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There are many reasons YC requires you to be in Mountain View during the program. When you finish YC, every partner will tell you to stay in the Bay Area. As C
by tyre 10y ago
There are many reasons YC requires you to be in Mountain View during the program. When you finish YC, every partner will tell you to stay in the Bay Area.
As CEO of a post-seed company, I had to start building relationships with Series-A investors. They are all here, so I could meet them in person without much travel, or they could come visit our office. That matters.
When our investors hold events, they are here. I meet other founders/executives who have started/run large tech companies, in person. I can ask them about what they are thinking about, walk through problems we're going through, and build a human-to-human relationship, off the record. That last part is important when, as a founder, talking candidly about the shit going wrong isn't usually what you get to do. Most won't do it over email, unless they know you well already.
When we recruit people, many of the best are already here, working on similar problems. There is a Catch 22 in building another Silicon Valley: to hire talented people you need successful companies; to build successful companies, you need talented people.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but the hard parts of building a tech company are easier here. They aren't easy, but easier. When you're a small team with 300 things that have to get done, having the most important ones made easier is a nice thing to have. For every minute another startup spends convincing an investor or potential hire that they can be the first massively successful company founded in Richmond, we can think about something else.
Do I wish it were the case? No. But I only have so many battles that I can fight at once, and our number one priority is building software to run cities. If being here helps us do that, we'll adapt.
- elnado 10y agoRight, I was just about to reply with a similar response to another post. I went to Virginia Tech, lived in Northern VA for a while, and now I'm here in SF and it's like night and day. I did not believe that being here would be such a huge and significant difference, and yet it is. Influential and successful people in tech are so incredibly accessible here. After only a couple months I got to meet VCs, startup founders, CEOs of successful companies, other highly intelligent people in tech doing amazing things and so on. Most importantly, at least for me, there's a constant external motivation to push yourself, learn, collaborate, get involved, to do more, and I love it :D
- jdavis703 10y agoFellow ex-Virginian and I have to agree. Many of the entrepreneurs in the DMV seem like they're doing a startup because doing a startup is cool, but don't have any idea on how to actually build a business. Maybe one day I'll come back, but it's even hard to find skilled people who want to work at a startup out there -- perhaps because they've experienced what I'm talking about also.
- Retric 10y agoSV ~doubles your burn rate, when you are sucking up VC funds that's not an issue. But, a lot of SV failures may have succeeded in other places.
- muzz 10y agoCan you provide some examples of "SV failures may have succeeded in other places"?
- exBarrelSpoiler 10y agohttp://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/business/economy/bay-area-start-ups-find-low-cost-outposts-in-arizona.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/business/economy/bay-area-...
- muzz 10y agoThose are "outposts" or satellite offices of Bay Area companies, not ideas that failed in Silicon Valley but somehow worked in other places
- dibstern 10y agoDoesn't being in SV mean the top talent is all hoovered up by Google, FB, etc? What about huge rent costs? Would love to be able to start a startup in Melb, Australia, because it's the most livable city in the world, but the tech scene here in comparison to SV is like living in the Stone Age. Not sure if I'd be better off moving to SV - but interestingly, I met a top CTO/CEO who had moved his company to the Valley and advised against it, because apparently it's very cliquey and it's hard to break into really well established circles, especially as an Aussie, for some reason. I'll definitely get him another coffee at some point in the future to dig into this more.
- johns 10y agoDifferent kinds of people work at BigCos and startups. Some overlap and occasionally you compete but not always. For your situation: go work in SV for a startup. That will get you in the circles and connected. Australia is easy to hire from for US companies because of E-3 visas.
- eng_monkey 10y ago> Melb, Australia, because it's the most livable city in the world Are you joking? It must be one of the cities in the world with the worst traffic. And of course, real estate is so cheap...
- imh 10y ago>There is a Catch 22 in building another Silicon Valley: to hire talented people you need successful companies; to build successful companies, you need talented people. I wonder if remote work can help with that. It may have the potential to reduce the second part. I'm in SF, but a lot of our engineers are remote. With enough remote work in SF available, living in VA or wherever won't tie you so strongly to a tiny handful of companies, lowering the critical mass of employers needed in a location needed to kick-start a virtuous cycle.
- yesimahuman 10y agoMore power to you. In my experience, there's enough startup infrastructure around the world at this point for new companies to do the most important thing (getting product market fit), to grow beyond those early constraints that SV had a near monopoly on. In fact, those companies often come looking at SV later as a resource but no longer required on day 1. Anyways, I now get a kick out of the idea I might be a pioneer forging a new future where building high tech companies is a world wide endeavor, but it's not for everyone.
- massysett 10y agoOften the promise of technology and communications is that it allows people to be and work anywhere. Yet SV is determined to cram itself into this tiny area that has an extraordinarily hostile attitude toward growth, thus leading to crippling affordability issues. There is no more perfect example of the enduring importance of physical proximity, despite the promise that SV companies themselves often push.
- mooreds 10y agoInteresting case of new economic geography: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_geography https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_geography See also Brad Feld who talks about building an entrepreneurial ecosystem, but the commitment is decades.