

Built in Boston: Why Great Entrepreneurs Are Choosing MA to Build Their Startups - xfax
http://bostinno.com/2012/02/14/built-in-boston-why-great-entrepreneurs-are-choosing-ma-to-build-their-startups/

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feralchimp
People actually move to new cities in order to found startups?

And when they do, they move to _Silicon Valley_ or the _Bay Area_ , where
talent is more expensive than anywhere else on the planet?

WTF?

I live in Boston and dig it, but this sort of article screams "trying too
hard." Anyone who even considers the possibility that Boston might not have
enough talent for their startup is a crackhead. Basically any place with a
university and access to the internet is a good enough place for the right
founder to build something of quality.

~~~
mhartl
_Basically any place with a university and access to the internet is a good
enough place for the right founder to build something of quality._

This is true, but making a successful startup requires a lot more than
building a quality initial product. Although successful companies can be
_founded_ virtually anywhere, the domain knowledge needed to grow and scale a
technology startup is concentrated in certain geographies—especially Silicon
Valley and San Francisco. In terms of tech entrepreneur social networks and
institutional knowledge about investment, growth, scaling, etc., Boston is far
behind the Bay Area, and the gap is growing every day.

~~~
feralchimp
> the domain knowledge needed to grow and scale a technology startup

This is a common enough claim that it could be considered "common knowledge,"
and I wouldn't be in a good position to refute it even if I could figure out
_what exactly the claim is_.

Is the claim that it takes specific domain knowledge to convince people with
money to invest in a business? That it takes specific domain knowledge to
scale up a sw/hw infrastructure to handle top-tier web application workloads?
That is takes specific domain knowledge to hire teams of engineers?

All of those things are true, of course, but in what way is any of that domain
knowledge particularly concentrated in SV or the Bay Area?

The concentration of already-exited former-founders is higher, and that's
real, but at the end of the day we're still talking about Software Businesses.
Is the problem of converting value-laden software to revenue streams really
all that exotic and complicated, such that only people in a particular social
network have cracked it?

> the gap is growing every day

Again, a) by what metric, and b) even if true n-1 of the last n days, it's a
big world out here and a lot of it writes code and attacks problems.

Cheers-

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robmay
I will add that Backupify started in Louisville, KY, and we were funded by
First Round while we were still there. We didn't have to move to raise money,
but we couldn't find the tech/startup talent we needed. So we looked at NYC,
Boston, and the Valley. I talked to lots of people who lived in each place and
ultimately, as you would expect, everyone raved about whichever place it was
that they lived. Ultimately, I chose Boston because MIT is the most innovative
place in the world, and because it is a highly intellectual city and I have a
lot of interests outside of just tech startups. I've been very very happy
here, and think it's a great place to build a company.

~~~
geogra4
I've heard a lot of good things about Louisville and enjoyed when I visited.
It's a wonderful small city. Old Louisville is quite charming.

I would imagine it would be hard to find a critical mass of tech talent there,
however.

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davidedicillo
I run a startup and a consulting business in Miami.

My girlfriend has been offered to move to Boston, and I'm not going to hide
that I'm afraid at the idea of leaving a place where I built tons of
connection in the past 6 years (I moved to Florida from Italy, so I started
with 0 connections). I'm afraid that I will have to start from scratch again
in Boston, where I don't know a single person.

What are you thoughts about moving a company to Boston? Are people open to
accept a new person in the community or is it very closed and elitist (I'm
definitely not MIT or Harvard material).

EDIT: By the way, I will be in Boston (she's going to check the place) from
March 10th to the 13th, I would love to meet you or participate to any event.
So if you are there please email me at davide at 39inc.com :)

~~~
masukomi
Lots of good geeks and networking possibilities here. One big difference
between FL and MA (besides the weather) is that in MA we're generally up-front
about it when we dislike people. I much prefer it. Saves wasting time on
people who don't want anything to do with you, and make it much clearer who
the people that DO want something to do with you are. Obviously, your mileage
may vary with this.

Of course, living in Boston is crazy expensive too...

~~~
eropple
You can live just outside of Boston for pretty cheap. I'm currently in
Framingham and moving to Somerville sometime this summer. Probably going to be
around $2000/month (counting bills).

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JayNeely
I've been working on a directory of Boston-area tech startups:

<http://startupsinboston.com/>

Currently about 242 listed -- I know there are more, but discovery is
challenging; many web startups don't make any mention of where they're
physically located on their site.

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sopooneo
Boston is a place where a lot of things start. Do music here, then on to LA.
Standup comedy here, then to the real land of New York City. Tech startups are
born here then go to the Bay area.

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jhull
A few reasons why Buzzient is in Boston and staying put:

[http://www.buzzient.com/blog/why-buzzient-moved-to-the-
innov...](http://www.buzzient.com/blog/why-buzzient-moved-to-the-innovation-
district)

One of the main ones just being Geography: We are close to tons of great
schools for hiring talent and there is customer access as well, with so many
other Fortune 1000 companies around, in Finance especially. If only the
investors took as much risk as those in CA and in NYC!

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matt1
Related question: if you're not aiming to raise money or grow big fast, how
important is it to be in a tech hub?

I live in Waltham, right outside of Boston, and am considering moving
somewhere cheaper and warmer because the benefits of building a company here
(or SV) don't seem as important if you're going the MicroISV/Micropreneur
route. Thoughts?

~~~
ericabiz
Come to Austin. We have a nice tech scene here (and budding seed/angel funding
community) and it's still relatively cheap to live here.

And it's pretty warm--though the summers get hot. But that's the beauty of
growing an Internet business--locate somewhere it's cheap, and head out for a
month or two whenever you need to.

~~~
matt1
Thanks. My wife and I are leaning towards Orlando due to its proximity to
family. Can anyone comment on the Orlando startup scene?

~~~
wtvanhest
It is cheaper and there is a lot of low priced, decent talent coming from UCF
but if you are selling locally it will be tough since everything sells for
less there.

You will also have no backup plan if your startup doesn't work since wages are
so low.

There is no startup scene and everyone you meet will work in real estate or
hospitality.

I live in beacon hill now and can tell you that I am constantly impressed by
the smart people I meet in Boston. When I lived in Orlando I felt the exact
opposite.

~~~
phishphood
this. I love florida and usually spend a month or two in the winter there. I
am not impressed with the people, coming back to boston is a breath of a fresh
air. I can move my startup there full time but I don't primarily because of
how out of place I feel most of the time (and its too darn hot in the summer)

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socratic
Is there a particular type of startup that would be appropriate for Boston
versus other locations? My instinct is that outside of Biotech and Enterprise
software, it is still a huge disadvantage to start a startup in Boston, but I
would love to be proven wrong (ideally by some sensible statistics).

Is Boston the kind of place where you can locally raise a seed round with ten
or twenty angels for your consumer web startup with great traction but no
revenue? Is Boston the kind of place where you can find engineers whose former
job was to scale a database or web server or cache to hundreds of millions of
active users? Are there deep pocketed companies locally who can afford to and
regularly do acquisitions? Are MIT/Harvard (or BC, BU, NE, Tufts, WPI, Olin)
grads going to Boston startups, or are they going to banking, Dropbox, or
Facebook? Are there enough senior people around?

Vertica, ITA, and Basho are all great companies for example, but are they
succeeding because they are in Boston, or in spite of it? How often are these
companies flying out to the SF Bay Area to handle core parts of their business
(customers, investment, business development)?

~~~
LukeRB
ITA and Kayak were both founded in the Boston area. I've never really figured
out why travel sites seem to have such a base in the Boston area. Anybody have
ideas? Proximity to Logan for international travel? MIT and Harvard being
located there hence lots of travel...?

~~~
LogicX
Founders of ITA were MIT grads, and hired lots of MIT folks. (Former ITA
Software employee here - though not an MIT grad). ITA has been around for over
a decade FWIW.

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kellishaver
I really like the Boston tech scene, and the atmosphere and social environment
created around it. I work with a lot of folks from/around the area on a daily
basis, so even though I'm not in Boston, I have a lot of friends and
connections there and make at least one pilgrimage there a year to spend a few
days doing business in person. If it weren't for separating the child from the
grandparents, I would move into the area (though maybe not _in_ Boston itself,
due to the high cost of living). Maybe when the kid is older.

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rubiety
Does anyone care about living in a city that's just plain nice to live in?
Everyone's so concerned about whether a city is conducive to start-ups they
miss out on evaluating quality of life from a personal perspective.

I choose to live in San Diego because I love to live in San Diego, for
innumerable personal reasons, not because it's "startupy". Stocktwits moved to
Coronado island near San Diego not because there's a thriving start-up scene
here, but because it's just a damn nice place to live and work. Developers who
can live anywhere should want to live in great places for personal reasons.

For whatever it's worth, I've done a significant amount of traveling around
the United States (mostly on three JetBlue flying passes) and in general find
cities like Boston to be overrated in terms of quality of life, especially
when factoring in the enormous cost of living.

No doubt these are all personal value judgments. I just wonder why people
optimize so little on the simple personal quality of life vector and so much
on whether there's a bunch of "startupy people" there.

~~~
ericabiz
I'll respond. I lived in the Bay Area for 10 years, had a very successful
exit, and packed it up to move to San Diego. Started another startup there and
met my co-founder there--but recently went to Austin.

I missed the energy of the Bay Area, frankly. San Diego is sleepy. But the
last thing I wanted to do was go back to the Bay Area and get sucked into the
vortex again. Austin seemed like a happy medium.

Since moving to Austin, I can safely say that I expect my company's revenues
to more than double this year from what we were doing in San Diego. We work
with many local businesses, and we're booming right now. In fact, since we
moved from San Diego, we've grown from 7 to 9 people, hired another full-time
developer, etc.

Things are just way more exciting here. (Not to mention that I'll save nearly
$40,000 this year on taxes. And groceries/housing/gas are way cheaper.) Though
I'll always have a place in my heart for San Diego, it's just not a great
place to do a startup. Austin is my home for the foreseeable future, and I'm
happier here than I ever was there, despite the amazing weather in SD.

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nemik
Why you might not want to move to MA/Boston if you're an employee:
[http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2011/09/no...](http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2011/09/noncomps.html)

Their non-compete laws are some of the most repressive in the nation.

~~~
dsr_
Since moving to the Boston area in the mid 90s, I have never seen an
employment agreement or contract with a non-compete clause lasting after
employment ends.

YMMV, but you should also be reading and negotiating these things.

~~~
alwillis
I have. A friend got a job a local weekly; her contract forbid her from
working for other local papers and media companies for up to a year.

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thetrendycyborg
Probably for the low taxes, I'd guess.

~~~
dsr_
Massachusetts is dead average (#24) on the Tax Foundation's climate index
(<http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22658.html>).

However, taxes are probably going to be a pretty small consideration for a
startup, since the top three locations (Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada) are not
particularly hot in startup land, but the bottom three (California, NY, New
Jersey) are.

