

What Makes a City Startup Friendly? - dabent
http://startup.partnerup.com/2009/12/03/what-makes-a-city-startup-friendly/

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mmt
_Large national airport._

I think there's something to be said for having more than one large airport,
in competition with each other, in any large enough major metro area. Single-
airport cities in my not-pluralizable-to-data experience have more problems
with rental car shortages, weather, and traffic.

Perhaps it's just a question of number of airports per population and/or land
area. About 1 per million people seems about right, even though the Bay Area
falls shy of that.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_metropo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_metropolitan_areas_in_Canada)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_p...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_by_population)

Is there a convenient count of major and/or minor commercial airports for
these areas?

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eugenejen
He listed 6 factors to ponder.

1\. Low cost of living.

2\. Nearby colleges and universities.

3\. Community of experienced entrepreneurs.

4\. Large national airport.

5\. Plethora of professional service providers.

6\. High concentration of consumers

I think bullet points 3 to 6 make point 1 impossible.

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spamizbad
Chicago has all of these in spades except for #3; which is a doosy as it's far
and away the most important.

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oldgregg
Chicago has a low cost of living?

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spamizbad
It's not cheap if you live in a trendy neighborhood, eat out a lot, and own a
car. But it is cheap if you live in a safe working-class neighborhood and rely
on the CTA. In 2003 I lived in an apartment in Pilsen with 2 startup founders
and lived off of $800/month - that was my share of the rent, utilities,
internet, and company cellphone plan along with food. And I probably could
have saved $100/month if I didn't go to bars.

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awolf
The one item that really matters is:

Community of experienced entrepreneurs.

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icey
That's kind of a chicken & egg thing though, isn't it? How do you get that
community if your city isn't startup friendly?

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malbiniak
bust ass for the rest, then don't bail out to the Valley when you get funded.
yes, i'm looking at you, groupon. please don't leave us.

in my opinion, this article is answering the question "what makes a city
easier to find vc money." we really need to break the mentality that palo alto
and boulder are the only places where technology and web-based startups can go
to market.

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Scott_MacGregor
Why we chose the Austin Area vs. elsewhere:

    
    
      1. No Crime (NYC-Yikes)
    
      2. No Personal Income Tax (Calif, Mass & NYC-Yikes!)
    
      3. Low (all other) Taxes (Calif & NYC-Yikes!)
    
      4. Low to basically non-existent business regulations & red-tape (Calf-Yikes!)
    
      5. Reasonable Weather (Mass & NYC-Yikes!)
    
      6. Reasonable Cost of Living (NYC-Yikes!)
    

Overall Austin seemed financially the best place because Texas does not tax
any personal income and that is a big savings. Since both of us founders are
from California on the minus side we have found Austin to be incredibly humid
in the summertime and since we are still small we might give Seattle a try
very soon.

Too bad the state government of California is not as business friendly as
Texas, I’m sure a lot of companies would move back quickly.

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djm
While things like cost of living, availability of specific services etc are
important the article missed one thing.

In the earliest stages at least, what you need most is a place to be able to
think and work and create something without too much distraction.

I'd say a good place to start a startup would be similar to a place you'd want
to live if you were working on some hard math problem or something. Somewhere
you can walk the streets and think about stuff, with libraries with quiet
corners and ubquitous coffee shops would be my ideal. I guess that probably
describes a lot of university towns, especially the older ones.

