

If you want to build something great, it shouldn't matter where you live. - DFectuoso
http://blog.mexican.vc/if-you-want-to-build-something-great-it-shoul

======
pg
Shouldn'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.)

~~~
joshbert
Paul, even though you're more experienced than most of us when it comes to
building and maintaining entrepreneurial ecosystems, I do feel that the
community part of this equation can be accomplished regardless of geographic
issues.

For me, the great thing about the web is that it is geographically agnostic.
This allows for building great businesses and communities without the need of
geographical proximity. Meeting other like-minded individuals physically is
great, sure, but the inability to do so shouldn't be an obstacle that hinders
working with them and accomplishing great things together imho.

~~~
Mz
_For me, the great thing about the web is that it is geographically agnostic._

I haven't found that to be entirely true for me as an individual. The closest
online friendships I have had typically involved a lot of live chat of some
sort -- exchanges basically in real time when we are both online at the same
time (whether via a chat system or ongoing email exchange or some such). When
I moved from West Coast to East Coast, this damaged some relationships. Moving
from night-shift to day-shift had a similar impact. I'm prone to insomnia and
have had quite a few relationships with people in distant lands who happened
to be online at the same time I was when I was up during night. When I start
sleeping better again, it can be hard on the relationship. So while where I
live is not the only thing which impacts this, it does have an impact.

I don't think it's just me. I've known a couple of Americans who worked with
people in India who either kept odd hours to facilitate that (an
entrepreneur/consultant) or routinely had their regular sleep schedule
interrupted by middle-of-the-night calls (supervisor at a big company with a
team in India).

------
Maro
"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).

~~~
pablasso
"..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.

------
cesarsalazar12
Hi 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.

------
pablasso
It 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?

------
Jzavala
In 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

------
dr_
If it shouldn't matter where you live, why is mexican.vc in silicon valley?

~~~
ryanpetrich
Similarly, why do you have to be living in Mexico to apply?

~~~
thesethings
Exacto. I'm very excited about their program and totally supportive, but I
just left a light-hearted comment/jab about the paradoxical geographical
requirement in light of this blog post :D

------
reymundolopez
One 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.

------
wmeredith
If you build something great, it doesn't matter where you live.

~~~
ryanhuff
The trick is to build something great. By great, I mean something that is seen
as great by customers. Unfortunately, for numerous reasons, it is much harder
to build something great if you are far from from your customers.

------
jacques_chester
This ought to be testable. YC has spawned maybe dozens of imitators and many
cities now have deliberately-formed startup ecosystems.

If geography plays no part, then on a per-startup basis, basing in Silicon
Valley should not provide a statistically measurable advantage.

