7 ms·

Hm, sorry but ages of experience show that what mostly works is the other way around: You want to be a big city because you can find clients (users), meet peopl

by atmosx 12y ago

Hm, sorry but ages of experience show that what mostly works is the other way around: You want to be a big city because you can find clients (users), meet people (e.g. possible investors) and generally speaking do any sort of networking that would be otherwise impossible. The internet is what it is, but you can never match the face-to-face relationship with an online approach. I totally understand that this is a dream-like situation: You make a good amount of money, doing what you like in a remote island where the sun shines and the food is always tasty (yes I'm from Greece...) but if your business can't be done 100% online, which is almost never the case, then you need offices in a big city. Then you need to visit and control these offices, etc.

yallahaline 12y ago
I agree. More and more often you see people choosing a mix of both. Living in a big city when their product requires it, going abroad when they need more focus, or when their in a development stage that enables it. You don't have to be in the same place all the time anymore :)
- atmosx 12y ago
  A mix of both is optimal IMHO and even somewhat dream-like situation but today (more than ever before) it IS possible.
- tluyben2 12y ago
  Yep, I live deep in the mountains and travel to cities when I need to. Works well. Better than anything I did before anyway. It also gives a good perspective on what happens when you fail; nothing.
eddieroger 12y ago
Couldn't agree with this more. I worked for a startup-turned-recent-exit, and despite their big growth after a few years, if you go back and look at the first hundred customers or so, they were nearly all locals in the non-Silicon-Valley city the company was formed in, from other small shops to some of the bigger companies. Unless your product is niche to small fishing companies, this advice may not be the best.
- VLM 12y ago
  "Unless your product is niche to small fishing companies, this advice may not be the best." Yet the competition space for very young rich urban american white kids making products for very young rich urban american white kids is hyper crowded, and in "rural fishing communities" the marketplace is apparently nearly empty, so the odds of a big success appear much better. There's a fad now of "home automation" as defined by a small ARM box with a thermometer and a microphone for $100 that does pretty much the same as the 20 competitors... you have a less than 1 in 20 chance of being the top dog alpha winner. On the other hand AFAIK there is no competition for "www.rate.your.diesel.fishing.boat.mechanic.com" social network shopping for diesel fuel filter group buy advice or whatever. And that idea only took ten seconds, I'm sure actually trying would result in better ideas. Your odds of competing are higher if you stay in the city and follow (key word, "follow") the pack. Which is awesome if your goal is playing king of the hill and the sheer thrill of competition. On the other hand, if you want to make fat stacks of cash, you want the best odds of winning, not the best odds of being involved in an epic competition.
  - xianshou 12y ago
    100% of epsilon is still epsilon.
  - thebenedict 12y ago
    Just think! When you've built the app and captured 100% of the diesel fishing boat mechanic rating market, you'll make dozens - nay, hundreds - of dollars! Users could search, sort and filter all 6 diesel fishing boat mechanics in town! I'm being sarcastic but you're right. I live in a small town (in a small country) and there are a lot of unmet needs that software could address, and minimal technical competition. The other side of the coin is that the market is small, and capturing lots of geographically disparate niche markets is hard. Even nth runner up success in Home Automation for Rich People in Big Cities is a lot of money. Innovating in small markets is fun and part of the reason why I'm here, but big markets are competitive for a reason. The adages about small startups being just as much work as big ones, and owning 1% of $10^9 being better than 10% of $10^6, still apply.
patio11 12y ago
I have a new appreciation for the advantages of being in a big city since moving to Tokyo recently. That said, my while I'm an occasional visitor in Silicon Valley I hold a passport from Bootstrapistan, and most of its population resides in the capital city of A Small Town In The Middle of Nowhere. [+] A representative sampling of locations of the "head office" from small software businesses that I'm socially close to: Ogaki, Philadelphia, "way in the boonies in West Virginia", "way in the boonies in Idaho", "way in the boonies in Florida", Nuremberg, a small town in Italy whose name I am blanking on, etc etc. There exist plenty of happy software companies in the big metropolitan areas -- and God bless them -- but they aren't the whole of the solution space. [+] Why? Interesting question. Some days I think this is just a pure coincidence and some days I think that the low implied burn rate for the founders and generally low opportunity costs makes it easier for the business to hit both pro-forma profitability and "successfully outcompetes best available alternatives on the local labor market" profitability. Bootstrapped businesses can, of course, pay for an apartment in the Mission and exceed a Google PM's salary in Mountain View, but those are much harder bars to hit than "beats the snot out of any job available in Ogaki."
- legulere 12y ago
  Nürnberg isn't that small if you count in the other directly adjacent cities (1.2 million inhabitants) or even the whole metropolitan area (3.5 million inhabitants) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Metropolitan_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Metropolitan_Region And you are in 1 hour 20 minutes in Munich via train. So I would argue that this is already pretty central
  - kasey_junk 12y ago
    Philadelphia is also not a small town and is a short train ride to NYC and Washington D.C. I think more generally Patrick's point is that they aren't from tech hubs and that there is a reason for that.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > Why? Interesting question. Some days I think this is just a pure coincidence and some days I think that the low implied burn rate for the founders and generally low opportunity costs makes it easier for the business to hit both pro-forma profitability and "successfully outcompetes best available alternatives on the local labor market" profitability. I've always thought that when I was ready to bootstrap my own startup, I'd do it from a rural farm property. You can fly to meet whomever you need to face to face for networking, and with extremely low costs of living, your run rate is close (but not quite) to zero. Thanks for confirming my thought!
noso 12y ago
I also agree with this, the biggest problem I got being in nice but small town is finding good people with the correct skill set.
mironathetin 12y ago
"Hm, sorry but ages of experience show that what mostly works is the other way around …" I think it is a business by itself: you pay for your exotic startup location. What we just read is a travel agency that focuses on startups. I agree with atmosx, that towns are better suited for startups. When we worked on our startup many years ago, one of the largest obstacles for investors was the location: a mid size sleepy town, away from where the money is. One reason for it was of course, that investors back then didn't get what internet means (they still don't). The other reason is, they want control. If their investment is out of reach, there will be no investment. Uhh, funny idea: take their cash and disappear to a moroccan beach. Sounds certainly nice, but looks so bad.
- mathattack 12y ago
  Yes - they're talking their book. Which would survive a VC funding round better: Two startups with a similar very far fetched idea - one asks for $10mm to continue in the valley, the other $5mm in Morocco?
  - bdcravens 12y ago
    The valley one, but odds are it'd burn through the cash faster.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  Same experience here. Investors like to be close to their money. Being in a city that is easy traveling distance from a major international airport hub means that any investor in the world is one plane flight away. being one short hop beyond that means the number of available investors becomes limited to the people who are very local.
  - tracker1 12y ago
    Even then.. Are the airports in NYC, SF or Seattle really that much better than say Portland, Denver, Boise or a number of other smaller cities that aren't as packed?
drcomputer 12y ago
I think there are ways to understand people using written language that do not translate well face to face. It's a fairly subjective evaluation, but consider the whole spectrum of human writing, rather than the tendency of conversation evoked by the contemporary internet.
nathas 12y ago
You're optimizing for growth, the article optimizes for happiness. Depends what you're looking for in life.
tracker1 12y ago
It doesn't need to be all or nothing... Portland, Denver, Boise and a bunch of other places are still cities while still able to provide some nice quality of life features over the likes of Seattle, San Francisco or New York City. You can have a much shorter commute. Lower cost of living. And some really nice community aspects. I've never understood why the likes of Facebook or other large tech companies wouldn't build infrastructure in the some of the smaller cities as opposed to already over-crowded and much more expensive cities. Intel and Motorolla built out in Chandler, AZ which brought in a lot of technology companies and built the city to what it is today. It makes perfect sense for a large company to do the same someplace with a limited market where they can build out a community.
- droidist2 12y ago
  I agree. I love that some of the important early PC game companies started in places like Shreveport, Louisiana.

by atmosx 12y ago

yallahaline 12y ago

I agree. More and more often you see people choosing a mix of both. Living in a big city when their product requires it, going abroad when they need more focus, or when their in a development stage that enables it. You don't have to be in the same place all the time anymore :)

atmosx 12y ago
A mix of both is optimal IMHO and even somewhat dream-like situation but today (more than ever before) it IS possible.
tluyben2 12y ago
Yep, I live deep in the mountains and travel to cities when I need to. Works well. Better than anything I did before anyway. It also gives a good perspective on what happens when you fail; nothing.

eddieroger 12y ago

Couldn't agree with this more. I worked for a startup-turned-recent-exit, and despite their big growth after a few years, if you go back and look at the first hundred customers or so, they were nearly all locals in the non-Silicon-Valley city the company was formed in, from other small shops to some of the bigger companies. Unless your product is niche to small fishing companies, this advice may not be the best.

VLM 12y ago
"Unless your product is niche to small fishing companies, this advice may not be the best." Yet the competition space for very young rich urban american white kids making products for very young rich urban american white kids is hyper crowded, and in "rural fishing communities" the marketplace is apparently nearly empty, so the odds of a big success appear much better. There's a fad now of "home automation" as defined by a small ARM box with a thermometer and a microphone for $100 that does pretty much the same as the 20 competitors... you have a less than 1 in 20 chance of being the top dog alpha winner. On the other hand AFAIK there is no competition for "www.rate.your.diesel.fishing.boat.mechanic.com" social network shopping for diesel fuel filter group buy advice or whatever. And that idea only took ten seconds, I'm sure actually trying would result in better ideas. Your odds of competing are higher if you stay in the city and follow (key word, "follow") the pack. Which is awesome if your goal is playing king of the hill and the sheer thrill of competition. On the other hand, if you want to make fat stacks of cash, you want the best odds of winning, not the best odds of being involved in an epic competition.
- xianshou 12y ago
  100% of epsilon is still epsilon.
- thebenedict 12y ago
  Just think! When you've built the app and captured 100% of the diesel fishing boat mechanic rating market, you'll make dozens - nay, hundreds - of dollars! Users could search, sort and filter all 6 diesel fishing boat mechanics in town! I'm being sarcastic but you're right. I live in a small town (in a small country) and there are a lot of unmet needs that software could address, and minimal technical competition. The other side of the coin is that the market is small, and capturing lots of geographically disparate niche markets is hard. Even nth runner up success in Home Automation for Rich People in Big Cities is a lot of money. Innovating in small markets is fun and part of the reason why I'm here, but big markets are competitive for a reason. The adages about small startups being just as much work as big ones, and owning 1% of $10^9 being better than 10% of $10^6, still apply.

patio11 12y ago

I have a new appreciation for the advantages of being in a big city since moving to Tokyo recently. That said, my while I'm an occasional visitor in Silicon Valley I hold a passport from Bootstrapistan, and most of its population resides in the capital city of A Small Town In The Middle of Nowhere. [+] A representative sampling of locations of the "head office" from small software businesses that I'm socially close to: Ogaki, Philadelphia, "way in the boonies in West Virginia", "way in the boonies in Idaho", "way in the boonies in Florida", Nuremberg, a small town in Italy whose name I am blanking on, etc etc. There exist plenty of happy software companies in the big metropolitan areas -- and God bless them -- but they aren't the whole of the solution space. [+] Why? Interesting question. Some days I think this is just a pure coincidence and some days I think that the low implied burn rate for the founders and generally low opportunity costs makes it easier for the business to hit both pro-forma profitability and "successfully outcompetes best available alternatives on the local labor market" profitability. Bootstrapped businesses can, of course, pay for an apartment in the Mission and exceed a Google PM's salary in Mountain View, but those are much harder bars to hit than "beats the snot out of any job available in Ogaki."

legulere 12y ago
Nürnberg isn't that small if you count in the other directly adjacent cities (1.2 million inhabitants) or even the whole metropolitan area (3.5 million inhabitants) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Metropolitan_Region https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Metropolitan_Region And you are in 1 hour 20 minutes in Munich via train. So I would argue that this is already pretty central
- kasey_junk 12y ago
  Philadelphia is also not a small town and is a short train ride to NYC and Washington D.C. I think more generally Patrick's point is that they aren't from tech hubs and that there is a reason for that.
toomuchtodo 12y ago
> Why? Interesting question. Some days I think this is just a pure coincidence and some days I think that the low implied burn rate for the founders and generally low opportunity costs makes it easier for the business to hit both pro-forma profitability and "successfully outcompetes best available alternatives on the local labor market" profitability. I've always thought that when I was ready to bootstrap my own startup, I'd do it from a rural farm property. You can fly to meet whomever you need to face to face for networking, and with extremely low costs of living, your run rate is close (but not quite) to zero. Thanks for confirming my thought!

noso 12y ago

I also agree with this, the biggest problem I got being in nice but small town is finding good people with the correct skill set.

mironathetin 12y ago

"Hm, sorry but ages of experience show that what mostly works is the other way around …" I think it is a business by itself: you pay for your exotic startup location. What we just read is a travel agency that focuses on startups. I agree with atmosx, that towns are better suited for startups. When we worked on our startup many years ago, one of the largest obstacles for investors was the location: a mid size sleepy town, away from where the money is. One reason for it was of course, that investors back then didn't get what internet means (they still don't). The other reason is, they want control. If their investment is out of reach, there will be no investment. Uhh, funny idea: take their cash and disappear to a moroccan beach. Sounds certainly nice, but looks so bad.

mathattack 12y ago
Yes - they're talking their book. Which would survive a VC funding round better: Two startups with a similar very far fetched idea - one asks for $10mm to continue in the valley, the other $5mm in Morocco?
- bdcravens 12y ago
  The valley one, but odds are it'd burn through the cash faster.
tjradcliffe 12y ago
Same experience here. Investors like to be close to their money. Being in a city that is easy traveling distance from a major international airport hub means that any investor in the world is one plane flight away. being one short hop beyond that means the number of available investors becomes limited to the people who are very local.
- tracker1 12y ago
  Even then.. Are the airports in NYC, SF or Seattle really that much better than say Portland, Denver, Boise or a number of other smaller cities that aren't as packed?

drcomputer 12y ago

I think there are ways to understand people using written language that do not translate well face to face. It's a fairly subjective evaluation, but consider the whole spectrum of human writing, rather than the tendency of conversation evoked by the contemporary internet.

nathas 12y ago

You're optimizing for growth, the article optimizes for happiness. Depends what you're looking for in life.

tracker1 12y ago

It doesn't need to be all or nothing... Portland, Denver, Boise and a bunch of other places are still cities while still able to provide some nice quality of life features over the likes of Seattle, San Francisco or New York City. You can have a much shorter commute. Lower cost of living. And some really nice community aspects. I've never understood why the likes of Facebook or other large tech companies wouldn't build infrastructure in the some of the smaller cities as opposed to already over-crowded and much more expensive cities. Intel and Motorolla built out in Chandler, AZ which brought in a lot of technology companies and built the city to what it is today. It makes perfect sense for a large company to do the same someplace with a limited market where they can build out a community.

droidist2 12y ago
I agree. I love that some of the important early PC game companies started in places like Shreveport, Louisiana.