Why Even Ron Conway Couldn’t Persuade Me To Move To Silicon Valley(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Why Even Ron Conway Couldn’t Persuade Me To Move To Silicon Valley
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/07/silicon-valley-atlanta/
7 comments
This article made my day. While living in the SF Bay Area I definitely fell victim to the "you can only really succeed here" mentality. It's easy to do when so many people seem to be succeeding, not realizing that's a function of so many more people simply trying.
When we decided to leave and go back east, it only took about 200 miles of driving to see that mental bubble burst. Of COURSE you can be successful elsewhere. It all depends on your attitude, persistence and motivation.
I've made it my personal mission to foster the tech startup community here in Charlotte, meeting as many talented people as I can and bringing them together. I started our local chapter of Hackers and Founders, and frankly I've been shocked at the level of energy and talent I've discovered. There are plenty of folks participating in startups here and there are also plenty of folks with money to bankroll the ideas. Even if you need money from outside of Charlotte, getting on an airplane is easy.
At the end of the day, I choose to live here because it's fun, friendly and has access to the beach, mountains and great weather. The fact that it's also affordable means I can focus on building my business, not finding a huge salary just to pay the rent.
When we decided to leave and go back east, it only took about 200 miles of driving to see that mental bubble burst. Of COURSE you can be successful elsewhere. It all depends on your attitude, persistence and motivation.
I've made it my personal mission to foster the tech startup community here in Charlotte, meeting as many talented people as I can and bringing them together. I started our local chapter of Hackers and Founders, and frankly I've been shocked at the level of energy and talent I've discovered. There are plenty of folks participating in startups here and there are also plenty of folks with money to bankroll the ideas. Even if you need money from outside of Charlotte, getting on an airplane is easy.
At the end of the day, I choose to live here because it's fun, friendly and has access to the beach, mountains and great weather. The fact that it's also affordable means I can focus on building my business, not finding a huge salary just to pay the rent.
I can visit regularly via modern innovations in transport. Like the airplane.
I'd like to hear more thoughts on starting a consumer internet company outside of the valley. Specific pros & cons.
Can't speak for Atlanta, but the situation in NYC these days is pretty solid. Great startup community, lots of tech meetups, organizations like HackNY, places like General Assembly, etc. The list of cool NY startups is long, and includes Foursquare, bit.ly, Etsy, Hunch, Aviary, OkCupid, Tumblr, SecondMarket, Hunch, and more.
For Atlanta: Georgia Tech creates enough qualified computer students to feed a nice ecosystem. Some people do work for equity here, and there is even some locally available funding, (although nothing like NoCal). Housing is less than 1/2 the cost of SF even if you're living in the expensive parts.
One random other good factor: Atlanta has a huge imbalance of women vs men (as in, there are considerably more women than men). This skews even further when you take gay men out of the counts (which there are a lot of in Atlanta). This means its considerably easier to find women in Tech here than many places out west. (The same goes for several other minorities).
The imbalance is also useful for dating purposes too if you're interested in that part of things.
If your startup is related to music, this is probably one of the better towns for it (lots of hiphop labels are centered here). CNN is here, and Turner is a veritable fountain of contractor based work (if you need a bit of consulting work to tide you over). Also: Probably one of the easiest cities to host a conference in.
One random other good factor: Atlanta has a huge imbalance of women vs men (as in, there are considerably more women than men). This skews even further when you take gay men out of the counts (which there are a lot of in Atlanta). This means its considerably easier to find women in Tech here than many places out west. (The same goes for several other minorities).
The imbalance is also useful for dating purposes too if you're interested in that part of things.
If your startup is related to music, this is probably one of the better towns for it (lots of hiphop labels are centered here). CNN is here, and Turner is a veritable fountain of contractor based work (if you need a bit of consulting work to tide you over). Also: Probably one of the easiest cities to host a conference in.
Don't forget Hunch :)
Heh, whoops. Well, Hunch is double cool. (It's on my shortlist of places to think about applying if/when the time comes.)
There's Coraid out in Athens, GA, a very successful startup in a very nice town.
I live in DC, something of a community is getting off the ground here, but by and large it's still a city full of people too concentrated on the good paying day job to really push them over the edge. Or at least from what I've seen. Impossible to find developers willing to work for equity, everyones a "consultant". Can't use hired guns when I'm bootstrappin, now can I? But like I said, it's getting better.
I get asked regularly to do web dev work for equity, and that will never happen. It's essentially asking me to do work for free and share risk (yes, payment in the form of equity is like being paid in lotto scratch tickets).
Hired guns may be your only option.
That said, I truly wish you success (and that DC has a supportive community for you).
Hired guns may be your only option.
That said, I truly wish you success (and that DC has a supportive community for you).
I'm bootstrapping and using hired guns. They're getting paid by revenue I'm bringing in doing, essentially, product research - ie, consulting in the field we're selling into.
Also may end up in DC due to potential client base - lawyers.
Also may end up in DC due to potential client base - lawyers.
How much equity are you offering? I mean if you can't afford to pay a market salary, then you need to either A) have traction and massive sex appeal or B) be bringing people in as co-founders. This goes equally well out in the valley.
Come up a bit farther north to Baltimore -- it really IS happening here. Check out Startup City. DC is a stone's throw. Join the fun, help us make Mid-Atlantic happen.
Happy to see a mention of New Brunswick, Canada in there. UNB has a very underrated Computer Science faculty that graduates a lot of great programmers, but they don't have a recognizable name outside of Canada. Companies that get well-known that remain in Atlantic Canada will help change this.
It was a startup... but now it is an established business.
It seems to me that more and more posts are focusing on how to manage established businesses as they grow versus nuturing a startup. And That's great!
But, could we please stop calling established businesses startups? More importantly, could established businesses please stop calling themselves startups?