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Why to Move to a Startup Hub

paulgraham.com

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Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#31

Post by pg »

clem wrote: post #11

So how valuable is it to move to a strange city where you don't know anyone versus staying in the less optimal city where you actually have friends and connections? It's great that Silicon Valley and Boston have this bubbling startup culture, but if you didn't graduate from school there it seems less likely you'd be able to tap into that resource.

That is a good point. Off the top of my head, at 25 you should move, while at 35 connections might be enough to compensate for the difference between, say, Boston and SV.

Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#33

Post by geebee »

cperciva wrote: post #13

"And just as Jews are ex officio allowed to tell Jewish jokes..." I don't think "ex officio" is really appropriate here (although I'm sure we all knew what you meant), since being Jewish isn't strictly speaking an office which is held. Perhaps ex genesis ("by right of birth") or ex sanguinis ("by right of blood") would be more appropriate?

Hmmm... this depends on how long you lived in England. I was born in the UK too, but I moved to SF when I was 10 months old. The rest of my family was all born in the US - mom, dad, older sister, younger brother. And I sound like I'm from California, not from England.

I may have a UK passport, but I don't think I'd be allowed to pass off any jokes about England as self-deprecating humor (excuse me - humour).

This reminds me of the convert on Seinfeld who starts making Jewish jokes, but then keeps on making Catholic jokes as well.

Preist: "And this offends you as a Jewish person?" Seinfeld: "This offends me as a comedian."

Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#34

Post by karzeem »

jwinter wrote: post #15

> And yet whatever argument you use to prove that startups don't need to move from London to Silicon Valley could equally well be used to prove startups don't need to move from smaller towns to London. Well, what if it isn't the raw number that makes a city a startup hub, but having a certain minimum amount of startups? That argument would then account for small towns not being as startup-friendly as London, but Lond…

PG's point about non-Silicon Valley VCs not knowing their stuff as well is a good one, but your point helps bolster the other side of the argument.

New York may be underrated as a startup hub, for the reason you cite. According to Wikipedia, "though it is not often thought of as a 'College Town', there are about 594,000 university students in New York City, the highest number of any city in the United States." Similarly, there's a lot of startup activity in New York, but it's not considered a startup hub because there's so much else going on in the city. Silicon Valley doesn't have anything else going on, so startups and the tech industry dominate its image.

Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#35

Post by Zak »

If it's a mistake to start your startup anywhere but SV, given the choice, then why does YC do its summer program in Boston? This is not rhetoric, but a serious question.

Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#36

Post by PeterBell »

pg wrote: post #31
clem wrote: post #11

So how valuable is it to move to a strange city where you don't know anyone versus staying in the less optimal city where you actually have friends and connections? It's great that Silicon Valley and Boston have this bubbling startup culture, but if you didn't graduate from school there it seems less likely you'd be able to tap into that resource.

That is a good point. Off the top of my head, at 25 you should move, while at 35 connections might be enough to compensate for the difference between, say, Boston and SV.

I'm 37. I have set up businesses in London, Houston, Chicago, NYC, Edinburgh and (soon) Sydney. You can hook into a city in just a couple of months, being from elsewhere sometimes helps in creating interest, and the people who will be of most use to you in a start-up are likely to be very open to new people if they've got the skills, drive and charisma needed to succeed. Just my 2c.

Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#37

Post by pg »

Zak wrote: post #35

If it's a mistake to start your startup anywhere but SV, given the choice, then why does YC do its summer program in Boston? This is not rhetoric, but a serious question.

Seed-stage startups are so mobile that it doesn't matter too much where YC itself takes place, so long as they get to demo to investors in the biggest markets.

Also, though SV has the most investors, Boston probably has the highest volume of hackers flowing out of its universities.

Robert is a professor at MIT and is not moving in the immediate future.

But I would want to have one foot in Cambridge even if it weren't for Robert. Cambridge is smarter than SV. The smart world and the startup world are adjacent, but not identical. We'd rather be half in the smart world and half in the startup world than just in the startup world all the time.

Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#38

Post by DaniFong »

Zak wrote: post #35

If it's a mistake to start your startup anywhere but SV, given the choice, then why does YC do its summer program in Boston? This is not rhetoric, but a serious question.

While this might not actually be the reasoning, an advantage may be that motion reinforces a mission. Despite working on a web startup I do not have any internet at home -- I use public WiFi. This forces me to use the internet to get stuff done. It keeps me from surfing endlessly -- the occupational disease of every hacker.

Likewise, perhaps it makes sense to use Cambridge for early stage hacking, and SV for finding investors and building a business.

Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#39

Post by steveparker »

I have always enjoyed reading your essays, Paul. I don't necessarily always agree, but I'm not the one who has made such a success of it :-)

The two claims that "I'm British by birth. And just as Jews are ex officio allowed to tell Jewish jokes, I don't feel like I have to bother being diplomatic with a British audience." are so offensive that I initially thought that you must be joking, but on re-reading, I don't think that you were.

The Jewish claim is just pure racism; the British claim is slightly more subtle, in that it contains a hidden suggestion that IT in the UK is a de-facto joke.

I am not usually terribly sensitive about such things; I'm not Jewish, I am British, and whilst I could write an essay about what is wrong with the UK IT industry today (and not much about what it excels at), I do not concur that the state of the UK is one which (in most circumstances, though not yours, of course, Brother Paul) would necessitate diplomatic skills to discuss.

I am interested to read of your experiences. Ones prejudices are best kept to oneself.

Re: Why to Move to a Startup Hub

#40

Post by edw519 »

jkhart wrote: post #17

This essay really strikes a chord with me. In fact, I followed Paul's advice about three weeks ago when I left Charlotte, NC to move to Sunnyvale, CA in hopes of starting a start-up (or at least working at one). In non-hub cities, I would hear all the time about how I needed 10-15 years of experience to start my own company; maybe 1 out of 20 people would take me seriously. (To tell the truth, most people would assum…

"That sort of negative energy can weigh on anyone, and I knew I had to get to a place where I felt more accepted for this ambition."

Interesting observation. Being in a non-hub, that has also crossed by mind.

OTOH, when you do a start-up, if the negative energy doesn't come from one place, it will surely come from another. So, instead of trying to minimize it, I have had to learn how to better respond to it.

I'm kinda old fashioned, so I believe that the code has to come before the funding. And as a hacker, I don't need a lot of contacts to do that either. So, for now, I don't care what others think or what the atmosphere is where I live. I will hack on.

This is a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, condition.

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