
Tips for building startups in Baltimore or anywhere - ascertain
http://technical.ly/baltimore/2016/02/08/4-y-combinator-tips-building-startups-baltimore-anywhere/
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pmorici
Baltimore's low low cost of living and vibrant art and food scenes are major
advantages.

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lambdaphagy
Of course there's a reason for the low cost of living, namely that few other
people want to live here. Few other people want to live here because it's one
of the most dangerous cities in the world per capita. Number 19 this year, in
fact.

You might think that as a startup founder in a line of work other than
pharmaceutical sales, you'd be insulated from this kind of violence. That's
_mostly_ correct, but not _entirely_ , and the difference isn't negligible.
More than half of my family, for example, has been victimized in some way,
often repeatedly. Even if nothing happens to you--and I hope nothing ever does
--you find yourself thinking about risk and public space in a way that is
barely intelligible to outsiders.

As a lifelong resident of Baltimore who is leaving at the first opportunity, I
would strongly advise against moving in. Anyone so tempted should take a
careful look at the fundamentals.

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pmorici
I've lived in Baltimore for a decade and I like it more every year. It's
really quite fantastic. There is crime in every city.

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lambdaphagy
Sure, often an order of magnitude less. After years of mugging attempts,
beatings outside my apartment and random murders in seemingly safe
neighborhoods, I think I can live with a slightly less vibrant art scene. I
hope things work out for you--just remember to keep an eye out.

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j0rd
Best advice ive heard from business leaders in baltimore is here:

[http://www.insightsquared.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/7.p...](http://www.insightsquared.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/7.png)

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yeukhon
The advice applies to every business, startup or not, in Baltmore or not.

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moron4hire

        Throughout the talk, the two YC staffers returned to the mantra of staying focused
        on building your company. Rather than thinking that a program like YC will be the
        ticket to success, Caldwell said the key is to start within. “If you want to start
        a company, the best way to be successful is to just start a company,” he said.
        Caldwell said companies at YC spend time focusing on what’s important, and avoiding
        the trap of doing things that are tangential to building a startup.
    

Must be nice to have all that spare cash lying around to just focus on your
company without an accelerator helping you avoid pitfalls.

I get the point of what they are trying to say. There are a lot of people who
get an idea and then they think they need to be in an accelerator right away
without having put any effort into the idea yet. But I think there are a lot
of us out here who aren't like that. And for us, none of this is actionable
advice. This is all the sort of sound-bites that make sense _after_ you've
built a company, but to try to synthesize what to do based off of this is
very-difficult-to-impossible.

Ship: ok, release early, release often. Until you've had some experience
releasing projects and getting feedback on them (assuming they don't get
ignored completely), then you won't know what the cutoff point should be.
There is definitely a "too early", if things don't work right or only work for
a small proportion (i.e. less than 95%) of people.

Grow: if people knew how to do that on their own, I don't think they'd be
looking for an accelerator. That's the entire point.

B2B: I really don't get the point of this paragraph at all. It sounds kind of
patronizing, actually. "Look at you little East Coasters, you're so cute.
Yeah, you can startup. You can do it, buddy!"

I'm at a point in my project where I could continue to bootstrap as I'm doing
and watch as my competitors pass me by because they got funding somewhere,
somehow, even though they've started behind me, and now don't have to worry
about maintaining a day job, so they _can_ focus 100% on their company. Or I
can find investors who don't just slough me off with "you need _focus_ ,
Daniel San" and maybe make a run of it, especially if with that money I could
hire an expert in marketing and sales, because dammit Jim, I'm an engineer,
not the second coming of Leonardo Da Vinci.

