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Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

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Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#41

Post by URSpider94 »

feralchimp wrote: post #4

People actually move to new cities in order to found startups? And when they do, they move to Silicon Valley or the Bay Area , where talent is more expensive than anywhere else on the planet? WTF? I live in Boston and dig it, but this sort of article screams "trying too hard." Anyone who even considers the possibility that Boston might not have enough talent for their startup is a crackhead. Basically any place with…

Here's what pg had to say on the subject when he relocated YC in 2009:

"We never tried to claim to the startups in the summer cycles that it was a net advantage to be in Boston. The most we could claim was that we could mitigate the disadvantages sufficiently well—for example, by flying everyone out to California to present to investors at our Mountain View office. But we did worry that the Boston groups were losing out. Boston just doesn’t have the startup culture that the Valley does. It has more startup culture than anywhere else, but the gap between number 1 and number 2 is huge; nothing makes that clearer than alternating between them."

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#42

Post by feralchimp »

mhartl wrote: post #32
feralchimp wrote: post #4

People actually move to new cities in order to found startups? And when they do, they move to Silicon Valley or the Bay Area , where talent is more expensive than anywhere else on the planet? WTF? I live in Boston and dig it, but this sort of article screams "trying too hard." Anyone who even considers the possibility that Boston might not have enough talent for their startup is a crackhead. Basically any place with…

Basically any place with a university and access to the internet is a good enough place for the right founder to build something of quality. This is true, but making a successful startup requires a lot more than building a quality initial product. Although successful companies can be founded virtually anywhere, the domain knowledge needed to grow and scale a technology startup is concentrated in certain geographies—e…

> the domain knowledge needed to grow and scale a technology startup

This is a common enough claim that it could be considered "common knowledge," and I wouldn't be in a good position to refute it even if I could figure out what exactly the claim is.

Is the claim that it takes specific domain knowledge to convince people with money to invest in a business? That it takes specific domain knowledge to scale up a sw/hw infrastructure to handle top-tier web application workloads? That is takes specific domain knowledge to hire teams of engineers?

All of those things are true, of course, but in what way is any of that domain knowledge particularly concentrated in SV or the Bay Area?

The concentration of already-exited former-founders is higher, and that's real, but at the end of the day we're still talking about Software Businesses. Is the problem of converting value-laden software to revenue streams really all that exotic and complicated, such that only people in a particular social network have cracked it?

> the gap is growing every day

Again, a) by what metric, and b) even if true n-1 of the last n days, it's a big world out here and a lot of it writes code and attacks problems.

Cheers-

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#43

Post by masukomi »

davidedicillo wrote: post #34

I run a startup and a consulting business in Miami. My girlfriend has been offered to move to Boston, and I'm not going to hide that I'm afraid at the idea of leaving a place where I built tons of connection in the past 6 years (I moved to Florida from Italy, so I started with 0 connections). I'm afraid that I will have to start from scratch again in Boston, where I don't know a single person. What are you thoughts a…

Lots of good geeks and networking possibilities here. One big difference between FL and MA (besides the weather) is that in MA we're generally up-front about it when we dislike people. I much prefer it. Saves wasting time on people who don't want anything to do with you, and make it much clearer who the people that DO want something to do with you are. Obviously, your mileage may vary with this.

Of course, living in Boston is crazy expensive too...

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#44

Post by rubiety »

Does anyone care about living in a city that's just plain nice to live in? Everyone's so concerned about whether a city is conducive to start-ups they miss out on evaluating quality of life from a personal perspective.

I choose to live in San Diego because I love to live in San Diego, for innumerable personal reasons, not because it's "startupy". Stocktwits moved to Coronado island near San Diego not because there's a thriving start-up scene here, but because it's just a damn nice place to live and work. Developers who can live anywhere should want to live in great places for personal reasons.

For whatever it's worth, I've done a significant amount of traveling around the United States (mostly on three JetBlue flying passes) and in general find cities like Boston to be overrated in terms of quality of life, especially when factoring in the enormous cost of living.

No doubt these are all personal value judgments. I just wonder why people optimize so little on the simple personal quality of life vector and so much on whether there's a bunch of "startupy people" there.

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#45

Post by mcritz »

mhartl wrote: post #32
feralchimp wrote: post #4

People actually move to new cities in order to found startups? And when they do, they move to Silicon Valley or the Bay Area , where talent is more expensive than anywhere else on the planet? WTF? I live in Boston and dig it, but this sort of article screams "trying too hard." Anyone who even considers the possibility that Boston might not have enough talent for their startup is a crackhead. Basically any place with…

Basically any place with a university and access to the internet is a good enough place for the right founder to build something of quality. This is true, but making a successful startup requires a lot more than building a quality initial product. Although successful companies can be founded virtually anywhere, the domain knowledge needed to grow and scale a technology startup is concentrated in certain geographies—e…

*institutional knowledge about investment, growth, scaling, etc.

This might always be the case for East Coast startups. You start a business, you need investors that understand your business.

I hypothesize that if you start a tech business in Boston -- and succeed -- you're more likely to move someplace warmer, or cheaper, or back to your home state (or mother country), or to a place that has lots of startups in your field to invest your money because you understand their business. The East Coast has a lot of great talent. The scale of their new talent cultivation is likely unrivaled even by the Bay Area. It's just that Boston isn't home for many of its most successful.

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#46

Post by rubiety »

matt1 wrote: post #9

Related question: if you're not aiming to raise money or grow big fast, how important is it to be in a tech hub? I live in Waltham, right outside of Boston, and am considering moving somewhere cheaper and warmer because the benefits of building a company here (or SV) don't seem as important if you're going the MicroISV/Micropreneur route. Thoughts?

San Diego. I moved here on a whim a bit over a year ago after traveling all over the country on JetBlue flying places. San Diego just seemed to have an incredibly high quality of life, and it does.

There's also a great Ruby community here if you happen to be a Ruby developer: http://sdruby.org

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#47

Post by rubiety »

nemik wrote: post #16

Why you might not want to move to MA/Boston if you're an employee: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2011/09/no... Their non-compete laws are some of the most repressive in the nation.

Gotta love how the absence of state laws restricting what contracts between private individuals can include is described as being "the most repressive".

Ultimately these clauses are part of private, consenting employment agreements. If you don't like a non-compete clause offered by an employer (which is possible in MA since are no strong laws against it), nothing is forcing you to sign it.

Especially since it's a "suppliers market" for labor in our industry, you should be able to easily negotiate out of one if an employer tries to bring it up.

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#48

Post by dasil003 »

wtvanhest wrote: post #25
matt1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. My wife and I are leaning towards Orlando due to its proximity to family. Can anyone comment on the Orlando startup scene?

Also, once you experience a Florida winter you will always laugh at people who say they "love the seasons ". If you decide to move there feel free to email me any Orlando specific questions.

I don't get it. Are you saying that's a platitude that people tell themselves because it sucks where they live?

No, I love the seasons. I love a heavy winter storm and hiking up into the back country for virgin runs in 3 feet of champagne powder. I love sitting in front of a roaring piñon fire drinking hot cocoa. I love the spring thaw and swollen rivers. I love the summer and the heat and the smells and sitting on the porch at night. I love the fall and the aspens turning with long hikes and mountain bike rides.

I've also lived in central Brazil which is quite a bit nicer and more steady than Florida being medium elevation in the tropics (ie. daylight and temperature vary only slightly and it's not too humid). I mean it's nice to visit from a winter climate, but I prefer some variation.

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#49

Post by gms »

mhartl wrote: post #35
evandena wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out Madison, WI. http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/24/wisconsin-land-of-beer-chee... As one comment summed up: "As the founder of a 5 strong semi-stealth Madison startup I can definitely attest to our fair city's startup culture. Great university, great lifestyle options and create urban and natural environments. It's hard to beat our live-work-play stats outside of Europe. We've been rated the best place to live i…

I always wonder if such commenters have ever lived in or even visited SV or SF. I liken it to occasional comments I've heard that the Bay Area has a thriving entertainment scene. These people have clearly never lived in LA. Until you've lived in a hub for Industry X , you really have no idea how thoroughly Industry X can saturate you and seep into your brain by osmosis. It seems like everyone in Silicon Valley is in…

I live in Boston and visit SF twice a year and I agree.

Re: Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups

#50

Post by mjwalshe »

feralchimp wrote: post #4

People actually move to new cities in order to found startups? And when they do, they move to Silicon Valley or the Bay Area , where talent is more expensive than anywhere else on the planet? WTF? I live in Boston and dig it, but this sort of article screams "trying too hard." Anyone who even considers the possibility that Boston might not have enough talent for their startup is a crackhead. Basically any place with…

You also need access to finance who grock the industry your working in - if you can, watch the documentary Micro Men there's a great scene where Cris Curry and Hermann Hauser are trying to explain to some local clueless bank manger that they want to build a personnel computer (the Acorn Atom)
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