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How To Build A Startup From A Beach

blog.simplehoney.com

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Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#51

Post by guylhem »

sneak wrote: post #47
guylhem wrote: post #29

Please don't sell that startup from a beach dream on exoticism. I would like to cast a diverging opinion from my personal experience. For various work-related reasons I left Europe in early 2008 to live in Martinique, in the French West Indies. It is very close to what the article describes - tropical weather (you will never get cold - 25 C/ 77 F is what we call cold and take a jacket for - home weather station on ht…

That's fine and good, but writing from Berlin as it comes into springtime, I for one would much rather have my boring, isolated, day-to-day grind come without metric assloads of snow and ice on everything and relative inability to do anything outdoors for half the year. I expect no sympathy from Californians, but for those in NYC, Boston, Chicago, Berlin, etc - upvotes to the left. :P

If your daily life is boring, you are doing something wrong.

Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#52

Post by larrys »

guylhem wrote: post #29

Please don't sell that startup from a beach dream on exoticism. I would like to cast a diverging opinion from my personal experience. For various work-related reasons I left Europe in early 2008 to live in Martinique, in the French West Indies. It is very close to what the article describes - tropical weather (you will never get cold - 25 C/ 77 F is what we call cold and take a jacket for - home weather station on ht…

And of course to your point many of us have spent a week or two on vacation in a nice place and decided it was enough and wanted to get home.

And if you've ever had a vacation home or boat they are good to escape to (but from my experience only if you have other stress in your life) but not something you would want to do every day. In fact a boat is a good example of that. I can play with the computer every day and never get bored. A boat, something I have no desire to do every day (even when I owned one which was for many years). And if you've been a boater and have seen the amount of boats tied up that never go out you are aware of this phenomena for the non-outliers.

Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#53

Post by larrys »

guylhem wrote: post #29

Please don't sell that startup from a beach dream on exoticism. I would like to cast a diverging opinion from my personal experience. For various work-related reasons I left Europe in early 2008 to live in Martinique, in the French West Indies. It is very close to what the article describes - tropical weather (you will never get cold - 25 C/ 77 F is what we call cold and take a jacket for - home weather station on ht…

And of course to your point many of us have spent a week or two on vacation in a nice place and decided it was enough and wanted to get home.

And if you've ever had a vacation home or boat they are good to escape to (but from my experience only if you have other stress in your life) but not something you would want to do every day. In fact a boat is a good example of that. I can play with the computer every day and never get bored. A boat, something I have no desire to do every day. And if you've been a boater and seen the amount of boats tied up that never go out you are aware of this phenomena for the non-outliers.

Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#55

Post by dlitwak »

I can understand the upside of this, with the better routine, health, everyone living in the same house etc.

However, I think the isolation is VERY dangerous. Yes, silicon valley is a bit of an echo chamber, but at the same time, you are around some of the smartest minds in the world. Our first few VC meetings resulted in a "pivot" of sorts. Still same end goal, but different way of going about it. Being around everyone in the travel tech industry, and being able to set up meetings with them, has changed our go-to-market strategy and our priorities.

These smart people have a way of poking holes in your strategy. There is something to be said for talking to "normal" people, but I can say we have talked to hundreds of normal people, and the most valuable advice we got was from those VCs and angels, or travel tech people.

We possibly would have wasted months if we didn't seek out these experts and learn from their success and failure.

By moving to Hawaii you risk losing that.

The Adioso guys kind of mentioned this, that living in Melbourne they weren't around the same type of environment and PG brought them back to earth when they got back here. The ruthlessness of silicon valley has it's upside.

Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#56

Post by joyce »

guylhem wrote: post #29

Please don't sell that startup from a beach dream on exoticism. I would like to cast a diverging opinion from my personal experience. For various work-related reasons I left Europe in early 2008 to live in Martinique, in the French West Indies. It is very close to what the article describes - tropical weather (you will never get cold - 25 C/ 77 F is what we call cold and take a jacket for - home weather station on ht…

Honolulu is a big city which has a constant flow of Silicon Valley folks so not as isolating as where you were.

Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#57

Post by saryant »

kijin wrote: post #50
eof wrote: post #30

All of this advice is great except "Hawaii" which is merely good advice. There are much cheaper beach towns with unbelievable weather that aren't so isolated. Hawaii is particularly nice for US residents without a Passport, but you should get a passport! I recently did something very similar, though I was at several beaches and in a couple mountain ranges. There is a sort of inverse relationship between adventure and…

Do Americans really have such a strong aversion to getting a passport? Why is "you don't need a passport to get to X" even in the list of reasons why you should go to X? A passport is just another piece of ID. Yeah, it's a bit too bulky to carry around in your wallet, but most of the time you don't even need to carry your passport around. Is it really so difficult for Americans to get passports? Or is passport-talk j…

It's not visas, Americans only need those for a handful of countries and an American passport is #5 for visa-free entries worldwide, ahead of even Switzerland and Canada. [1]

The problem is that getting the visa is 1) expensive ($137 when I got mine five years ago) and 2) time-consuming. Standing in the post office for hours sucks and even finding out which post office will accept your application is difficult. I had to drive to three different post offices because I got bad information over the phone. The whole process took me about two weeks. Getting my French visa, which was the purpose of my passport, took less time.

So for your average family of four, [4x$137 + time] isn't worth it just for a more interesting beach than Waikiki or Miami. Not saying I agree with that logic but I think that's how a lot of Americans view it. There's enough to see domestically that it's not worth the added expense for a lot of people.

I'm not one of them—I only started travelling internationally two years ago and I've filled five pages of my passport and will have another seven stamps and a long-stay visa in there by August. That, however, is not a normal travel pattern for most Americans.

[1] https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship/visa-restrictions/

(Whether or not Americans know how few countries require visas is another issue)

Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#58

Post by sparknlaunch12 »

Absolutely great story and shows off the lifestyle you can achieve outside the city.

However some drawbacks (to compliment the positives of the article):

+ Short Term: While a retreat allows your team to focus and integrate, like all holidays - they end.

+ Talent: You currently recruit in a tech hub city, however eventually your talent leaves and you need to find replacements in the local village. You cannot find anyone as good or as friendly (as they joined the team/party late).

+ Too friendly: You are all new to the place, so you are a little eco system hanging out all the time. The fun will eventually wear off as internal relationships grow/breakdown.

+ Networking: The valley offers fantastic opportunities to meet other like minded people. Opportunities are much higher to meet that next co-founder, angel or VC. What are the chances of this on an island?

So, it can work but not forever and offers startups a constructive way of building strong team dynamics and creating tight focus on building their alpha/beta product.

Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#59

Post by reledi »

jes5199 wrote: post #17
citizens wrote: post #6

This is exactly what I've been wanting to do. Well done simplehoney; sounds like a great time.

I wonder if we could form a company of people who think this is a good idea without getting a bunch of freeloaders who want a nice vacation. I'd definitely be into working from the beach for a month or two.

This made me think. I wonder if there is potential for a startup that rents office space to startup teams in a tropical area near the beach or with a really nice view. Judging from this thread (which is a small sample but still something), there is a lot of demand.

Re: How To Build A Startup From A Beach

#60

Post by terhechte »

guylhem wrote: post #29

Please don't sell that startup from a beach dream on exoticism. I would like to cast a diverging opinion from my personal experience. For various work-related reasons I left Europe in early 2008 to live in Martinique, in the French West Indies. It is very close to what the article describes - tropical weather (you will never get cold - 25 C/ 77 F is what we call cold and take a jacket for - home weather station on ht…

I can really see that. My current plan is to work on something where I move back and forth between Germany and some other tropical place (maybe even Andalusia they also have nice beaches), so that when place A starts to become normal, I get to switch again.
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