Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#101

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 3:28 AM UTC

zinssmeister wrote: post #12

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #6

Right now it is noon in St. Louis and 19 degrees. Right now it is 10:00 in SF and 53 degrees. I think weather plays a large part in why people like to live in the Bay Area. Many refer to the high cost of living here as the "sun tax." As I sit in my office wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I can't even fathom living in St. Louis.

"sun tax" is cheaper in Texas. It's zero as in 0% income tax.

Washington State has a 0% income tax, though maybe not as much sun in the winter (if living in Seattle). And its not Texas.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#102

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 3:30 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #63

erikpukinskis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing is that when people say an area is "becoming increasingly Black" they usually are talking about it going from 0% to 5%, or from 5% to 10%. Parts of San Francisco (at least certain businesses) are moving towards 100% white. It's a fundamentally different phenomenon.

[deleted]

Detroit isn't like that because all the black people moved in, it's like that because all the white people moved out once black people started moving in.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#103

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 3:32 AM UTC

A lot of people say SF/SV/etc is terrible because it's full of Californians, but I've lived all over the country and known lots of people from lots of states and I'd rather live among Californians than Missourians or (god forbid) Texans.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#104

Post by diziet » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 3:40 AM UTC

This is all great, but if you're building a company focused on earning money by doing sales (especially one that has you interacting with other tech companies), the amount of clients you can meet face to face in St. Louis (and the size of the deals) is not something I'd suspect to be competitive with what you'd find in SF.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#105

Post by joshrotenberg » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 3:46 AM UTC

aarondf wrote: post #97

timr wrote: post #18

The current San Francisco influx is unsustainable. If you're somewhere else in the world and thinking about coming here to do a startup, I wish I could convince you to change your mind. San Francisco is incredibly expensive. Rents have shot up by ~50% since 2008, office space is following the same trend, and competition for (even mediocre) programmers is intense. Worse, a lot of the cultural diversity that made San F…

Your comment about "artisinal grilled cheese" earned my upvote. Who knew such a thing existed? Better yet: why?

Because people will buy them.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#106

Post by lostcolony » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 3:47 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #98

lostcolony wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you offer relocation. If a startup has a cool mission, a cool tech stack, -and- operates in an area with a low cost of living, low congestion, and plenty of culture, art, and restaurant variety/quality, it can compete quite nicely with yet another Silicon Valley company when it comes to attracting talent.

Relocation for a startup? If your startup employer fails, you are stuck in a city far away from your support network. If you chanced a startup in the city you lived in, at least you could recover quickly, get a new job, whatever. Relocation can work well for more established companies (and even then, two body problems often kill that), but it doesn't make sense at all for a semi-risky startup.

What happened to all those startups that "need to hire people to build (your) company", to quote the prior post and argument? I mean, you "have dozens of options on the same block." Just take a job with one of them.

EDIT: A bit more seriously, and to your argument in particular, that's where low cost of living comes in your favor. "Hmm, I could take $90k in Silicon Valley where I will have to be careful with my budget, or I could take $75k in St. Louis, where I will live comfortably"; why in the world would you accept a startup in the Valley (thus moving there) given that decision, all other factors being equal (they're not, but there are plenty in favor of St. Louis, as this article points out)?

You're showing yourself willing to move (a software dev willing to relocate will not be short of a job for long; heck, you could always later -look- to move to the Valley), and you'll be able to sock away funds for emergencies much more easily..

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#107

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:00 AM UTC

lostcolony wrote: post #106

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relocation for a startup? If your startup employer fails, you are stuck in a city far away from your support network. If you chanced a startup in the city you lived in, at least you could recover quickly, get a new job, whatever. Relocation can work well for more established companies (and even then, two body problems often kill that), but it doesn't make sense at all for a semi-risky startup.

What happened to all those startups that "need to hire people to build (your) company", to quote the prior post and argument? I mean, you "have dozens of options on the same block." Just take a job with one of them. EDIT: A bit more seriously, and to your argument in particular, that's where low cost of living comes in your favor. "Hmm, I could take $90k in Silicon Valley where I will have to be careful with my budge…

You moved for a startup because it was a great fit for your skills, the startup failed...now what? If there are only a few other startups, what is to say one will be a good fit? Also, your network isn't fully developed yet, maybe you've only been in town for 6 months...getting the right job via word of mouth will be very difficult.

If you don't believe developers are basically exchangeable commodities, then it is easy to see that we need a very large pool of jobs + a decent support network to find those jobs.

SF having critical mass of startups and people you already know (they moved from where you were before) makes it very appealing. SLT has none of that.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#108

Post by smcnally » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:04 AM UTC

diziet wrote: post #104

This is all great, but if you're building a company focused on earning money by doing sales (especially one that has you interacting with other tech companies), the amount of clients you can meet face to face in St. Louis (and the size of the deals) is not something I'd suspect to be competitive with what you'd find in SF.

This is where the rubber hits the road. Staff talent -- especially creative, tech, sales, marketing -- can be identified and managed as a distributed workforce. Most clients need face time. Most prospects need face time before they are clients. It's anachronistic, but mostly the way of the world. I'd love to hear differently.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#109

Post by joshAg » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:19 AM UTC

carsongross wrote: post #2

> If you’re trying to bootstrap, being based in San Francisco is awful. Especially if you have a family. I rented a four bedroom house in a great neighborhood in Sacramento that was a bike ride from Midtown for $2900/mo. We ended up buying a bigger house in the same neighborhood for even less per month. No commute, food is cheap, etc. The cost savings are enormous, and I'm sure it's more expensive than St. Louis... Y…

As someone who grew up in roseville, I am really, really glad for your kids' sake that you bought a house in midtown.

Re: Why I'm Moving My Business From San Francisco To St. Louis

#110

Post by joshAg » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 4:28 AM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #50

This is one of the things I'm jealous of America for coming from a British perspective: that is, a wide variety of cities being technologically advanced and good for startups, tech and businesses generally. Think Austin, think Raleigh-Durhan, think Philadelphia, think Seattle.. Everything in the UK is so grotesquely skewed towards London when it comes to modern tech. Some other cities aren't entirely horrible (Manche…

just to throw some figures at you about how big st. louis is or isn't:

> As of the 2010 census, the population was 319,294, and a 2012 estimate put the population at 318,172,[6] making it the 58th-largest U.S. city in 2012. The metropolitan St. Louis area, known as Greater St. Louis (CSA), is the 19th-largest metropolitan area in the United States with a population of 2,900,605.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis