If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
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Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#2Hi HN, this is a brief blog post collaboratively written by the Mexican.VC team. We intend to increase awareness in our space that access to market opportunities is ubiquitous. Therefore we should be paying more attention to founders working on startups outside SV or in a broader sense, the US. We would appreciate your feedback.
Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#3It really shouldn't, building a kick ass product is anything that matters. But certainly being based at the core of the biggest market helps.
I'm curious on how american investors look at the outside market. If a big name like Spotify comes looking for founding, they will get it. But what about accelerator-level startups? would you invest on them even if they're not based on SV?
Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#4"The infrastructure required to launch new, global enterprises is getting cheaper by the day, and the rate these companies can grow has skyrocketed."
That's true, but I think the bottleneck for non-US startups is still access to customer use-cases, problems and painpoints and a advanced enough market that will take solutions. That and the capital to build the solution.
For example, where I live we have branches of MS, SAP, Morgan Stanley, etc. but they don't have the power to make tech decisions, those are made at home in the US. So I can't really sell them anything. So in less developed markets here in E.Europe, consumers and SMBs tend to be poor, multis are only local branches, so everyone tries to milk the government or large monopolistic organizations like the energy or telecom sectors (which used to be gov't).
Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#5"The infrastructure required to launch new, global enterprises is getting cheaper by the day, and the rate these companies can grow has skyrocketed." That's true, but I think the bottleneck for non-US startups is still access to customer use-cases, problems and painpoints and a advanced enough market that will take solutions. That and the capital to build the solution. For example, where I live we have branches of MS…
"..consumers and SMBs tend to be poor, multis are only local branches, so everyone tries to milk the government"
That's exactly the same problem with latam. But Mexico has a geographical advantage, we're a short flight from USA and we tend to share their tech culture in virtue of being so close to them and having a lot of their companies around here.
All of this while keeping the operating costs at a fraction.
Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#6If you build something great, it doesn't matter where you live.
Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#7One of the biggest problems to create something with an outside team is the culture, maybe they just don't understand the importance of X or Y aspect you are trying to explain, but in the specific case of Mexico this breach is almost non-existent due the proximity of the two nations.
Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#8Shouldn't, or doesn't? Because in many if not most fields, great work has not been randomly distributed. There are almost always geographic clusters. If you want to do great work, it really helps to be around other people working on similar things. The hard part is not infrastructure but community. (Which is why we've always paid a lot of attention to community at YC.)
Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#9If it shouldn't matter where you live, why is mexican.vc in silicon valley?
Re: If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live.
#10In today environment, great companies you be able to happen any where in the world.
Ideas are transformed by people that share a common vison and provide different actions. With skype, a shared blackboard and leadership a team can be assembled in the a matter of minutes. If you are building a software product it can be developed in pieces that are uploaded into a server and with the right social marketing campanign you can put it available to customers.
We really find great projects that are built with great value from a complete distribuited team.
It is tru that the Silicon Valley hacker culture is a great drive, but having a bridge to fill the gap and reach the knowledge great companies can take advantage of the hackers culture and spread the development with great people seating in Mexico, China or Australia without any restriction.
This condition is allowing to have great companies all around the world, may be with a little help fromo somebody seating in the Silicon Valley