5 ms·

I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones

I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that.

msbarnett 10y ago
> I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that. It's tough. This isn't "the suburbs", this is way way off the beaten path. Six-and-a-half hours one way, by car, to St Johns, which at 70k people is still a pretty small and rural city by most standards. You're a couple of days away from anything resembling Big City living. The local talent pool is more or less non-existant, so you'd either have to accept remote workers (in which case you're not saving the town population-wise, but you're at least stabilizing the tax base), or you'd have to pay above SF rates to convince people to move out to the middle-of-nowhere instead of SF, where they'd have a much lower risk of finding another job if the company stops paying the bills. And access to actual amenities. The cheap housing will help a bit in recruiting, especially among people with young families or older Devs who aren't traditionally the target of startups, but the lack of anything remotely resembling a nightlife or entertainment options (maybe there's a local watering hole in town that doubles as the only restaurant) is going to turn a lot of people off. And that's not even getting into the one-room "school" situation, the fact that the nearest hospital is so far away they need to air-evac you if you become ill, etc. It's a tough, remote life unlike anything most urban dwellers would be used to. And god knows what kind of internet connectivity even exists out there.
- jkaunisv1 10y ago
  Great points! Thanks :) I didn't look and didn't realize it was that far from St Johns (I'm in Ottawa and my east coast knowledge is laughably poor).
  - msbarnett 10y ago
    I'm in Edmonton and I promise you mine is at least as bad. I just took the drive times off google maps.
st3v3r 10y ago
The problem with software companies is rarely rent. It's attracting talent. You'd have to offer something pretty special as a software company to get people to move to the middle of nowhere like that, especially if such a place has their schools closed.
- JabavuAdams 10y ago
  Combination company and techno-utopian cult? Tech Kibbutz?
  - hx87 10y ago
    You can't have a tech company that's as isolated from the rest of the world as an old school kibbutz. No fiber, no life. If there were a massive government-funded effort to get fiber to every last bit of the country then it might work.
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      Well, you could take the VC money you'd spend on Silicon Valley rent and salaries, and use that to bring fiber to that area.
bitwize 10y ago
Somebody has. My current employer contracts out to a software consulting shop in Fredericton, which is the boonies to us (Boston area) but still the big city to those island dwellers. The other day I had the pleasure of meeting a pair of my Canadian colleagues, who had taken the drive down, in person. The problem is, without an urban hub it becomes difficult to foster the sort of connections it takes to accelerate a company to the sort of fast growth that's expected of today's unicorn-oriented startup economy. So you haven't heard of any of the software shops in NB or PEI, because they're all small, and if one is destined to become big it'll take some time.
JabavuAdams 10y ago
I used to visit relatives in Kenora, Ontario a couple of times a year. On day 1-3 of the visit I'd think of buying property and running a remote software company. By day 5 or so, I'd be homesick. Really remote communities are quite different. Nature actively tries to kill you and you spend a lot of your time just dealing with that. Also, with respect to kids, everyone's in the same school. So, you can't really segregate based on socie-economic or educational background of the parents.
- balabaster 10y ago
  > Nature actively tries to kill you and you spend a lot of your time just dealing with that. Hahahaha that's what makes it awesome! :D I'm presently adjusting to the complete lack of decent internet speeds. That has been my single biggest issue with moving to the country. As soon as I figure out alternate methods to delivering my work, I'll be a much happier person.
  - tjl 10y ago
    My parents live about a half hour from Belleville which itself has decent Internet. But, where they are they're basically stuck with cellular. They have a WiFi-Cellular modem that they use. Unfortunately, they have a tiny data cap for people who would use it as their main Internet service. I think they upped it to 10GB.
colomon 10y ago
Hell, I'd love to move to Newfoundland, but even so there's no way you'd ever get me to move to somewhere as isolated as Little Bay Islands. 6.5 hours to drive to St. John's? It's faster to fly from Toronto... (Edited to add: thought I should say why. Besides fantastic scenery and wonderful people, the traditional music scene there is amazing. St. John's may be a fairly small city (100K), but there are more traditional sessions an easy walk from downtown than there are within an hour's drive of Detroit. Actually, possibly about the same number as in metro Toronto? It's just insane. Hell, last time I was there I was walking back from playing one session and got roped into joining a party of strangers who had an accordion and guitar going on the back porch.)

msbarnett 10y ago

> I'm surprised somebody hasn't started a software company in a place like this. Maybe not the very out of the way island featured in the article but similar ones. Rent must be dirt cheap. I wonder how big a company (or collective of freelancers?) it would take to save a town like that. It's tough. This isn't "the suburbs", this is way way off the beaten path. Six-and-a-half hours one way, by car, to St Johns, which at 70k people is still a pretty small and rural city by most standards. You're a couple of days away from anything resembling Big City living. The local talent pool is more or less non-existant, so you'd either have to accept remote workers (in which case you're not saving the town population-wise, but you're at least stabilizing the tax base), or you'd have to pay above SF rates to convince people to move out to the middle-of-nowhere instead of SF, where they'd have a much lower risk of finding another job if the company stops paying the bills. And access to actual amenities. The cheap housing will help a bit in recruiting, especially among people with young families or older Devs who aren't traditionally the target of startups, but the lack of anything remotely resembling a nightlife or entertainment options (maybe there's a local watering hole in town that doubles as the only restaurant) is going to turn a lot of people off. And that's not even getting into the one-room "school" situation, the fact that the nearest hospital is so far away they need to air-evac you if you become ill, etc. It's a tough, remote life unlike anything most urban dwellers would be used to. And god knows what kind of internet connectivity even exists out there.

jkaunisv1 10y ago
Great points! Thanks :) I didn't look and didn't realize it was that far from St Johns (I'm in Ottawa and my east coast knowledge is laughably poor).
- msbarnett 10y ago
  I'm in Edmonton and I promise you mine is at least as bad. I just took the drive times off google maps.

st3v3r 10y ago

The problem with software companies is rarely rent. It's attracting talent. You'd have to offer something pretty special as a software company to get people to move to the middle of nowhere like that, especially if such a place has their schools closed.

JabavuAdams 10y ago
Combination company and techno-utopian cult? Tech Kibbutz?
- hx87 10y ago
  You can't have a tech company that's as isolated from the rest of the world as an old school kibbutz. No fiber, no life. If there were a massive government-funded effort to get fiber to every last bit of the country then it might work.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    Well, you could take the VC money you'd spend on Silicon Valley rent and salaries, and use that to bring fiber to that area.

bitwize 10y ago

Somebody has. My current employer contracts out to a software consulting shop in Fredericton, which is the boonies to us (Boston area) but still the big city to those island dwellers. The other day I had the pleasure of meeting a pair of my Canadian colleagues, who had taken the drive down, in person. The problem is, without an urban hub it becomes difficult to foster the sort of connections it takes to accelerate a company to the sort of fast growth that's expected of today's unicorn-oriented startup economy. So you haven't heard of any of the software shops in NB or PEI, because they're all small, and if one is destined to become big it'll take some time.

JabavuAdams 10y ago

I used to visit relatives in Kenora, Ontario a couple of times a year. On day 1-3 of the visit I'd think of buying property and running a remote software company. By day 5 or so, I'd be homesick. Really remote communities are quite different. Nature actively tries to kill you and you spend a lot of your time just dealing with that. Also, with respect to kids, everyone's in the same school. So, you can't really segregate based on socie-economic or educational background of the parents.

balabaster 10y ago
> Nature actively tries to kill you and you spend a lot of your time just dealing with that. Hahahaha that's what makes it awesome! :D I'm presently adjusting to the complete lack of decent internet speeds. That has been my single biggest issue with moving to the country. As soon as I figure out alternate methods to delivering my work, I'll be a much happier person.
- tjl 10y ago
  My parents live about a half hour from Belleville which itself has decent Internet. But, where they are they're basically stuck with cellular. They have a WiFi-Cellular modem that they use. Unfortunately, they have a tiny data cap for people who would use it as their main Internet service. I think they upped it to 10GB.

colomon 10y ago

Hell, I'd love to move to Newfoundland, but even so there's no way you'd ever get me to move to somewhere as isolated as Little Bay Islands. 6.5 hours to drive to St. John's? It's faster to fly from Toronto... (Edited to add: thought I should say why. Besides fantastic scenery and wonderful people, the traditional music scene there is amazing. St. John's may be a fairly small city (100K), but there are more traditional sessions an easy walk from downtown than there are within an hour's drive of Detroit. Actually, possibly about the same number as in metro Toronto? It's just insane. Hell, last time I was there I was walking back from playing one session and got roped into joining a party of strangers who had an accordion and guitar going on the back porch.)