Hm, sorry but ages of experience show that what mostly works is the other way around: You want to be a big city because you can find clients (users), meet people (e.g. possible investors) and generally speaking do any sort of networking that would be otherwise impossible.
The internet is what it is, but you can never match the face-to-face relationship with an online approach.
I totally understand that this is a dream-like situation: You make a good amount of money, doing what you like in a remote island where the sun shines and the food is always tasty (yes I'm from Greece...) but if your business can't be done 100% online, which is almost never the case, then you need offices in a big city. Then you need to visit and control these offices, etc.
I have a new appreciation for the advantages of being in a big city since moving to Tokyo recently. That said, my while I'm an occasional visitor in Silicon Valley I hold a passport from Bootstrapistan, and most of its population resides in the capital city of A Small Town In The Middle of Nowhere. [+]
A representative sampling of locations of the "head office" from small software businesses that I'm socially close to: Ogaki, Philadelphia, "way in the boonies in West Virginia", "way in the boonies in Idaho", "way in the boonies in Florida", Nuremberg, a small town in Italy whose name I am blanking on, etc etc.
There exist plenty of happy software companies in the big metropolitan areas -- and God bless them -- but they aren't the whole of the solution space.
[+] Why? Interesting question. Some days I think this is just a pure coincidence and some days I think that the low implied burn rate for the founders and generally low opportunity costs makes it easier for the business to hit both pro-forma profitability and "successfully outcompetes best available alternatives on the local labor market" profitability. Bootstrapped businesses can, of course, pay for an apartment in the Mission and exceed a Google PM's salary in Mountain View, but those are much harder bars to hit than "beats the snot out of any job available in Ogaki."
"Hm, sorry but ages of experience show that what mostly works is the other way around …"
I think it is a business by itself: you pay for your exotic startup location. What we just read is a travel agency that focuses on startups.
I agree with atmosx, that towns are better suited for startups. When we worked on our startup many years ago, one of the largest obstacles for investors was the location: a mid size sleepy town, away from where the money is. One reason for it was of course, that investors back then didn't get what internet means (they still don't). The other reason is, they want control. If their investment is out of reach, there will be no investment.
Uhh, funny idea: take their cash and disappear to a moroccan beach. Sounds certainly nice, but looks so bad.
It doesn't need to be all or nothing... Portland, Denver, Boise and a bunch of other places are still cities while still able to provide some nice quality of life features over the likes of Seattle, San Francisco or New York City.
You can have a much shorter commute. Lower cost of living. And some really nice community aspects.
I've never understood why the likes of Facebook or other large tech companies wouldn't build infrastructure in the some of the smaller cities as opposed to already over-crowded and much more expensive cities.
Intel and Motorolla built out in Chandler, AZ which brought in a lot of technology companies and built the city to what it is today. It makes perfect sense for a large company to do the same someplace with a limited market where they can build out a community.
Couldn't agree with this more. I worked for a startup-turned-recent-exit, and despite their big growth after a few years, if you go back and look at the first hundred customers or so, they were nearly all locals in the non-Silicon-Valley city the company was formed in, from other small shops to some of the bigger companies. Unless your product is niche to small fishing companies, this advice may not be the best.
I agree. More and more often you see people choosing a mix of both. Living in a big city when their product requires it, going abroad when they need more focus, or when their in a development stage that enables it. You don't have to be in the same place all the time anymore :)
I think there are ways to understand people using written language that do not translate well face to face. It's a fairly subjective evaluation, but consider the whole spectrum of human writing, rather than the tendency of conversation evoked by the contemporary internet.
Hey I live in a small (former) fishing town! Except it's winter, 30 degrees and I'm inside staring at my computer screens and might as well be anywhere in the world.
Yes I can stop work, and "go surfing" (in the right season), I can even stop working and visit the local town pier and see those quaint "fisherman" struggling to make a living -because let's be honest, not everyone can be a tech-ninja startup founder.
If I wanted I could even crank the heat in my car, squint and make believe that it's actually a warm exotic beach in Europe but hey, at some point I gotta go back to the office, fire up that computer and get back to hacking.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter where you are. If you need to "break out of the box" and travel a bit, go for it. But simply moving operations to somewhere foreign will not be the deciding factor in your success.
> At the end of the day it doesn't matter where you are.
I think that it matters, instead. Unless you are one of those people who are oblivious to their surroundings.
You are not going to code 24/7. And when you will have done your share of coding for the day, or even if you would just like to take a break, then being in a nice place will help you to recharge yourself.
If like me you're confused how 30 deg C is cold ... then note 30 deg F is ~ -1 deg C.
For me, in the UK, being able to go and sit outside for half-an-hour makes a lot of difference to my mood and thence my ability to focus and get stuff done. There's only really a couple of months in the year that's possible. Mind you I love snow too, and a fresh bright snowy day is a great break as well. Instead we seem to have at least 6 months of dreariness and dreich.
Well, I think this strategy might work if you want to keep your burn rate unbelievably low while you are writing v 1.0. But to be honest 300 Euro per week for space is actually not optimal.
I've been in the mountains of Vietnam for the last year and rent has been between $50 and $125 per month, which has made it possible for me to be unemployed for a long time and write v1.0 of my startup's app.
I think that Southeast Asia is a pretty ideal location if you want to go the bootstrapping route - the people are super nice and friendly and everything is unbelievably cheap. You really can get a lot done.
The serious downside is that you are not really connected to the tech scene - you can't really meet that many hackers (i.e. potential cofounders) and of course there is zero funding. And when you talk to tech folks stateside you feel pretty disconnected when you in a different part of the world.
Nevertheless I think it's a viable way to go solo.
Some points re: SE Asia tech scene, it does exist in some of the hotspots such as Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Ubud in Bali (that's where I am currently) etc.
As another point, after coming out to Asia while working a remote programming gig for a US company I discovered that I love the severe time zone difference. I have 1 Skype meeting per day and exactly 0 disturbances for the rest of my workday. Really plays well into the "Maker's Schedule" as described by pg: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
Hey! It's also pretty far from Europe, Morocco is 3hrs away from Paris and London. And a lot of people simply don't want to live in Asia, they'd rather go to Africa.
This seems like a really good option if you want to pretend to be building a startup: Come up with disruptive startup ideas while sitting on the beach, throwing house parties like in The Social Network, and drinking a beer with other people pretending to build a startup.
It doesn't sound like a good option though if you want to actually build a startup: writing a lot of code, meeting with clients, hiring great people, etc.
I don't see how it would be a problem to write lots of code. Meet with clients, probably not. But not everyone has them. And investors are definitely an issue. But sitting down and knocking out a lot of code? Why not?
Agreed. TechStars alumni Maptia for instance build an awesome product in a surf town in Morocco, they worked like crazy, received a crazy amount of applications, grew their team there.
For those of you in the UK/London - and want somewhere cheap and amazing to code in your own back yard, I highly recommend Hastings/St Leonards.
It is (or was) a 'small fishing village' that retains a fascinating history.
1.5 hours from London, and 1 hour from Brighton, 1/3 the cost of flats and working space, good connection speeds, good coffee. If you come down to check it out, look me up and I'll buy you a pint.
I can recommend my home village in North East Scotland for everything apart from convenient access to London. Not sure about internet speeds or whether they have coffee yet.
But certainly pretty, peaceful, cheap property, great scenery and fairly convenient for the Cairngorms for climbing/skiing:
[I traced my ancestry recently and its a bit of a shock to realise that most of my male ancestors for about 300 years had a connection of one kind or another with the fishing industry].
"Hey, guess what, you have to move to $middleofnowhere."
"Hey, guess what, I quit."
Exactly how the conversation would go if it ever happened to me. What would happen in such a situation is the good employees would quit because they wouldn't want to compromise their salary, marketability, and ability to take a new job, while the dead weight would go with it because it's still easier than finding a new job if they can build up enough job security in their current one.
Also interesting that someone thinks you should do it... who just happens to own office space in said location.
Cities work because there is the infrastructure and the talent pool. Going to the middle of nowhere might save a pittance on salary, but when people inevitably quit, good luck replacing them without spending even more on moving other people there.
Sounds nice and fun for a short break. I think the copy needs some work though, which might relate into tweaking how they target their market. For instance: "Getting far away from your family" <=== If you have a family, that's not how it works. You signed up for the responsibility.
Where are the pictures of the lodgings? It sounds very interesting, but it's also rather expensive. I've never been to Morocco, but from what I've heard I bet it's possible to sleep in a four star hotel and eat every meal in a restaurant for under 500 euro per week.
Of course you are offering extras like being networked in with the other residents, and you are marketing to Europeans so it's not crazy to charge this amount, but it would be nice if you could have some more details and evidence on what you are offering.
I think a lifestyle location could be a cool underdog hiring strategy, at elates if you accept that you all your hire will be relocation hires. IE, if you are wiling to pay big city salaries in a small town location, that could be attractive to some people. Not everyone and obviously if you have Google/Facebook hiring requirements it's not an option. But, if you need to hire 5-10 a year it might work. Not everyone will want it. But, the minority that do want it want it a lot.
IE, imagine a couple with small kids from London comings for an interview to a nice location in Crete. Instead of a tiny London 2 bedroom, they can move into a nice cottage. They can save hours a day in commutes and get more cash into savings. That will appeal to some employees (or their wives/husbands). You can't say Crete is objectively better or worse than the London buzz. But, it is different in a way that will inevitably appeal to some.
The problem is that it's hard not to adjust your salary expectations (as an employer) to local salaries and that just isn't compatible with relocation hiring. People don't relocate for a lower salary, even if cost of living is lower. I think the EU has a lot of these possibilities that are still under appreciated.
If you think your main win/lose parameter is the quality of people you can hire, you should think creatively about how to win here. It's hard to win competing head-to-head.
I am based in Cairo. Other than the rare revolutions, occasional bombings and frequent elevated security situations, it is a perfectly suitable place to try starting up your startup.
Apparently their justification is "Because it's quiet and weird." So, when you choose to establish a new business, move to the next hipster city that no one's heard of. For... reasons.
Not sure I can really agree with much in this article, which seems to contradict itself (get more focused by not doing A and B, instead use your spare time for X and Y) and ignores that fact that getting close to your target audience and understanding their pain points isn't really going to happen if your sitting under an umbrella in Senegal.
It's not a one size fits all situation. Depends on your product (online/offline), on the stage your product is at, etc. The good thing is you can alternate being in big tech hub, isolating yourself in small village, challenging yourself in a city you don't know etc
For years I though that the Internet would fuel re-ruralization because it allows people to work outside the limits of densely populated areas. I think I suffered from two errors in that assumption: first that many people other than me wanted to live and work in the boonies; and second that infrastructure in rural areas would catch up somehow. I think the trend toward urbanization makes perfect sense from an infrastructure perspective, and it makes a certain amount of sense that most people prefer to live with other people.
I am trying to figure out what kind of start up can benefit from this. In theory, you can be more focused if you and your team are isolated.
Maybe it is easier to answer this question: What kind of start ups will not benefit from this?
I'd say any startup that is passed the very first stages of product development, and needs to be talking to users, and investors and media and other businesses ...
Just thinking out loud.
It would be more productive to just have a remote workforce, and let them live where they want. Some people might want small fishing towns, others will make different choices. The key is to let everyone do what works best for themselves.
I live in London and I love the rain & grey skies. I cycle 15 minutes to work, but sometimes take public transport too. I feel plenty productive in this city, and if I were to start my own business, I'd have no problems being here.
I think it really depends on who you are, not where you are.
Well, if you're looking for a location like that, consider Pillar Point Harbor in California. There's a small industrial area with cheap space, 2-3 short blocks from the ocean. It's adjacent to Mavericks Beach, one of the world's great surfing spots. There's a small-boat harbor. Several riding stables. Some nightclubs. Decent restaurants. A small airport. Housing prices aren't too high.
It's a half hour drive from there to Silicon Valley. 45 minutes to San Francisco. There's bus service to both places. 10 minutes to Half Moon Bay with supermarkets and hardware stores.
"Getting far away from your family, your friends, [...] Living close to the beach, and surfing or doing yoga, also helps decompressing after work, and avoiding burnout, and therefore staying productive"
1) Traditionally, HN has been about startups: what works, what doesn't work
2) This entire comment thread is reading like a tourism forum
At some point, maybe 2-4 years ago, HN sublty starting moving from a board about how to make your startup to folks trying to pitch other folks on stuff to buy for your startup. It's the old thing about during the gold rush the gold miners didn't make all the money -- the guys selling pickaxes did.
I don't say that to discount these folks. Hell if I know. Probably best place in the world for a startup. It's just every now and then HN gets especially bad about this. And it needs to be pointed out.
[+] [-] atmosx|11 years ago|reply
The internet is what it is, but you can never match the face-to-face relationship with an online approach.
I totally understand that this is a dream-like situation: You make a good amount of money, doing what you like in a remote island where the sun shines and the food is always tasty (yes I'm from Greece...) but if your business can't be done 100% online, which is almost never the case, then you need offices in a big city. Then you need to visit and control these offices, etc.
[+] [-] patio11|11 years ago|reply
A representative sampling of locations of the "head office" from small software businesses that I'm socially close to: Ogaki, Philadelphia, "way in the boonies in West Virginia", "way in the boonies in Idaho", "way in the boonies in Florida", Nuremberg, a small town in Italy whose name I am blanking on, etc etc.
There exist plenty of happy software companies in the big metropolitan areas -- and God bless them -- but they aren't the whole of the solution space.
[+] Why? Interesting question. Some days I think this is just a pure coincidence and some days I think that the low implied burn rate for the founders and generally low opportunity costs makes it easier for the business to hit both pro-forma profitability and "successfully outcompetes best available alternatives on the local labor market" profitability. Bootstrapped businesses can, of course, pay for an apartment in the Mission and exceed a Google PM's salary in Mountain View, but those are much harder bars to hit than "beats the snot out of any job available in Ogaki."
[+] [-] mironathetin|11 years ago|reply
I think it is a business by itself: you pay for your exotic startup location. What we just read is a travel agency that focuses on startups.
I agree with atmosx, that towns are better suited for startups. When we worked on our startup many years ago, one of the largest obstacles for investors was the location: a mid size sleepy town, away from where the money is. One reason for it was of course, that investors back then didn't get what internet means (they still don't). The other reason is, they want control. If their investment is out of reach, there will be no investment.
Uhh, funny idea: take their cash and disappear to a moroccan beach. Sounds certainly nice, but looks so bad.
[+] [-] tracker1|11 years ago|reply
You can have a much shorter commute. Lower cost of living. And some really nice community aspects.
I've never understood why the likes of Facebook or other large tech companies wouldn't build infrastructure in the some of the smaller cities as opposed to already over-crowded and much more expensive cities.
Intel and Motorolla built out in Chandler, AZ which brought in a lot of technology companies and built the city to what it is today. It makes perfect sense for a large company to do the same someplace with a limited market where they can build out a community.
[+] [-] eddieroger|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yallahaline|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathas|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drcomputer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noso|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josefresco|11 years ago|reply
Yes I can stop work, and "go surfing" (in the right season), I can even stop working and visit the local town pier and see those quaint "fisherman" struggling to make a living -because let's be honest, not everyone can be a tech-ninja startup founder.
If I wanted I could even crank the heat in my car, squint and make believe that it's actually a warm exotic beach in Europe but hey, at some point I gotta go back to the office, fire up that computer and get back to hacking.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter where you are. If you need to "break out of the box" and travel a bit, go for it. But simply moving operations to somewhere foreign will not be the deciding factor in your success.
[+] [-] lelele|11 years ago|reply
I think that it matters, instead. Unless you are one of those people who are oblivious to their surroundings.
You are not going to code 24/7. And when you will have done your share of coding for the day, or even if you would just like to take a break, then being in a nice place will help you to recharge yourself.
[+] [-] onion2k|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|11 years ago|reply
For me, in the UK, being able to go and sit outside for half-an-hour makes a lot of difference to my mood and thence my ability to focus and get stuff done. There's only really a couple of months in the year that's possible. Mind you I love snow too, and a fresh bright snowy day is a great break as well. Instead we seem to have at least 6 months of dreariness and dreich.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rtpg|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] santoriv|11 years ago|reply
I've been in the mountains of Vietnam for the last year and rent has been between $50 and $125 per month, which has made it possible for me to be unemployed for a long time and write v1.0 of my startup's app.
I think that Southeast Asia is a pretty ideal location if you want to go the bootstrapping route - the people are super nice and friendly and everything is unbelievably cheap. You really can get a lot done.
The serious downside is that you are not really connected to the tech scene - you can't really meet that many hackers (i.e. potential cofounders) and of course there is zero funding. And when you talk to tech folks stateside you feel pretty disconnected when you in a different part of the world.
Nevertheless I think it's a viable way to go solo.
[+] [-] theunixbeard|11 years ago|reply
Check out http://www.tropicalmba.com as a good starting point to learn about this "scene".
As another point, after coming out to Asia while working a remote programming gig for a US company I discovered that I love the severe time zone difference. I have 1 Skype meeting per day and exactly 0 disturbances for the rest of my workday. Really plays well into the "Maker's Schedule" as described by pg: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
[+] [-] banino|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WhitneyLand|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jim_greco|11 years ago|reply
It doesn't sound like a good option though if you want to actually build a startup: writing a lot of code, meeting with clients, hiring great people, etc.
[+] [-] untog|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] banino|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] binarymax|11 years ago|reply
It is (or was) a 'small fishing village' that retains a fascinating history.
1.5 hours from London, and 1 hour from Brighton, 1/3 the cost of flats and working space, good connection speeds, good coffee. If you come down to check it out, look me up and I'll buy you a pint.
--EDIT-- Some nice tempting rental listings for you :) http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/property/search?listingSta...
[+] [-] arethuza|11 years ago|reply
But certainly pretty, peaceful, cheap property, great scenery and fairly convenient for the Cairngorms for climbing/skiing:
http://www.portknockiewebsite.co.uk/
For a bit of history, here is a page describing the loss of my great-grandfathers boat the Evangeline with all hands:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/pirie/history/PFWv1-o/ui26.htm
[I traced my ancestry recently and its a bit of a shock to realise that most of my male ancestors for about 300 years had a connection of one kind or another with the fishing industry].
[+] [-] blueskin_|11 years ago|reply
"Hey, guess what, you have to move to $middleofnowhere."
"Hey, guess what, I quit."
Exactly how the conversation would go if it ever happened to me. What would happen in such a situation is the good employees would quit because they wouldn't want to compromise their salary, marketability, and ability to take a new job, while the dead weight would go with it because it's still easier than finding a new job if they can build up enough job security in their current one.
Also interesting that someone thinks you should do it... who just happens to own office space in said location.
Cities work because there is the infrastructure and the talent pool. Going to the middle of nowhere might save a pittance on salary, but when people inevitably quit, good luck replacing them without spending even more on moving other people there.
[+] [-] noelwelsh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tinco|11 years ago|reply
Of course you are offering extras like being networked in with the other residents, and you are marketing to Europeans so it's not crazy to charge this amount, but it would be nice if you could have some more details and evidence on what you are offering.
[+] [-] netcan|11 years ago|reply
IE, imagine a couple with small kids from London comings for an interview to a nice location in Crete. Instead of a tiny London 2 bedroom, they can move into a nice cottage. They can save hours a day in commutes and get more cash into savings. That will appeal to some employees (or their wives/husbands). You can't say Crete is objectively better or worse than the London buzz. But, it is different in a way that will inevitably appeal to some.
The problem is that it's hard not to adjust your salary expectations (as an employer) to local salaries and that just isn't compatible with relocation hiring. People don't relocate for a lower salary, even if cost of living is lower. I think the EU has a lot of these possibilities that are still under appreciated.
If you think your main win/lose parameter is the quality of people you can hire, you should think creatively about how to win here. It's hard to win competing head-to-head.
[+] [-] dodyg|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mplewis|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianpri|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yallahaline|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markbnj|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alimoeeny|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codingdave|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] izolate|11 years ago|reply
I think it really depends on who you are, not where you are.
[+] [-] Animats|11 years ago|reply
It's a half hour drive from there to Silicon Valley. 45 minutes to San Francisco. There's bus service to both places. 10 minutes to Half Moon Bay with supermarkets and hardware stores.
[+] [-] zecg|11 years ago|reply
"Getting far away from your family, your friends, [...] Living close to the beach, and surfing or doing yoga, also helps decompressing after work, and avoiding burnout, and therefore staying productive"
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|11 years ago|reply
1) Traditionally, HN has been about startups: what works, what doesn't work
2) This entire comment thread is reading like a tourism forum
At some point, maybe 2-4 years ago, HN sublty starting moving from a board about how to make your startup to folks trying to pitch other folks on stuff to buy for your startup. It's the old thing about during the gold rush the gold miners didn't make all the money -- the guys selling pickaxes did.
I don't say that to discount these folks. Hell if I know. Probably best place in the world for a startup. It's just every now and then HN gets especially bad about this. And it needs to be pointed out.
[+] [-] benbristow|11 years ago|reply
The only good thing is that we have decent broadband.