
Free Living Arrangements Offered to Startup Founders in Kansas City - nordicnomad82
http://www.homesforhackers.com/
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tsmith
"What you'll get: Free Room & board [...]"

"What is expected of you: [...] You pay for your own food"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_and_board>

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bogrollben
What you'll get: and _potentially_ Google Fiber!

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veemjeem
I don't think speedy internet is what motivates startup companies to move.
Most people have their servers in data centers that are already wired with
fiber. Speedy internet at home only increases the chance that you'll blow a
few hours on netflix streaming video.

~~~
adl
Don't look at it that way. Imagine the possibilities if your startup carters
to users that are guaranteed to have ultra high speed internet.

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peacemaker
I lived in the KC area (Overland Park) for a short while and loved it. The
people are friendly, there is loads to do, and it's cheap to live there. The
downsides for me were the lack of startup software jobs and the weather,
tornados specifically.

Now I'm here in SF and paying double the rent for a place half the size of my
place in KC, seeing something like this is very intriguing. Especially since
I'm trying to bootstrap my own startup and feeling a bit lost in a sea of
Silicon Valley startups!

~~~
ggchappell
> The downsides for me were the lack of startup software jobs and the weather,
> tornados specifically.

I lived in KS & MO for a total of 20 years. I'd say that worrying about
tornadoes in KC is a bit like worrying about earthquakes in the Bay Area.
Outsiders think, "Oh, my goodness!" but people who live there just do what
little (very little) they need to, to deal with it, and mostly don't worry
about it.

Nonetheless, weather is an issue. KC does not have a mild climate. Late summer
can get very hot. Cold, windy winter days can be miserable. Ice storms can
cause power outages. Most of the year, it's fine, but these do happen, and
should be taken into account.

~~~
ghshephard
The one thing about the bay area - particularly on the peninsula, is the
incredibly moderate weather. I've lived here for 15 years, and have turned on
the climate control in a house or apartment I've ever rented - no heat in the
winter, and I've never been in a home with air conditioning.

I will admit, in one house with close to zero insulation and very large
windows, having finally purchased an electric blanket for about 2 weeks out of
the winter - but never turned on the central heat.

Certainly a change from the Cariboo Interior in British Columbia, let me tell
you...

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alwaysdoit
Never in my life did I expect that "Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City"
would be true again.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSbz_ciFSn4&t=1m09s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSbz_ciFSn4&t=1m09s)

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niels_olson
Grew up in KC (Shawnee, specifically). If you are from a large coastal city
and want to get acquainted with life in the Midwest, KC is a good start.
Certainly less of a shock than, say, Omaha or Wichita.

~~~
waterlesscloud
KC is a reasonably culturally hip location as well. Decent music and arts
scene. It's not San Francisco, but it beats the rest of Silicon Valley in that
department.

And the Nelson-Atkins Museum is better than anything in the Bay Area, in my
opinion.

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niels_olson
Been a while since I saw the Nelson-Atkins, but there are several solid
museums in SF, as opposed to Nelson-Atkins being one of the few games in town
in KC.

~~~
waterlesscloud
The Bay Area has more decent museums than KC, but it doesn't really have any
outstanding museums. Kinda weird, really.

KC has an ok modern art museum, and Lawrence KS has a decent museum at the
university there.

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ashbrahma
Any idea when the first Google Fiberhoods will go live? Even if someone is
interested in hosting - this may not work till later this year or early next
year depending on which fiberhood they live in.

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bogrollben
It's all speculation, but the rumor is that on Sept 9th Google does the
following: \- Officially ends the first fiber rally \- Begins immediately
wiring up fiberhoods, highest-demand neighborhoods first \- Announces business
fiber plans

My best guess is that the highest-demand neighborhoods are fully wired by end
of October.

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hosh
I have been wondering why metro Kansas City is home to a lot of interesting
projects: Open Source Ecology, The Urban Farming Guys, Google Fiber. For a
mid-sized city, it has a maker space and a Ruby User's Group. But what's in
Kansas City?

Tax-write-off wars and the Big 5. Awesome.

~~~
nordicnomad82
Lots of artists and tech people in a small community where it's possible for
everyone to know each other an work together on interesting stuff helps.

Add in a bunch of rich people who don't have to spend a lot to live
luxuriously and get bored easily means a lot of cutting edge stuff gets funded
that you wouldn't expect.

And then you have a culture of giving back that includes the Kauffman
foundation, which is the 4th largest foundation in the US and focused on
education and entrepreneurship. They us KC as a testing ground for a lot of
their pilot programs in teaching entrepreneurship. So the city has more
startup resources than just about anywhere else.

But the city has long been a testing ground for new products and services over
the years due to having a lot of basically isolated areas that mimic
demographic conditions in all other parts of the country. That was part of the
reason for the google fiber coming here, and the fact that as it spreads
across the country it will end up following railroad right of ways to keep
expansion costs down. And KC being a transportation hub in the middle of the
country makes this a natural match.

You have to realize that it's basically the entertainment, financial, and
technological hub for about 30-40million people living within an 8 state
radius. So there are a lot of things centered here that normally couldn't be
supported in a city of the same actual population.

~~~
firebones
Kauffman Foundation, great BBQ, an innovate sports franchise (Sporting Kansas
City playing in probably the most wired stadium in America), Stowers Institute
for life sciences doing basic research into curing cancer with world class
scientists, built on a star line which creates public-sector competitive
pressures which businesses can play to their benefit. Huge tdevelopment alent
engines in Sprint, Cerner, Garmin and access to talent from Omaha, Des Moines,
Lincoln, Columbia.

It's not SV, it's not Austin, but it has a huge reach for a lot of talent and
it is starting to spawn dividends.

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jroseattle
Lived just outside KC for most of my youth, part of my adult life. Moved west
to Seattle, and haven't looked back.

Kudos to the locals for trying to pull young entrepreneurs to KC. The town
needs a jolt of options outside the typical corporate-IT-office-park-in-the-
burbs.

One thing about KC is culture. The people are really nice, but the midwest is
so substantively different from the coasts. In Seattle and the bay area,
technology is king -- it's dominant from an industry perspective. Not the case
in KC, and it's not going to be anytime soon. Whether you, as a possible
startup entrepreneur, care about that is personal, but make no mistake -- the
local culture is not around tech.

A second knock on KC -- the good local talent doesn't hang around.
Historically, competence in technology has not been rewarded; thus, the good
companies tend to see young up-and-comers depart for greener pastures.

Want to start your technology company in KC? I would say it's a bad bet. Cost
of living is cheaper than many other places, but you get what you pay for;
expect access to technical talent to be challenging.

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mrhlee
I just signed up. If already owning a startup isn't a prerequisite, this would
be a great opportunity for me to switch from my current environment and day
job to focusing on building something full time.

~~~
bogrollben
Mr Lee - just left you a VM about the program. I'm trying to get in touch with
everyone personally that signed up to give a run down of the program and give
you a chance for any questions. Thanks for your interest! Ben

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wololo
How is the culture there?

* Westboro Baptist Church is in Topeka, KS (65 miles away)

* a professor was beaten in Lawrence, KS (30 miles away) ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mirecki#Intelligent_Design...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mirecki#Intelligent_Design_controversy))

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sakopov
I lived in Kansas City most of my life. Here is my take on living in Kansas
City and building a start-up here.

1\. Climate. There is no mild weather in KC. Summers are excruciatingly hot.
Winters can sometimes be very cold and snowy. Tornadoes can get pretty scary
at times, but 90% of the time there is nothing to worry about. I've seen a
couple of touchdowns in 15 years. Most of the time i just hear about them.

2\. Cost of Living. Rent is fairly cheap. If you're single and want to be in
the middle of all the action a single bedroom place on the Plaza will probably
run you around $800. Power & Light district will likely be around the same
price. Westport area is going to be cheaper around $600. If you don't mind the
drive, you can probably find a decent place in North Kansas City for around
$500-$600. Want to buy a house? ~$250K in the burbs for a nice 4 bedroom house
20 minutes away from the center. 2-3 bedroom homes are around $160K-$200K.

3\. Traffic. KC is backed up all over the place between 8-9am and 5-6pm. When
the rush-hour is over, it is a pleasure to drive here.

4\. Nightlife. You have the new Power & Light district with tons of bars and
clubs open 24/7. You have the old Westport area with it's own vibe. If you're
from the Bay Area, you'll likely fit right in here. It's a very hip place.
Plaza, Zona Rosa and The Legends are great place to shop and get a bite to eat
around day time and up until midnight. KC occupies pretty massive territory,
but it actually isn't a big city and it can get old pretty quick. So keep that
mind, especially if you're single or a young couple. You'll be running into
the same people over and over again before you know it. :)

5\. Recreation. KC has beautiful lakes, nature and wildlife. 30 minutes away
from the center and you're pretty much on camping grounds. Getting around on
foot is pretty tough and even impossible in some places. You really need to
have a car here. Sidewalks are non-existent in many neighborhoods. There is
always something going on in the city. Lots of concerts and outside events in
the summer. Not so much in the winter.

6\. Tech Scene & Job market. KC doesn't really have a good
techy/entrepreneurial scene. It has strong corporate IT sector, which is
booming. Good developers are still very hard to come by. Most companies are
more than willing to dish out 100K+ if you know what you're doing. The
interesting thing about Kansas City businesses is that most of them aren't
looking for rockstars or ninjas. They're looking for someone who can fit in
with the rest of the team. This is not a bad thing, but more often than not
you wind up working with really incompetent people who fit in but don't know
squat. It's also very hard to find interesting work. The hottest thing is IT
jobs supporting internal development in financial and medical sectors. There
are some prominent tech companies in the area like Sprint, Garmin, Honeywell &
Cerner, but most are just not very appealing in terms of life/work balance,
innovation and quality of work.

7\. Want to run a start-up from KC? Hmm... I don't know. Finding good
developers is a pretty hard task here. Finding talented developers is
inexplicably difficult. Most folks who know their craft are no longer in KC.
You basically have to know people who know people. Tech conferences are
usually full of talented folks. The great thing about KC is the lower cost of
living. You can make a comfortable living on 60K/year, but as a developer you
can easily make 100K here and have plenty of time & money to invest in your
own start-up while working full-time elsewhere. So in that respect, it is a
pretty good place to build a start-up.

~~~
veemjeem
The reason why SV is the scene for startups is simply because of the people
here. It's expensive in SV, the traffic sucks, nightlife is mediocre, etc, but
nobody cares about that stuff when they need to create a company. They only
care about talented individuals, investors, and other existing startup
companies. Getting free rent is just not enough of a motivator for moving to
KC.

~~~
batista
>* The reason why SV is the scene for startups is simply because of the people
here. It's expensive in SV, the traffic sucks, nightlife is mediocre, etc, but
nobody cares about that stuff when they need to create a company. They only
care about talented individuals, investors, and other existing startup
companies. Getting free rent is just not enough of a motivator for moving to
KC.*

Not all startups care about VC money or hiring outside talent to work in site.
Imagine a 5 person team working on some web service or a mobile app, with
external people telecommuting if needed.

Why does everybody assume that startup = Facebook, Twitter, Groupon etc
wannabes?

~~~
nordicnomad82
This by 1000. If you can get a small team to focus and build something awesome
over the course of a few months, you can basically raise money and hire people
from anywhere.

Most startups that make it out of KC right now have raised money from both
coasts and locally and have Dev offices in SV and Boston if not other places.

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sneak
This is sad because any people who take them up on this offer will contribute
increased taxes to the USA which will then use that money to implement things
like PATRIOT and a bunch of unnecessary foreign wars.

Try again somewhere that doesn't use most of its government revenue in
destructive ways, and maybe this would be worthwhile.

Seriously, it's time to leave the USA. If you want to encourage migration and
innovation, do it somewhere outside of the borders. The world is a big place
and not all of it is insane like the USA.

~~~
EwanG
Assuming you are serious and not just venting, where are the offers like this
outside the US?

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ricardobeat
Well, in the largest cities of Brazil you can get 100mb internet for US$150,
rent a good house for US$1000 (or an apartment for $500), and hire great
talent for ~$2-3k/month; they all have active startup and developer scenes. As
a bonus you get access to a booming mobile market :)

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wesgarrison
Serious question: what would it take for a US citizen to move to Brazil and
work there? I don't have any idea about the visa intricacies.

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swah
I'm offering to switch places with you. There are no Apple stores nor Amazon
here. We have sugar Coke though...

~~~
ricardobeat
We do have Apple franchises, and Amazon is coming this year (reportedly) :)

But we don't have Cherry Coke :(

