5 ms·

Agreed, a company's limited startup capital goes a lot further in other places. Office rent, housing, hell even Internet access and electricity are cheaper outs

Agreed, a company's limited startup capital goes a lot further in other places. Office rent, housing, hell even Internet access and electricity are cheaper outside of the usual places startups locate. But then you have a reverse problem of not necessarily having enough talent in the area. However, if you're open to remote workers (which everyone should be) then that is much less of an issue.

stephenhuey 14y ago
In a big city like Houston, many developers seem content with their corporate jobs. However, because there aren't many startups like ours, we don't have to battle other companies for talent among the the subset of developers here who crave something more interesting.
mindcrime 14y ago
But then you have a reverse problem of not necessarily having enough talent in the area. There's no doubt that some areas have a great concentration of talent than others. But there are definitely plenty of places besides SV where there is talent aplenty. Look at the Research Triangle Park area of NC... within something like a 25 mile radius you have 3 major research universities (UNC Chapel Hill, NC State and Duke), several smaller colleges, including the all-girl schools and the historically black colleges, Peace, North Carolina Central, Meredeith, Shaw, St. Augustines, etc., as well as two pretty good community colleges - Wake Tech and Durham Tech. One of the suburbs here (Cary) has - if I recall correctly - the highest (or one of the highest) per capita concentrations of Phd holders of any city in the US. Yes, in North Carolina... fancy that, huh? The challenge for startups here, in terms of talent, is to convince local graduates, and/or people who move here to work for IBM, Glaxo, Cisco, EMC, etc., to stay here and work for a startup. But the talent is here, and as the startup culture grows (and it has been growing, markedly so in the past 4-5 years I'd say), that becomes more and more viable.
- jimmaswell 14y ago
  What would you say about New York's concentration of talent, besides around NYC?
  - mindcrime 14y ago
    No clue... haven't spent enough time in New York to really have any insight on that one. :-(

stephenhuey 14y ago

In a big city like Houston, many developers seem content with their corporate jobs. However, because there aren't many startups like ours, we don't have to battle other companies for talent among the the subset of developers here who crave something more interesting.

mindcrime 14y ago

But then you have a reverse problem of not necessarily having enough talent in the area. There's no doubt that some areas have a great concentration of talent than others. But there are definitely plenty of places besides SV where there is talent aplenty. Look at the Research Triangle Park area of NC... within something like a 25 mile radius you have 3 major research universities (UNC Chapel Hill, NC State and Duke), several smaller colleges, including the all-girl schools and the historically black colleges, Peace, North Carolina Central, Meredeith, Shaw, St. Augustines, etc., as well as two pretty good community colleges - Wake Tech and Durham Tech. One of the suburbs here (Cary) has - if I recall correctly - the highest (or one of the highest) per capita concentrations of Phd holders of any city in the US. Yes, in North Carolina... fancy that, huh? The challenge for startups here, in terms of talent, is to convince local graduates, and/or people who move here to work for IBM, Glaxo, Cisco, EMC, etc., to stay here and work for a startup. But the talent is here, and as the startup culture grows (and it has been growing, markedly so in the past 4-5 years I'd say), that becomes more and more viable.

jimmaswell 14y ago
What would you say about New York's concentration of talent, besides around NYC?
- mindcrime 14y ago
  No clue... haven't spent enough time in New York to really have any insight on that one. :-(