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AskHN: Does # of Rails Devs = More Startups / Jobs for a City?
I'm working on this idea to build a startup similar to Devbootcamp or LaunchAcademy teaching how to build webapps using Rails/Backbone/Jquery/JS/HTML etc.. My idea is if you build 'them'(developers) they (businesses/startups) will come.
Dayton, used to be the silicon valley of the 1900s, aviation, auto-part technologies, computers and cash registers.. I want to revive the innovative spirit here in Dayton - and I believe that if I can help churn out RoR devs it might ignite something.
The startup culture here is not very big, I want to change that.
Currently there are about 15 people in Dayton who know Ruby on Rails - if that number were closer to 500 or 1000 would that bring more jobs? Will companies go where the talent is? Are they likely to hire remotely?
If my bootcamp takes off, can I get these people jobs, locally, remotely, and via relocation?
It seems to me that one thing that most startup hubs like SF, Austin, Chicago, and Boston have in common : LOTS of Rails Coders + LOTS of Rails Job Openings -- filling that gap in smaller cities could ignite a startup growth in those cities - that is my hypothesis - what do you think?
- hkarthik 13y agoI think you're missing a key ingredient which SF, Austin, Boston, etc have: established technical universities bringing and growing talent in from across the globe. University towns can be a hotbed of startup talent if they are combined with a wealthy populace that continually injects capital into young companies starting out of school projects and/or research. While companies that start out that way don't encompass all startup growth, they continuously seed it through up and down markets to make the local startup ecosystems more resilient through economic downturns. Without the universities, the best you can do is have market-fueled startup boom/bust cycles like the ones in Dallas, LA, NYC, and San Diego. NYC is trying to break out of this cycle with more economic investment in education and they may pull it off. That being said, I think asking yourself why there isn't a startup culture has a lot more to do with education/talent than it does with what technology du jour is currently popular a city.
- gremlinsinc 13y agoI guess my real question is can a Bootcamp take off in a smaller city, and if our coders volunteered to teach Highschoolers and Middleschoolers code, would it ignite more startups here locally?
- hkarthik 13y agoTalent is only one small part of the startup pie. The other parts are ideas and investment. This is where both research universities and VC come in. I think doing a Bootcamp to increase the skills and level up the talent in your city is a good thing. But if the end goal is to increase startup activity it's probably not going to move the needle much.
- rpedela 13y agoThe programming language is pretty irrelevant. Like hkarthik said, it is about universities. I would see what University of Dayton offers in terms of computer science and primarily focus on helping those students.