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http://www.paulgraham.com/hubs.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hubs.html

kriro 10y ago
That's the article I had in the back of my head. I think it might be a good time to reassess some of the ideas from the article (it is 5 years old after all). """being in a place where startups are the cool thing to do, and chance meetings with people who can help you""" I think "the cool thing to do" isn't as relevant as it was 5 years ago due to some well publicized success stories and things like the shark tank etc. Startups are generally considered a more viable career option these days so that need (and thus the competitive advantage of SV) is quite a bit less than 5 years ago (imo) Chance meetings...yeah I get it. It's also lessened to some degree due to social media and random chance on the internet (someone reading a tweet of yours and knowing how to help, help on HN/reddit etc.) but that's still a great point in favor of SV. It's also self-reenforcing. So for arguments sake I'll offer the counter position to "move to a startup hub" namely "move to a place where you expect the highest density of your customers" (which should help with chance meetings as well) The second alternative I'll suggest is...stay at a place you feel comfortable at especially if it has low living cost until you are ramen profitable given SV cost structures...then move. [there's a lot of it depends here but those are just suggestions to kickstart a hopefully interesting discussion]
- jasode 10y ago
  >I'll offer the counter position to "move to a startup hub" namely "move to a place where you expect the highest density of your customers" (which should help with chance meetings as well) Based on empirical history of how successful startups have turned into $1 billion companies, it looks like the density & quantity of the hiring pool and investors are higher priorities than location of customers. In SV, you get a pipeline of fresh Stanford grads and also the ex-employees from Apple/Google/Facebook/etc. For investors, you have a bunch of them clustered on Sand Hill Rd. For B2C consumer facing internet businesses, there are no geographically concentrated customers to move to. The prioritization of proximity close to the customers may make more sense for a lifestyle business[1]. E.g. you're developing a SaaS cloud service for surfing shops to manage their inventory of surfboard gear. In that case, it might make more sense to locate the headquarters in San Diego and it's a calculated tradeoff to rely on the smaller pool of programmers in that area. The startup CEO physically visits each surfing shop to see how the software is used and gets real feedback for new features. Investors would also be less of an issue because a lot of lifestyle businesses are bootstrapped to profitability. That said, YC and VCs don't invest in lifestyle businesses so their bias towards SV wouldn't apply. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business

kriro 10y ago

That's the article I had in the back of my head. I think it might be a good time to reassess some of the ideas from the article (it is 5 years old after all). """being in a place where startups are the cool thing to do, and chance meetings with people who can help you""" I think "the cool thing to do" isn't as relevant as it was 5 years ago due to some well publicized success stories and things like the shark tank etc. Startups are generally considered a more viable career option these days so that need (and thus the competitive advantage of SV) is quite a bit less than 5 years ago (imo) Chance meetings...yeah I get it. It's also lessened to some degree due to social media and random chance on the internet (someone reading a tweet of yours and knowing how to help, help on HN/reddit etc.) but that's still a great point in favor of SV. It's also self-reenforcing. So for arguments sake I'll offer the counter position to "move to a startup hub" namely "move to a place where you expect the highest density of your customers" (which should help with chance meetings as well) The second alternative I'll suggest is...stay at a place you feel comfortable at especially if it has low living cost until you are ramen profitable given SV cost structures...then move. [there's a lot of it depends here but those are just suggestions to kickstart a hopefully interesting discussion]

jasode 10y ago
>I'll offer the counter position to "move to a startup hub" namely "move to a place where you expect the highest density of your customers" (which should help with chance meetings as well) Based on empirical history of how successful startups have turned into $1 billion companies, it looks like the density & quantity of the hiring pool and investors are higher priorities than location of customers. In SV, you get a pipeline of fresh Stanford grads and also the ex-employees from Apple/Google/Facebook/etc. For investors, you have a bunch of them clustered on Sand Hill Rd. For B2C consumer facing internet businesses, there are no geographically concentrated customers to move to. The prioritization of proximity close to the customers may make more sense for a lifestyle business[1]. E.g. you're developing a SaaS cloud service for surfing shops to manage their inventory of surfboard gear. In that case, it might make more sense to locate the headquarters in San Diego and it's a calculated tradeoff to rely on the smaller pool of programmers in that area. The startup CEO physically visits each surfing shop to see how the software is used and gets real feedback for new features. Investors would also be less of an issue because a lot of lifestyle businesses are bootstrapped to profitability. That said, YC and VCs don't invest in lifestyle businesses so their bias towards SV wouldn't apply. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business