Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

blog.getcrossbeam.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 105 posts

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#61

Post by true_tuna »

aantix wrote: post #54

Sadly, if you're an engineer, those savings aren't passed on to you (obviously). If you're a software engineer and want to make an amazing salary by most people's standards, move to the Bay Area and get a job with Google/Facebook/LinkedIn/Etc. You can literally make a 500K+ a year.

Add Netflix to the list. They pay extraordinarily well.

Although most engineers make half what you listed. And what’s the median home price in Mountain View, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Los Altos? None of the above are less than a million. By contrast an engineer making 150k but buying a 500k house might have a better deal.

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#62

Post by jen20 »

everdev wrote: post #37
geverett wrote: post #28

As someone who started a company outside SV, then moved there for 3 years to grow the company, and has now moved away again - I would say it's well worth it to spend at least some time in the Valley to build a network and understand how deals get done in person. The density of investors and other founders/early employees in Silicon Valley can't be beat, and I often found myself learning inadvertently - dinner table c…

I did web design sales from Silicon Valley but used a remote team (US-based) to develop the projects. Everyone was happy. Clients got a great project, I had great margins and the team got paid at or above going rates in their local area. I would never try to build an in person team in the bay area unless you need the absolute 1% of engineers on your team.

If you need the “absolute 1%” of engineers on your team, you go to them where they are, by having a remote-first team and hiring remotely.

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#63

Post by everdev »

jen20 wrote: post #62
everdev wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did web design sales from Silicon Valley but used a remote team (US-based) to develop the projects. Everyone was happy. Clients got a great project, I had great margins and the team got paid at or above going rates in their local area. I would never try to build an in person team in the bay area unless you need the absolute 1% of engineers on your team.

If you need the “absolute 1%” of engineers on your team, you go to them where they are, by having a remote-first team and hiring remotely.

IMO, most are already working in the Bay Area at the big companies or unicorns. If you know how to find that ultra top tier talent remotely I'd love to hear what's worked for you.

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#64

Post by jlarocco »

Nasrudith wrote: post #49
duxup wrote: post #4

I always assumed the valley focus was because, yeah VC money there, and VCs wanted people close by to help (well if they help), and just generally there are a lot of good people there. By no means are those bad reasons, but not everyone will have those reasons. A calculator seems a bit simplistic but I would generally agree that if there isn't something outright drawing you to that area, you don't have to be there an…

Personally I think ego is part of the issue - VCs don't want to admit they don't always need "the best of the best talent" for their application. Especially if their actual product would still be a turd no matter how polished like Juicero - there is no real sophistication needed there, they just wanted to copy Keurig to get rich.

> Personally I think ego is part of the issue - VCs don't want to admit they don't always need "the best of the best talent" for their application.

I'm sorry, but isn't that the same bigoted mindset?

Unless there's real evidence that the valley actually has "the best of the best talent". Every time I see that claim, though, it boils down to some kind of circular logic.

I would definitely agree SV folks think they're the best, but real evidence is lacking.

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#65

Post by ghaff »

true_tuna wrote: post #57
geverett wrote: post #28

As someone who started a company outside SV, then moved there for 3 years to grow the company, and has now moved away again - I would say it's well worth it to spend at least some time in the Valley to build a network and understand how deals get done in person. The density of investors and other founders/early employees in Silicon Valley can't be beat, and I often found myself learning inadvertently - dinner table c…

Where did you move? I’d guess 50% of the people in this thread are open to leaving the Bay Area if we find a location with comparable opportunity.

The thing is that "comparable opportunities" equates to (perceived) Bay Area salaries which are more or less equated to higher-end FAANG salaries and the (perceived) ability for a random engineer to drop a few emails and be starting in a new well-compensated position the following Monday.

You're not going to get those most places. I'm not sure it's the norm in the Bay Area either though.

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#66

Post by duxup »

true_tuna wrote: post #52
froindt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was this idea that support just had to be in the valley because straight up the managers and folks working there didn't know there were technical people... anywhere else (this was before we had other islands of tech in the US). I saw a friend from the Midwest was on the board of a non-profit group. The headquarters was in the DC suburbs, but did no lobbying, mostly verifying credentials and conducting trainin…

I saw this happen in reverse. I was buying servers from Rackable in orders of several millions of dollars. They bought SGI. Fired their Bay Area support staff, moved support to Ohio which was a huge short term gain. But support became so bad it was literally worth less than nothing. They would take in a machine with a known fault (raid controller let’s say) fail to replace the card, ship back a machine that didn’t bo…

One of the downsides of my support example is that there is a lot of outsourcing and cost cutting in that area of work (one of the reasons I left).

So there will be tons of stories like yours that I don't doubt are true.... it's just location probabbly had less to do with it as just a general desire to cut costs at any cost...

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#67

Post by JohnFen »

true_tuna wrote: post #46
JohnFen wrote: post #8

Personally, I wouldn't start a company in silicon valley. On the whole, it looks to me like the downside of doing that far outweighs the upside.

Where would you go? Asking as a Silicon Valley person looking for a place that’s a step less Silicon Valley, but not quite middle America.

Personally? I don't go anywhere, I start my businesses where I already am (a relatively small town in the Pacific Northwest). I don't know what would work for you, though, because it depends on your business goals.

If your goal is to get as wealthy as possible as quickly as possible, then you need to be where the VC money is. That isn't my goal, however, so I have no such need.

For my purposes, there is usually plenty of high-grade engineering talent in the area. If I can't fill a need locally, then it's fairly easy to get someone remote that can handle it. Likewise, there is no problem with sales and distribution (I produce software -- if I produced hardware, that might change the equation). I rarely need financing -- I prefer to bootstrap that stuff rather than sell equity positions or take on debt -- but if I do, there are lots of options for that as well.

If you are happy with where you live, then the only reason to consider moving elsewhere for business purposes is if you can't meet a business need otherwise.

If you aren't happy with where you live, then choose a new place based on what would make you happy. Then analyze if it would work for you business-wise.

I do have another observation, if you're the sort who doesn't want to start your own business but just wants to do interesting engineering work: look outside of the computer industry itself. Pretty much every industry needs engineers, and most have difficulty finding exceptional ones. If you're a solid engineer, you can often write your own ticket if you avoid the obvious employers.

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#68

Post by ghaff »

jedberg wrote: post #60
sontek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the opportunity cost? What does silicon valley have that philly doesn't?

Not being around the valley and not having random run ins with people who can help you. I got one of my best employees by running into her roommate at a birthday party and finding out she's looking for work. I've had other cases of running into people at events that later helped me out. Events I wouldn't have gone to if I didn't live in SV. Also I've found that a lot of VCs don't want to talk to you if you aren't loc…

Location isn't irrelevant but for both locating in a less fashionable location and teams that are at least somewhat distributed, you probably have to budget for T&E. Traveling to events/meetings aren't a panacea but they can fill in a lot of gaps. I get your basic point though.

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#69

Post by [deleted] »

true_tuna wrote: post #46
JohnFen wrote: post #8

Personally, I wouldn't start a company in silicon valley. On the whole, it looks to me like the downside of doing that far outweighs the upside.

Where would you go? Asking as a Silicon Valley person looking for a place that’s a step less Silicon Valley, but not quite middle America.

[deleted]

Re: Starting a Company Outside Silicon Valley Just Saved Me $1.1M

#70

Post by ghaff »

40acres wrote: post #32

Why do you need to start a company in the Valley when two mega-corps (Amazon, Microsoft) have already shown that you can succeed outside of the valley? The huge companies are already starting to branch out (Amazon in NYC/DC, Apple in Austin, FB/Google in NYC) and ecosystems will be built around these hubs. Not only that but there are a variety of other hubs in the nation that are in close proximity to elite technolog…

It's also somewhat of a bias that tech = "whatever Silicon Valley does." While there is a fair amount of that tech in e.g. Boston/Cambridge as well, you also have way more biotech/pharma than exists in SV.
Post reply on HN