
How To Build A Startup From A Beach - joyce
http://blog.simplehoney.com/how-to-build-a-startup-from-a-beach/
======
ctide
I spent a lot of time this winter up in Tahoe. My days consisted of hitting
the mountain for first lift, snowboarding for a few hours, back at the condo
by noon and spend the rest of the day working. My productivity during these
days was absolutely insane. Not being able to meet anyone for drinks, dinner,
etc. just means you end up with an awesome 8-12 hour block of completely
uninterrupted time to just crank through shit.

~~~
njs12345
Sounds like an absolute dream. Last time I went skiing I was wondering if
something like this might work, glad to hear that it did for you --- I'd love
to try it in the future!

------
oskarth
I was expecting some fluff piece about how to make a passive income on SEO
while living a jetset life style. This was not it. The article makes
surprisingly much sense actually.

~~~
zobzu
My thoughts exactly. I think they're actually getting a lot of stuff right.

------
eof
All of this advice is great except "Hawaii" which is merely good advice.

There are _much_ cheaper beach towns with unbelievable weather that aren't so
isolated. Hawaii is particularly nice for US residents without a Passport, but
you should get a passport!

I recently did something very similar, though I was at several beaches and in
a couple mountain ranges. There is a sort of inverse relationship between
adventure and monetary cost with regard to what your options are and you have
a lot of choices.

Hawaii is relatively low on the adventure and high on the cost; while
something like Nosara, Costa Rica is a bit more of an adventure, and a bit
cheaper while things like the language barrier still won't be distracting from
getting work done.

~~~
kijin
Do Americans really have such a strong aversion to getting a passport? Why is
"you don't need a passport to get to X" even in the list of reasons why you
should go to X? A passport is just another piece of ID. Yeah, it's a bit too
bulky to carry around in your wallet, but most of the time you don't even need
to carry your passport around. Is it really so difficult for Americans to get
passports?

Or is passport-talk just an oblique way of saying "you don't need to worry
about visas"?

~~~
saryant
It's not visas, Americans only need those for a handful of countries and an
American passport is #5 for visa-free entries worldwide, ahead of even
Switzerland and Canada. [1]

The problem is that getting the visa is 1) expensive ($137 when I got mine
five years ago) and 2) time-consuming. Standing in the post office for hours
sucks and even finding out which post office will accept your application is
difficult. I had to drive to three different post offices because I got bad
information over the phone. The whole process took me about two weeks. Getting
my French visa, which was the purpose of my passport, took less time.

So for your average family of four, [4x$137 + time] isn't worth it just for a
more interesting beach than Waikiki or Miami. Not saying I agree with that
logic but I think that's how a lot of Americans view it. There's enough to see
domestically that it's not worth the added expense for a lot of people.

I'm not one of them—I only started travelling internationally two years ago
and I've filled five pages of my passport and will have another seven stamps
and a long-stay visa in there by August. That, however, is not a normal travel
pattern for most Americans.

[1] <https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship/visa-restrictions/>

(Whether or not Americans _know_ how few countries require visas is another
issue)

------
dariusmonsef
As a YC founder of a venture backed company that lives in Hawaii now... Like
everything in life, it's all a balance. My quality of life in Hawaii is hard
to beat. My tech scene is hard to find. Which is why I come back to SF & NYC
almost monthly. The travel is a bit of a pain, but I feel like I'm living a
close to perfect balance.

It helps that I'm from Hawaii, so I'm not in "vacation" mode... I'm in "home"
mode. Where I feel relaxed, comfortable, inspired & supported. From that place
is where I run the chaos of a startup.

~~~
Gotperl
You in Honolulu? If so, in the local tech scene? I'm a tech exec of a mid-
sized company in Honolulu- always like to meet other local like minded folks

~~~
bostonvaulter2
A great place to meet other developers in the local Hawaii tech scene is as
Wetware Wedesdays. There's free appetizers and usually beer available.

<http://wetwarewednesday.eventbrite.com/>

Also you should definitely check out HI Capacity (<http://hicapacity.org>) a
local makerspace/hackerspace. There is an interesting talk on Haskell coming
up on May 24th: <http://www.meetup.com/dynamic/events/63061002/>

------
jjcm
Back when I was living in Hawaii, we had a "Castaway Hackaday". We got some
waterproof pelican cases, loaded up our laptops and a few solar panels, then
headed out to the mokes
(<http://www.flickr.com/photos/46801360@N07/4368503769/>) - two tiny islands
off the eastern coast of Oahu. We set up a cantenna from one of the houses on
shore and connected some wifi out there. It was fantastic - completely free of
distractions, great weather, and it kept everyone on the team pretty happy.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Wow that sounds pretty awesome. Did you kayak out to there? I guess I should
make friends with someone that lives on Lanikai and try it out.

------
dlitwak
I can understand the upside of this, with the better routine, health, everyone
living in the same house etc.

However, I think the isolation is VERY dangerous. Yes, silicon valley is a bit
of an echo chamber, but at the same time, you are around some of the smartest
minds in the world. Our first few VC meetings resulted in a "pivot" of sorts.
Still same end goal, but different way of going about it. Being around
everyone in the travel tech industry, and being able to set up meetings with
them, has changed our go-to-market strategy and our priorities.

These smart people have a way of poking holes in your strategy. There is
something to be said for talking to "normal" people, but I can say we have
talked to hundreds of normal people, and the most valuable advice we got was
from those VCs and angels, or travel tech people.

We possibly would have wasted months if we didn't seek out these experts and
learn from their success and failure.

By moving to Hawaii you risk losing that.

The Adioso guys kind of mentioned this, that living in Melbourne they weren't
around the same type of environment and PG brought them back to earth when
they got back here. The ruthlessness of silicon valley has it's upside.

------
sanswork
I did this once. Instead of Hawaii though we did Palm Cove in tropical
Australia. We did get away from a lot of distractions but you manage to find
others. Also the work environment wasn't super comfortable being that we
worked at a kitchen table in the apartment we rented and the internet was on a
very low cap and frequently unavailable.

I think if you're going to do this then have a plan in advance of exactly what
you want to accomplish and go there to build it. We went with a general idea
and a few more and ended up trying to many things in the month we had for it
to really pay off.

------
transphorm
Joyce, Eric, Wynwyn and Caleb were great to work and eat with! Loved the
beach. Working in Hawaii now a days is great because of all the coworking
spots like The Box Jelly and The Greenhouse. Hawaii is really taking off and
will soon be the tech hub of the Pacific.

Side note about working with the SimpleHoney team - One time in the Ko 'Olina
house I killed a cockaroach (follow him here -
<https://twitter.com/#!/householdroach>) in the bathroom but was too scared to
pick it up. Joyce "The Terminator" Kim went in there and picked it up for me
LIKE A BOSS!!!! True Story!

------
diminish
I am born and raised in a sunny southern city and always admired nordics (from
canada, north europe, moscow till japan) to excel at technology. Now in nordic
town of 9 months of cold, I always witnessed due to snow, cold climate, and
restriction to be at home most of the time, people focus more on brain work,
and in south more on outside activities(cafes, dance) etc. That said,
california is against my argument, but I find it really curious to understand
which climate is the best one for programming; though I bet more on stockholm
than hawaii.

~~~
muyuu
Only a rather small part of Japan is cold (North of Tokyo basically, in terms
of population the cold part of Japan would make around 15-20%). Most of Japan
is between warm and subtropical. Okinawa is tropical.

Taiwan, quite similar to Japan in many respects, is tropical (same weather as
Okinawa basically, it's quite close). I've been there recently for a few weeks
and temps were in the 25C-32C range most of the time. Boiling hot. Yet this is
one of the places of the world where more shit gets done and invented per
capita. I was in a technology park, spending a lot of time in cafes, and it
felt just like Palo Alto (but more on the EE side rather than on the CS side).

Now, these people have great beaches and a weather that'd allow you to spent
most of the year if not all year in the beach, but they find a balance and are
every bit as industrious as any cold Nordic country if not more. Same can be
said for a good part of Southern China and South Korea.

It's a matter of culture, not weather. Responsibility and hard work need to be
nurtured.

------
sparknlaunch12
Absolutely great story and shows off the lifestyle you can achieve outside the
city.

However some drawbacks (to compliment the positives of the article):

\+ Short Term: While a retreat allows your team to focus and integrate, like
all holidays - they end.

\+ Talent: You currently recruit in a tech hub city, however eventually your
talent leaves and you need to find replacements in the local village. You
cannot find anyone as good or as friendly (as they joined the team/party
late).

\+ Too friendly: You are all new to the place, so you are a little eco system
hanging out all the time. The fun will eventually wear off as internal
relationships grow/breakdown.

\+ Networking: The valley offers fantastic opportunities to meet other like
minded people. Opportunities are much higher to meet that next co-founder,
angel or VC. What are the chances of this on an island?

So, it can work but not forever and offers startups a constructive way of
building strong team dynamics and creating tight focus on building their
alpha/beta product.

------
etrepum
Jameson and I spent Mochi's first summer (2005) on Maui, where we built the
majority of MochiBot and MochiKit. Worked great for us, although we didn't
keep California time or do any planking.

------
rwhitman
I've known a number of musicians and writers who have gone on escape retreats
to isolated areas in order to finish a book or an album, typically with a lot
of success. Many of the most productive remote engineers I've worked with live
in sparse areas where there is very little to do thats more fun than
programming.

There's some merit to removing distractions when knocking out a marathon
product build, but that said a good office environment can also serve the same
purpose...

~~~
hv23
This reminds of Kanye West-- when he recorded his last solo album ('My
Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy', which was unequivocally a critical and market
smashing success), he rented a house in Hawaii with a studio in it, flew out
all the producers/artists he needed to collaborate with, and maintained an
demanding, consistent work schedule (napping in 90 minute intervals and
working through the night) until he perfected the album. It's probably not
sustainable, but works really well for a concerted push.

[[http://www.complex.com/music/2010/11/kanye-west-project-
runa...](http://www.complex.com/music/2010/11/kanye-west-project-
runaway/page/2)]

------
guylhem
Please don't sell that startup from a beach dream on exoticism.

I would like to cast a diverging opinion from my personal experience. For
various work-related reasons I left Europe in early 2008 to live in
Martinique, in the French West Indies.

It is very close to what the article describes - tropical weather (you will
never get cold - 25 C/ 77 F is what we call cold and take a jacket for - home
weather station on <http://guylhem.org> \- only the webcam is down ATM), great
food (french creole! do I need to say more?), beautiful wildlife (It's 9:20pm
I'm listening to the various frogs and birds and stuff), healthy lifestyle
(can't be helped ! even if you have bad habits it is like something from the
environment you are surrounded with contaminates you and make you follow an
healthy lifestyle). Same currency (euro). No need for a passport.

Also you can swim every day of the year in the caribbean. Sounds like your
dream ? I went swimming on new years eve like 2 years ago. Got sunburned.

That's the honeymoon, the first few weeks/month/years. Little by little I went
to the beach less and less. At the moment maybe one every couple of month, to
go with the gf.

Along the way I realized something : what was initially the selling points, as
good as they may sound, place you at risk of isolation. And this may not
always be good, especially for a techy - there seem to be more introverts
among us. I would have called myself an introvert.

You know these things you call "distraction" and the people you do not call
normal? That's what I dig now, whenever I go somewhere. I'd love to have a
beer and talk about technical stuff with people who will understand me
(running my website on my mips dsl modem, packaging a distro). Hitting the
same 3 guys you know on the island who do free software quickly loses its
novelty.

So for my last few vacations, I went to Florida, Montreal twice and Paris.
Basically to a conference, a LUG meeting + visiting some friends, and a
technical conference. While in Florida I was a bit bored (like home, only
chilly, but with techies it was fun) so I also went to see an old friend in
San Diego. Since there was a HN meeting we attended. It was like being alive
again, being surrounded with people who share the same interests and the same
cultural references. I was quite bored for weeks when I went back to my
tropical paradise - because the grass is always greener on the other side, but
I don't think I had realized that yet.

I had one of my most productive week last year when driving between Montreal
and New-Bruswick - at the end of the autumn. The cold was so exotic! I loved
every single minute of my vacation. I could only have loved it more if it had
been snowing, but I know I'm partial with snow, so I wanted to test myself and
see if even without snow I'd enjoy my vacations in the very same place, to
remove a bit of exoticism. And yes I did.

Do you see how it relates to the experience mentionned in the article ? There
will always be something that's attractive because it is different. Then the
new become usual, and we get bored. And we leave and try something different,
again and again. I think it's just human nature.

We want difference and exoticism, we want to be surrounded with people we can
relate with but not too much, all these are incompatible needs. The problem is
not in your work environment but in yourself. When no longer needs the
exoticism to be happy, that's when the fun begins.

If you know what makes you tick, inspiration comes not only from an exotic
place - like a cafe in New Brunswick can be to me - but also at the place you
call home, wherever it might be.

Then it comes down to personal preferences about what weather you are more
comfortable with, what kind of people you prefer having around, and your own
philosophy. But not exoticism. It's a trap, a burden that can becomes non
necessary. It happened just like that, someday I just started feeling that
way.

At the moment, I'd say I only regret that my work will have little impact, but
I've settled with the rest. 2 tech conference a year and I get the minimal
contact with other techies I need to survive :-) And while some exoticism is
good (I say I enjoyed my vacation) it is no longer a _need_.

~~~
sneak
That's fine and good, but writing from Berlin as it comes into springtime, I
for one would much rather have my boring, isolated, day-to-day grind come
without metric assloads of snow and ice on everything and relative inability
to do anything outdoors for half the year.

I expect no sympathy from Californians, but for those in NYC, Boston, Chicago,
Berlin, etc - upvotes to the left. :P

~~~
dasil003
I've lived in Minneapolis (most extreme), Santa Fe (most sunny), Mountain View
(most pleasant), Brasilia (most normal), and London (most cloudy).

I actually prefer having cold snowy winters and hot sweaty summers as it
alleviates the monotony quite well. But Berlin-level snow is not enough.
What's the average annual snowfall there? In Santa Fe in Christmas of 2006 we
got _four feet_ (120cm) in town in one 4-day storm, now that's an assload and
a half.

------
siavosh
As much as I love this idea, I'm skeptical it would work for everyone.
Personally, I'd feel pretty antsy knowing that outside my door is a tropical
paradise. It would give me too much 'perspective', and inevitably force me to
close my laptop and carpe diem.

------
Gotperl
As I resident of O'ahu, I'm psyched to see this. We don't have enough startup
activity here.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Within the last year the tech community on Oahu has really been picking up.
There's lots of awesome things going on such as the HI Capacity makerspace
(<http://hicapacity.org/>) and Henk Rogers just announced a new incubator for
local startups!

------
heyyew
we should do an exchange program, so HI startups get a taste of ground zero in
Bay Area.

------
flexterra
I bet you can get a cheaper ticket to Puerto Rico and take advantage of all
the tax exceptions for startups. No passport needed if you are a US citizen.

------
pudakai
I was living in Hawaii when I finished my time as a navy officer. I realized
that I would never get a post-Navy career going because every day, and I mean
every day, you look out the window and think, "wow, it is much to pretty a day
to be inside".

But if aren't susceptible to "Polynesian Paralysis", sure, no place better
than Hawaii. I couldn't and, much to my regret, moved back to the mainland to
get things moving.

------
nulluk
Your site has been hacked and is only showing the hacked pages when the
request looks like its from google.

If you wget on of your blog articles you can see an example. (Registering your
site with webmaster tools google would of notified you if it sees suspicious
activity like this)

There will most likely be a base a base 64 encoded string at the top of your
index.php file than when you decode will contain the exploit.

Keep wordpress up to date.

------
russelcheng
An interesting thing about working in Hawaii is the timezone. If you have an
international angle to your business, this is a great place to be. And you can
surf before work. You can still get sh*t done!

Mornings: 9am HI time 12pm SF time 3pm NY time

Afternoons: 3pm HI time 10am Tokyo (tomorrow) 9am China (tomorrow)

------
citizens
This is exactly what I've been wanting to do. Well done simplehoney; sounds
like a great time.

~~~
jes5199
I wonder if we could form a company of people who think this is a good idea
without getting a bunch of freeloaders who want a nice vacation.

I'd definitely be into working from the beach for a month or two.

~~~
toumhi
It's a good idea and I'm sure there would be a few candidates :-) Also, not
exactly the same, but the folks at www.tropicalmba.com hire interns to work
with/for them in Bali: <http://www.tropicalmba.com/paid-internships/>

------
tomclancy
Less time at beach, more time focusing on uptime.

------
madethemcry
Am I the only one who gets a wrong spamlike summary when trying to share this
link?

Have a look
[https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/og/object?q=http...](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/og/object?q=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.simplehoney.com%2Fhow-
to-build-a-startup-from-a-beach%2F)

og:title is Doxycycline mail order og:description Buy online generic no
prescription Doxycycline. Get cheap low price Doxycycline without
prescription. 100% Secure. Fast Delivery

But I wasn`t able to find this in the html sourcecode of the page ?

~~~
andyn
It serves spam when I request the page with curl, and goes away if I put a
user agent header in there with "Firefox/12.0". Odd.

~~~
madethemcry
Oh thanks for the hint! I was able to reproduce it. Weird. Nice idea to hide
the spam.

~~~
ericnakagawa
These guys are very smart... their hack doesn't even leave a presence in the
source or cache. It's happening via JS I believe.

------
smj2118
Our startup <a
href='[http://www.gethopscotch.com>Hopscotch</a>](http://www.gethopscotch.com>Hopscotch</a>);
is in the midst of something similar. We came from NY and have managed to do
it very much on the cheap by staying with friends and using miles to get here.
I could definitely see a tech scene blossoming here, it's a great environment
for coders.

------
barce
This was my favorite quote, "Being in paradise lets everyone open up and share
their own dreams and ideals." I've never been to paradise, but the promise of
that is worth a try on my next startup.

------
wankerrific
Hey - if anyone is starting a startup and wants to go to hawaii for an early
code phase AND I can get a solid 1 hr surf session morning and evening in
around coding....sign me up.

------
prawn
My loose plan along these lines is to temporarily relocate my (three person)
office to Kerala in India for a few weeks. Offshore development, but not as
you know it.

------
kropson
I am thinking of ways to convince my boss to do this. It might work better if
I attempt to convince him in the middle of a cold Midwestern winter.

------
EREFUNDO
The next step is to have a reality show about this. A few weeks into it
they're gonna start fighting over who took who's toothbrush.....lol

------
mistercow
Well, it worked for Megadodo Publications.

------
dennisgorelik
They don't seem to be productive there in Hawaii:

<http://simplehoney.com/>

"502 Bad Gateway"

------
vertis
Less blogging about beaches, more finishing what looks like it will be an
excellent service :D

------
travisjryan
Nothing like a SUP session in the early AM to get the creative juices flowing.

------
Iwaan
I was an intern in a startup that tried exactly this. It was a lot of fun. We
got a ton of VC cash to burn and so why not do it in a nice environment? In
the end, the company failed. We all got too much into a "holiday" mood. The
webdesigner won a surf contest. The CEO started an affair with not one, but
two of the female employes. We all got fat from eating delicious food from the
5-Star hotel and high class Restaurants near by.

Moral of the story? Stay frugal even when you dont have to. It might be better
for the company.

~~~
joyce
We didn't and still don't have "tons of VC cash" to burn - only our own
savings accounts at that time, so no 5-star hotels or high class restaurants
for us.

Also, I would not say we had a holiday mood at all during our time there. We
started working the same day we arrived, but being in Hawaii had so many
unexpected positive effects on productivity and product vision, we really
wanted to share.

And, I could never win a surf contest.

~~~
rwhitman
As a travel booking startup I think Hawaii is a really clever move, you're
surrounded entirely with your target customers. Very smart

