to pay an average of $1,500/month for my vehicle. Now I spend about $70/month on Muni/BART/Caltrain, and between $100-$400/month on zipcar.
gyardley 17y ago
This article is almost completely 100% opposite to my own experience raising money in NYC. There's plenty of good angels here - largely entrepreneurs who have been successful with their own businesses. I talked to a number of them one-on-one and never paid to pitch. There's plenty of good early-stage venture capital firms here - yes, fewer than Silicon Valley, but there's fewer startups to compete with. Raising money from early-stage firms here was a relatively straightforward process. The deal terms were clean, and the valuation was adequate. (Trust me, you want clean terms and an adequate valuation over a high valuation under a ton of preferences anyway. Keeps your options open.) Recruiting was also easy - I largely hired people I'd worked with before at other startups, or who came recommended to me by people I'd worked with before at other startups. The differentiating factor, I suspect - because personally, I'm nothing particularly special - is that I worked at a few startups in NYC and got to know people over a few years before founding my company. (Like Chris Dixon wrote a while back, there's a time to learn and a time to earn.) I suspect this is largely true for Silicon Valley as well.
starkfist 17y ago
I am a veteran of both places. Here is what you need to know. - NYC is 30% more expensive than Silicon Valley / SF - you don't need a car in SF but you probably do in SV - you might need a car if you live in the inconvenient neighborhoods of SF. - the bay area is sort of automatically healthy, you have to work hard to be unhealthy - NYC is automatically unhealthy, you have to work hard to be healthy - the weather is better in California - the women are better in NYC - if you are decent looking and have a job, you can get a date in NYC - you can be good looking and rich in SV/SF and still never get a date - there are better options for outdoors activities in California - anything besides outdoors activities is more convenient in NYC. - hedge funds / finance can be more interesting than a dumb startup and will certainly pay more - working for a dumb startup is bad for your career - you can get trapped in a startup career spiral in SF/SV where you never make any money, even if you're a great programmer - you'll eventually make decent coin in NYC even if you're only an average programmer - there are interesting people in NYC with varied careers ranging from UN analyst to fashion designer - in SF/SV there are tech industry people and weirdos - counterintuitively, even though NYC is more money oriented, the programmers often have very interesting outside interests. the meetup scene in NYC is intellectual, there's math, machine learning, functional programming, etc - in SF/SV most of your fellow programmers will only claim road cycling and guitar hero as interests. the meetup scene is usually about source control or social media tweeting I could go on and on. Thinking about where the best place is to build your startup is kind of silly. You want to think about what you want to build, and build it. You can always move later if needed. These lists are also dumb, although it was fun to write. Really the only way you can decide where to live is to experience places yourself.

34 points by MediaSquirrel 17y ago

MediaSquirrel 17y ago

a take on this from the Founder's Perspective...

shanedanger 17y ago

this is a great freaking post. smart notes on all points.

carterac 17y ago

Matt, I'm reprinting my reply on your blog here: Duuuude, NO! Or at least, that's what I want to scream at you after reading this. But it is hard for me to refute your logic around investors. Of course, SV has a larger and older network. Can't deny that. But, of course, in SV there are also waaaay more entrepreneurs vying for VC dolla bills. Having spent time in both locations, I wouldn't say it's any easier to raise funds in SV, although they do have more smart money for sure. But now with FRC, Flybridge, and Founder's Collective (among many others) stepping up in NYC, I think we're just seeing the beginning of an awesome growth curve. Plus, haven't you been reading Dave McClure's blog? It's not about the tech, it's about the design and marketing. Which NYC has in SPADES. Alright dude, enjoy SV!

pw0ncakes 17y ago
New York will succeed as a startup hub if the rents come down fast enough. Right now, they're still too high; you pretty much have to work a Wall Street job or be parentally supported to live here, and this is a problem.
- sak84 17y ago
  Not true, you can find cheap places to live, if you're willing to live outside Manhattan. Jersey City, Queens, BK, are all viable options for the scrappy founder.
  - pw0ncakes 17y ago
    I agree, but it's a pain in the ass to get into the city from those places. Brooklyn Heights is close to Manhattan and beautiful-- probably one of the nicest neighborhoods in New York-- but it's almost as expensive as living on the island. There are also affordable, beautiful places in the outer boroughs, but an hour's commute away.
    - sak84 17y ago
      Again, not true. Have you lived in Astoria (N train to Manhattan in half hour), Fort Greene (so many choices and 15 min to manhattan), Jersey City (path train to manhattan in less than half hour). Brooklyn Heights is a terrible example. It's where the executives who work across the water live. Of course that is going to be super expensive. There are lots of places that you can find, that are comparable to SF & Boston, and sometimes cheaper. Let me know if you need help here!
      - bwh2 17y ago
        Just curious, do you live and/or work in NYC? I find the rent (even in places like Astoria and Fort Greene) to be unreasonable, especially once you consider broker's fees. The best values IMO are in the NJ suburbs, where you can catch a 40 min direct train into Penn Station, but pay half the rent of Manhattan, Hoboken, Astoria, etc. But that's obviously not quite as sexy and appealing. I think a point everyone's missing is that even if you both live and work in Manhattan, you could have a 45 minute commute each way.
        sak84 17y ago
        I do live (fort greene) and work (manhattan) in NYC. You should never use broker's though, they're a waste of money. It does take a little work to find a good deal, but you definitely can if you look early enough. Overall, I would agree. NJ seems to have the most cheap places. Great point about 45 commute just inside Manhattan. EDIT: I live in fort greene and I pay 735 a month -- for validation purposes.

hypermatt 17y ago

I don't it helps that most startups here in NYC are pretty lame, ripoffs of yelp or really weak ideas. I have been very unimpressed and stayed away from both startups and wall st.

pw0ncakes 17y ago
I work for a startup in New York. We have a really cool idea, but raising money has been a bitch and a half. We've decided to bypass the VCs almost entirely and focus on customers.
- char 17y ago
  In my opinion, this is exactly what you should do! Build a really great product and perhaps even become profitable on your own before you try to take on capital.
kschrader 17y ago
That's bullshit. There are a lot of impressive startups here and a number of others that are about to come out of the gate that are going to kill it. I lived in SF for a number of years, and the mix of impressive to unimpressive start-ups is fairly similar in both places. If you can't find anything interesting it's just because you aren't looking.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

a) Wall Street has been a huge talent suck for a long time...the default dream...: Work for Lehman. Actually, there is a bigger talent suck than Lehman. I can easily see the appeal of working for a startup rather than Lehman: don't wear a suit, don't deal with bureaucracy or MBAs, technology rules the day. Less money, but a lot more fun. Now, consider many small hedge funds: don't wear a suit, no bureaucracy, maybe one or two MBA's who handle clients, technology rules the day. Bring your dog to work, but the CEO's dog gets veto power. Both seem like fun places to work, but the hedge fund can compete on price.

OmniLarry 17y ago
I read that as a stand-in for "Wall St", probably also because my friends usually go for Goldman now, but hedge funds are definitely where all the action is at.
pw0ncakes 17y ago
The technological problems that you work on in a hedge fund are less interesting than those you do in a startup. On the other hand, making actual money has benefits.
- mtalantikite 17y ago
  I don't know, I disagree that they're not solving really interesting problems. My first jobs out of college were at hedge funds, pretty much by accident, and I got the chance to work with a ton of really smart people -- many of whom were math or engineering PhDs -- in a very challenging environment. One two-person team I got to work with was doing something resembling stat-arb, and was pushing about $250 million of trades in the last 10 minutes of the market. Beyond getting to be hands on with some crazy math, building a system to make that happen isn't exactly trivial.
  - pw0ncakes 17y ago
    Fair point. At a quant hedge fund, you do get to work with some awesome people, and you learn a lot from after-work conversations.

bwh2 17y ago

[Wall Streeters turned venture capitalists] are people who do dumb shit like ask about pricing for a premium version of a genuinely novel product (in a category with no existing market) that hasn't even launched yet...in the first meeting. Right, because asking about pricing (you know, the process by which you charge actual money for a product, thus generating revenue and hopefully profit) is a completely unreasonable thing for an investor to ask about.

pchristensen 17y ago
When the product hasn't launched and there's no existing market, the questions should be around finding customers, distribution, and technology risks.
MediaSquirrel 17y ago
I agree that focusing on the biz model is important, but determining price pre-supposes finding product-market fit. Real discussion should be around that.

sak84 17y ago

VCs/Angels in NYC(northeast as well) are just not in the same investing environment as the West Coast. And it's solely because this area is just not as mature as there. There are the investors that are smart and are willing to take the risks (Founder's Collective, USV, FRC, Flybridge etc.), but the problem is that they are few and far between relative to earlystage VCs and angels on the west coast. Therefore, because they're smart, have branding and don't have serious competition, they DON'T have to take the risk. And why would they, who would blame them? They can wait until the company is almost completely de-risked before they move in. (I guess an argument here is that it's a good thing that the early stage investing industry is small and less risky here. If they succeed more will come.) The other investors here (the wall streeters turned VCS) just don't get it. They're not investing, as you say, in "change the world" ideas. They're investing in stuff that can make money right away, which is probably why they ask about pricing prematurely. NYC is frustrating in this respect, and it's easy to see why you're thinking about the West Coast. They're just way more intelligent, early-stage investors. That's changing though, I believe. It just sucks to be a startup in this sort of purgatory. The more Ron Conway's that come to the east the better!

gyardley 17y ago
From personal experience, I can tell you that's not remotely how Union Square Ventures and First Round Capital invest. (Can't tell you about Founder's Collective or Flybridge because I haven't taken money from them.) They're certainly willing to put money into companies before the risk is gone.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

eirene 17y ago

Sorry to hear about your feelings re: Boston. I really enjoyed it during my trip this week and briefly considered moving as FC has an office in Cambridge. I do, however, feel your ecosystem pain. NYC is such a money town, and while there are pockets of sun, air, & water here and there, they don't instantiate enough to be completely nourishing. That said, culture evolves and history re-writes itself with every passing second. Given time, I can see the city reaching her potential as a startup hub; she will make her inexorable way forward. Certainly it's time that neither you nor I can afford to let slip by, but if it's not people like you and I (& other like-minded folks) who help move this city forward, people who give a damn and follow passion up with action, who's it going to be? I realize that you've got to put your company first, but the two (help NYC/grow company) aren't mutually exclusive. For instance Mouse.org -- I'll be chatting with them soon, & if SpeakerText is still in town, would love to place a capable high school intern from one of their squads with you. We (NYC entrepreneurs & investors alike) might make more progress if we could set aside more than a couple hours a month to work concertedly on building culture and making history.

dgallagher 17y ago

I hate Boston. Would never live there. So ignoring that city, where are you going to find, ohh, let's say Speech Engineers? Why hate Boston? I would disagree. Boston's a great city to live in. It's much smaller than NYC so you can walk from one end to the other, is a lot more scenic, and my favorite part of all is that it isn't gritty/dirty like NYC is (unless you head out to Boston's outskirts like Ashland/Brighton/Somerville). Whenever I've visited NYC, all of the pretty parts (outside of Central Park) were tucked away in some place most people can't afford. Being rich in NYC looks like fun, but most people aren't rich. NYC feels like an extension of an office cubicle to me. Crammed buildings. "Rat Race" economics in full effect. No nature, no beauty. You're insulated inside a sea of cement and brick. The only thing that's missing are the metal bars. IMHO of course. Boston isn't perfect either, but I wouldn't dismiss it as a startup hub. Great universities, plenty of talented people available. No, it's not Silicon Valley, but an admirable alternative none-the-less. NYC certainly is too, regardless if I personally like it or not.

MediaSquirrel 17y ago
Boston is f'ing cold. And I'm from SoCal. Plus, it's a bit more blue-blooded. And honestly, I love the NYC grit. Big selling point for me.
mtalantikite 17y ago
Boston occupies a strange place in my heart. I grew up in and around Boston, but am now a New Yorker, and I don't think I could ever move back. There are definitely worse places to live, but Boston has always felt more like a really big small town than a city to me, and the amount of close-mindedness and racism I've found in Boston has always been surprising to me. I just often don't feel comfortable in Boston. While Manhattan might feel crammed, it's part of the appeal for us. Everything is always open, everything you need is within a couple blocks, you can get anywhere anytime in the city via 24 hour public transit. You walk down the street and hear tons of different languages constantly. The diversity in ethnicity, cultural backgrounds, and experiences is mind-blowing. It's one of the world's cultural centers. Art and music is everywhere all the time. We have enormous, beautiful parks all over the place, Central Park only being one of them. Gorgeous brownstone neighborhoods with tree lined blocks. Old factory neighborhoods repurposed into everything imaginable. Is there trash on the ground? Yes, everywhere. That fades from your perception into the landscape within weeks of living here. Maybe Brooklyn would be more your thing (it is for me) -- it's more laid back here and less crowded, but gives you easy access to all the amazing parts of being in NYC. 'No beauty' really is hard for me to swallow -- I look around me here all the time and am always amazed at how beautiful and diverse this city is.

char 17y ago

Having lived in both NYC and the Bay Area for extended periods of time, I would say that at least in terms of rent and location, that there are many more options for running a start-up cheaply in the Bay Area. You might be able to find a decent deal on housing in, say, Astoria, but if you look in Silicon Valley, Berkeley, Oakland, or even certain areas of SF, you'll find many cheaper options that give you twice the space and are just as conveniently located.

carterac 17y ago

In further defense of NYC, I want to address this whole rent/commuting argument. We are comparing this to Silicon Valley, where the freeway is packed with traffic both ways every morning and evening. That same commute in NYC means you could live in very affordable places in Brooklyn, Harlem, Queens, and NJ. Another founder I know, after exiting his company, moved to NYC from SV mainly because he couldn't stand being stuck in traffic all day. Commuting in via the subway or NJ Transit is no longer than the time a lot of people spend in traffic in SV. And the best part? You can read a book. I just finished another chapter in Founder's at Work on the subway back from a meeting. Awesome. And since when was SF and Palo Alto that cheap anyway? Plus in SV you need to own a car and car insurance. That is expensive. I couldn't afford that so I had to borrow a bike. That bike had to get me EVERYWHERE. Want to go to a meeting in SF? There goes half your day because you're at the mercy of the caltrain. Anyway, I could go on, but you get the point. I would argue that NYC will save you time and money when it comes to transportation and rent. OK /rant ps SV and Palo Alto will always have a place in my heart :).

dnsworks 17y ago
Just a quick point, you do not need to own a car and pay for car insurance in SF. I've been car-free for two years. Whenever I need to go somewhere that isn't convenient to my schedule or by public transit, I use zipcar, which is very convenient (at least in my neighborhood). Between car payments, insurance, maintenance, fuel, parking, and parking tickets I used to pay an average of $1,500/month for my vehicle. Now I spend about $70/month on Muni/BART/Caltrain, and between $100-$400/month on zipcar.

gyardley 17y ago

This article is almost completely 100% opposite to my own experience raising money in NYC. There's plenty of good angels here - largely entrepreneurs who have been successful with their own businesses. I talked to a number of them one-on-one and never paid to pitch. There's plenty of good early-stage venture capital firms here - yes, fewer than Silicon Valley, but there's fewer startups to compete with. Raising money from early-stage firms here was a relatively straightforward process. The deal terms were clean, and the valuation was adequate. (Trust me, you want clean terms and an adequate valuation over a high valuation under a ton of preferences anyway. Keeps your options open.) Recruiting was also easy - I largely hired people I'd worked with before at other startups, or who came recommended to me by people I'd worked with before at other startups. The differentiating factor, I suspect - because personally, I'm nothing particularly special - is that I worked at a few startups in NYC and got to know people over a few years before founding my company. (Like Chris Dixon wrote a while back, there's a time to learn and a time to earn.) I suspect this is largely true for Silicon Valley as well.

starkfist 17y ago

I am a veteran of both places. Here is what you need to know. - NYC is 30% more expensive than Silicon Valley / SF - you don't need a car in SF but you probably do in SV - you might need a car if you live in the inconvenient neighborhoods of SF. - the bay area is sort of automatically healthy, you have to work hard to be unhealthy - NYC is automatically unhealthy, you have to work hard to be healthy - the weather is better in California - the women are better in NYC - if you are decent looking and have a job, you can get a date in NYC - you can be good looking and rich in SV/SF and still never get a date - there are better options for outdoors activities in California - anything besides outdoors activities is more convenient in NYC. - hedge funds / finance can be more interesting than a dumb startup and will certainly pay more - working for a dumb startup is bad for your career - you can get trapped in a startup career spiral in SF/SV where you never make any money, even if you're a great programmer - you'll eventually make decent coin in NYC even if you're only an average programmer - there are interesting people in NYC with varied careers ranging from UN analyst to fashion designer - in SF/SV there are tech industry people and weirdos - counterintuitively, even though NYC is more money oriented, the programmers often have very interesting outside interests. the meetup scene in NYC is intellectual, there's math, machine learning, functional programming, etc - in SF/SV most of your fellow programmers will only claim road cycling and guitar hero as interests. the meetup scene is usually about source control or social media tweeting I could go on and on. Thinking about where the best place is to build your startup is kind of silly. You want to think about what you want to build, and build it. You can always move later if needed. These lists are also dumb, although it was fun to write. Really the only way you can decide where to live is to experience places yourself.