

Fun cheap places to get resident and startup - weredone

I'm in the valley and stuck in immigration paperwork hell on a h1b. I'm about to hand my boss her head on a plate so am considering a new gig.. probably a startup. I have $500k burning a hole in my pocket from a previous fun gig... my ideal is a fun place where that will last several years while I bootstrap something. Any suggestions for warm geek friendly places to do it? Excellent internet availability is required but after that..<p>(My home country is ridiculously overpriced, cold and not geek friendly)
======
mleonhard
Notice weredone's profile. Is this a joke on Yahoo employees?

    
    
      user: weredone
      created: 3 hours ago
      karma: 5
      about:

------
sidsavara
Hawaii (still in the USA) is great in that it's a warm place, but the cost of
living is high.

However, great hackers in Hawaii cost 50-75% what they would in Silicon
Valley. A lot of intelligent, quality people move back here after going to
school at fairly good schools (many go to USC,UCLA,Berkeley,Stanford - a
smaller amount Harvard and MIT before returning home for cultural/family
reasons).

I know this because I left Los Angeles for a 30% pay cut to come home to
Hawaii. I get paid less, but I can walk around in my tank top all year. Call
it an extreme sunshine tax.

The highest profile startup we've had recently are the guys that built Sprout
Builder. ilovephotos.com (Blue Lava Technologies) is an amazing product that
I'm not sure I'm allowed to discuss, and also built out of Hawaii.

They also have a few incubators/innovation centers where you can get cheap
office space (and cheap everything else). They're nice offices,, but
subsidized considerably by the local government specifically to spur more
innovation here.

------
nreece
Melbourne, Australia -- The place to be!

Startup scene is pretty good and improving:

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/australia_top_web_apps....](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/australia_top_web_apps.php)

<http://www.futureexploration.net/topweb2apps/>

~~~
hugh
I second this recommendation of Melbourne (and coming from a Sydney native
like me, that really means something). But I'm not sure if an Australian visa
is any easier to get than a US one.

~~~
maryrosecook
An Australian visa is _much_ easier to get than a US one. You apply online and
get an answer within weeks.

------
iamelgringo
Last I checked, Costa Rica had pretty liberal immigration for high tech
entrepreneurs. If you are willing to invest a certain ammount, ($30K last I
checked) you can get residency. And, they do have a decent high tech sector
with a number of online gambling websites being hosted there. Intel also has a
fab there.

Weather is phenomenal, it's about 75 degrees F year around in the capital
city, San Jose. And, because it's an isthmus, the Pacific is 2 hours away from
San Jose and the Caribbean is 3 hours away.

I lived there in the 80's and it was great. My brother just moved away (had to
move away because of work) and said that traffic was getting a bit burdensome,
though.

If you go, drop me a line and I'll tell you some great places to go
snorkeling.

------
cperciva
Canada is good (particularly Vancouver, which probably comes second only to
San Francisco in the race to be the most socially liberal place in the English
speaking world), and is far more immigrant-friendly than the US (especially if
you're educated and speak English or French).

EDIT: Just noticed the word "warm". If this is a reference to the physical
climate rather than the social climate, you'd definitely want Vancouver or
Vancouver Island rather than anywhere else in Canada.

~~~
weredone
I would love Vancouver but the downside is that 1) I'm not rich enough to skip
the queue and 2) the queue is 16 to 44 months long (depending on place of
application). Its very high on my list of preferred locations but no joy in
discussing with the immigration people.

~~~
cperciva
_[immigration queue]_

Yeah, that's the one problem with Canada... we're too popular. :-)

The immigration rules are in the process of being changed, though (legislation
currently before the parliament, I believe) to make the queue somewhat less
rigid -- the current process is broken (e.g., each office must consider
applications in the order they were received, even if the applicant has died
in the years since they applied), so the government is putting forward a
"let's consider applicants in whatever order we feel like" bill. If this
passes, there's a good chance that highly qualified applicants won't have
quite as long a wait in the future.

Another option, of course, is just to send in the application and let the
government chew on it while you go somewhere else for a year or two.

~~~
babyshake
I'm actually a dual citizen, so I can go up anytime, I believe. thhhhhp!

But seriously, are there good reasons for me to go from the bay area to
Vancouver? I imagine I would just be paying more in taxes...

~~~
cperciva
_I'm actually a dual citizen, so I can go up anytime, I believe._

You don't even need to be a dual citizen -- if you're a citizen of the US or
Canada, have a job offer, and have reasonable qualifications (a Bachelor's
degree in most fields is enough) you can drive up to the border, mention
NAFTA, and get a visa on the spot.

 _are there good reasons for me to go from the bay area to Vancouver_

I haven't lived in the bay area, and I don't know your circumstances, so it's
hard for me to give a good answer here. I know when Google offered me a job in
Mt.View, one of the factors which led me to not accept was that between
Vancouver and what I had seen of the bay area, I much preferred Vancouver --
but I grew up in Vancouver, and my tastes have probably been molded by that.
If you grew up in a dry, polluted, urban sprawl, you might prefer the bay
area.

 _I imagine I would just be paying more in taxes..._

Don't be so certain. Canada has publicly-funded health care, which tends to
raise taxes, but it also has much lower per-capita military spending than the
US. I can't make much sense out of US income tax forms, but Google found me
<http://dbaron.org/views/taxes-2007.html>; comparing it to an analysis I did
last year <http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2007-05.html> it looks like a
single California taxpayer typically pays a marginal tax rate of about 40% of
income while a single BC taxpayer typically pays a marginal rate of about 26%
of income -- of course, in BC we have provincial and federal sales taxes which
add a combined 12% to most things you'll be buying (does California have any
sales tax? I don't know), and gasoline taxes which are higher than you have in
the US. In short: I suspect that the difference between taxes you pay in the
bay area and taxes you'd pay in Vancouver could be either positive or negative
depending on your individual situation.

Then of course there's the issue of real estate costs: Vancouver is the most
expensive place in Canada, but I understand that it's still far cheaper than
the bay area...

------
terpua
Why don't you try the Philippines? Manila and Cebu have plenty of hackers.
It's cheap, warm and friendly. And we all speak English.

Singapore might be another consideration.

~~~
mleonhard
Does Cebu have air pollution like Manila?

~~~
terpua
Not as bad. But there is a new area (city actually) within Metro Manila called
Fort Bonifacio that's new and less polluted (the public transports in/out of
FB are regulated).

Lots of residential buildings, restos and a few office buildings designated as
economic zones (you get a 5 year tax holiday on corporate income tax).

<http://www.fort-bonifacio.com/>

The con: traffic in Metro Manila is bad (not bad in FB though). Wise to live
and work in same area.

------
1gor
If criteria are a) living cost b) climate c) geek friendliness (tech/business
culture, infrastructure etc.) then Singapore will probably win. Bonus: you get
exposed to booming Asia.

------
k10
India. Technically you wont be outsourcing too !!!

------
asdflkj
Your home country is Norway, then? In any case, I'd really like to know which
cold, overpriced country is not geek friendly (and why).

------
carterschonwald
Cambridge Ma is pretty fun, but doesn't fit the bill of being not in the US
etc

------
asimjalis
Are you looking for a place to live or a job?

~~~
weredone
First thought is place to live so I can build a new product. However, given a
sufficiently fun job and ability to get residence.. then I'm interested in
that too. Getting residence is required for my wife to stop going crazy not
being able to work etc. H1B+H4 is an ugly visa combination for a couple to
live on.

~~~
mleonhard
I'm interested in hearing where you end up going.

------
staunch
Isn't $500k enough for an investor visa?

------
ideas101
because you need 2 things (residency and geeks) no matter where you live you
have to be mentally prepared to live there for a year or 2 before you move
permanently. i would suggest to file for immigration for canada and in the
mean time find a temporary place to live couple of years. the best thing is to
shortlist top 2 places and then apply for immigration at one place and move
temporarily to the place that was 2nd on the list (who know you may like 2nd
place more than the first one).

Also if you file for canadian PR (while you're in US) then it won't take
longer - US cases are faster than other countries but you need to file while
you are living in US.

Your choices: Asia: Singapore, India, Indonesia, Philippines

Europe: any eastern europe that has good weather and geeks.

Far East: Australia (btw australia also has immigration policy, and fantastic
weather)

Middle East: Abu-dhabi and Dubai (most happening place, no tax, you just need
to find good geeks or import it from India).

Good Luck. P.S: Find out everything about Australia and Canada - they both
have immigration policy - in fact i recently heard that australia has
something like temp work visa for people under 30 and then you can file for
permanent residency.

