[deleted]
Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree about the other benefits in addition to access to VCs, but it's still arguable if they're worth the higher cost of living. If you're a bootstrapped startup, you'll hit ramen profitability much sooner elsewhere. When you have an infinite runway, you'll have infinite time to find people as well :).
Living in the Valley is not especially expensive for founders. Buying a house in the Valley is notoriously expensive, because there is so much speculation built into prices (even now). But renting a two-bedroom apartment in Mountain View is no more expensive for equivalent quality of life than in Boston. We gave groups the same amount of money in Boston cycles as in Bay Area cycles, and we never noticed any differenc…
It may be similar to Boston, but it's far more expensive than living in many other parts of the country (or state).
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree about the other benefits in addition to access to VCs, but it's still arguable if they're worth the higher cost of living. If you're a bootstrapped startup, you'll hit ramen profitability much sooner elsewhere. When you have an infinite runway, you'll have infinite time to find people as well :).
Living in the Valley is not especially expensive for founders. Buying a house in the Valley is notoriously expensive, because there is so much speculation built into prices (even now). But renting a two-bedroom apartment in Mountain View is no more expensive for equivalent quality of life than in Boston. We gave groups the same amount of money in Boston cycles as in Bay Area cycles, and we never noticed any differenc…
Living in the valley was actually much cheaper for me than Miami. That's from housing to my car (the lease was cheaper out there, so I waited till I was situated to get one) to food (jack in the box value menu ftw). I'd suggest living with others, as the 1 bedrooms do seem to be higher priced to rent. Gas is never fun, but that's most of California. Take the 22 or 522 bus. It runs 24/7 down el camino and costs 60 bucks a month for an unlimited pass.
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#24Is it surprising in any way that a bunch of people not from the valley say that being in the valley isn't important?
No more surprising than the fact that so many people in the valley say being in the valley is important.
I notice that in the bay area, or at least SF, "startup" is assumed to mean a web site or web app of some sort. So when I hear claims that the bay area is the best place for a startup, I don't necessarily disagree, but I parse "startup" as "web app startup".
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree about the other benefits in addition to access to VCs, but it's still arguable if they're worth the higher cost of living. If you're a bootstrapped startup, you'll hit ramen profitability much sooner elsewhere. When you have an infinite runway, you'll have infinite time to find people as well :).
Living in the Valley is not especially expensive for founders. Buying a house in the Valley is notoriously expensive, because there is so much speculation built into prices (even now). But renting a two-bedroom apartment in Mountain View is no more expensive for equivalent quality of life than in Boston. We gave groups the same amount of money in Boston cycles as in Bay Area cycles, and we never noticed any differenc…
Like staunch mentions, there are cheaper places to live in than either SiV or Boston. Living in Austin-TX would cost half as much for instance. Living in developing countries would cost even less (at least if one doesn't insist on 100% equivalent quality of life).
Disclaimer: we're based in the valley and are happy for it, but that's because we're profitable anyway.
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#26I disagree. Have you taken a look at the culture in the valley? They are all about helping each other. i.e. I think this story was told at LeWeb. Seesmic founder lets Friendfeed guys know that their products would work really well together. The Friendfeed guys call back and tell him to drop by to discuss it. Loic hops into his car, drives 10 minutes to the Friendfeed offices, and after an hour or so of meetings, Frie…
...outside the Valley, most people have heard of neither FriendFeed nor Seesmic. ;-) The big advantage of living outside the valley is that you're closer to real customers - people who don't live and breathe technology 24/7. That can help you or hurt you, depending on your target market. Could something like MySpace, AOL or PlentyOfFish have started inside the Valley, considering that they succeeded by catering to id…
There are plenty of nontechnical people in SV too. There are dentists and cooks and policemen here just like everywhere else.
AOL, incidentally, did not cater to idiots initially. Before the web it was something a lot of hackers used.
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Living in the Valley is not especially expensive for founders. Buying a house in the Valley is notoriously expensive, because there is so much speculation built into prices (even now). But renting a two-bedroom apartment in Mountain View is no more expensive for equivalent quality of life than in Boston. We gave groups the same amount of money in Boston cycles as in Bay Area cycles, and we never noticed any differenc…
It may be similar to Boston, but it's far more expensive than living in many other parts of the country (or state).
My father's mortgage payment in North Carolina is one-third of my (shared!) rent payment in San Diego.
When I hear of my younger friends buying houses back home, I am reminded of the real monetary costs of the life I lead.
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#28It's one reason to go to the valley, but not the only one. When I moved to the valley last year, everyone asked me why? I said "People". Those people could be new friends at other startups, future talent for my company, future informal advisors, potential investors, or an awesome bartender at the Olde Pro in Palo Alto. The Valley exposed me to people that I couldn't have met anywhere else. If you love technology and…
Definitely about the people. Unless you are the founder of a company, you are never working for the _current_ company, but instead are working for the next company (in which you will be a founder, or an early stage employee that gets a good chunk of equity) - you need to demonstrate that you are someone they want to hire.
With the possible exception of craigslist, where they manage to accomplish heroic feats with very little in the way of staff, any company that is eyeballing $1B+ market-cap will grow to hundreds, and possibly thousands of employees.
Where else on earth can you find such a concentration of DBAs, Sysadmins, Designers, Tech-Friendly-Lawyers, Developers, Product Manager who have all three of the following characteristics: o Very, Very good at their job. o Real world experience in several major companies. o And, most importantly, willing to go to work for a "lets throw caution to the wind" startup.
Change is the only constant in the valley. People here, for whatever reason, are just comfortable changing jobs, sharing information, and building new things.
The weather is astoundingly good. Never too hot or too cold - 350 / 365 days in the year. And the other 15 usually mean having to actually turn on your heater or open a window on a warm summer night.
The peninsula, for the most part, does suck in terms of lifestyle. There are exceptions (Murphy Street in Sunnyvale, Good portions of San Francisco, downtown San Jose on a Saturday night) - but, in general, it's mile upon mile of suburbia and strip malls. This is not Manhattan or downtown Vancouver. (On the flip side, with few distractions there is more time to get work done)
The major downside is that unless you are filthy rich or already a home owner, the only sane strategy (unless you don't mind commuting for 90-120 minutes each morning) is to rent.
With all that said, if what you are looking to do is grow a company organically, and have your eyes set on something more sane like a $10mm-$100mm market cap over 5-10 years, there are probably a lot of ways to succeed without being in the middle of it all.
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#29Of course tech startup don't NEED the Valley, but to me(German resident) it seams that the Valley is a good place to be for a tech startup.
Re: Tech Startups Don’t Need the Valley Unless They Need VC
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your probability of success is higher in the Valley Your probability of flipping heads is higher than your probability of rolling 1 on a six-sided die: X = .5, Y =~ .167. I have yet to even hear of a good setup for measuring X or Y, to say nothing of actual numbers for them, for measuring "probability of success in a startup". Heck, I have never even heard a defensible universalizable definition of success for a star…
Look, you get one bite at the apple per idea/situation. A random sample isn't an appropriate counter-factual. Your job as an entrepreneur is to maximize your chances for success given the situation at hand. I suppose "chances for success" wouldn't have set you off, and I acknowledge that. But we're at the point where we mock people for using "beg the question" incorrectly and ignore the substance of the argument, whi…
The only people I have heard that say this, travelling around the world, meeting multiple 9+ digit exit entrepreneurs and tons of 7+, are the ones that started in SV.
I tend to think based on what I read that there are a lot more large exits inside SV than outside. But, there seem to be a lot more early deaths and me-too companies there as well.
Are you optimising for the wrong solution (insane exits)?
[edit: early deaths = companies, not people]