
Why I Moved My Startup to Oakland - brennenHN
http://brennenbyrne.com/2013/09/oakland/
======
VonGuard
As a long time resident of Oakland, I'd like to relate some awesome things
about Oakland, none of which the author touched on. Well, I guess the
diversity and "Real-ness" count.

Oakland is a hell of a lot cheaper to live in. Groceries, restaurants, rent,
drinks, office space, hotel rooms, air fare: everything is cheaper.

In Oakland, we have a burgeoning uptown scene, punctuated by the Art Murmur,
an event which started in 2005, and has blossomed into a giant street festival
that very accurately reflects the diversity of Oakland. It's a First Friday
roll call for the city, and the Bay Area.

That "Beer Garden" mentioned elsewhere, was a hipster coffee shop before that,
and a cheap cafe before that, all willingly handed with great care from owner
to owner. Gentrification has room to spread in Oakland, so while some complain
about it, it mostly removes empty lots and vacant windows, not mom and pop
businesses.

The Mission, on the other hand, sees gentrification at the cost of existing
businesses. And speaking of the Mission, Oakland's Fruitvale district is the
cheapest, most active place you can live for under 4 figures, while still
being 30 minutes from downtown SF via BART or car. Fruitvale has become quite
the destination, for the adventurous.

I could go on: The Chapel of Chimes is a Julia Morgan masterpiece, a labyrinth
of death located in the hills. The Rose garden has a resident turkey. There's
a couple breweries that host quiet BBQ's, Jack London Square, the various
parks in the hills. The Hills.... The Fox and the Paramount. Van Kleefs.

And my own personal favorite: [http://www.themade.org](http://www.themade.org)

------
drags
It's easier to make this work when the company is smaller.

One of the big advantages of SF (and especially the financial district) is
that it's possible for most people in the city, the East Bay _and_ the South
Bay to get to work in less than an hour. I want to make the commute decent for
as many employees as possible.

~~~
timr
_" It's easier to make this work when the company is smaller."_

Oh jeez. The way people talk about it now, you'd think that San Francisco was
some sort of eternal pre-requisite for founding a startup, rather than the
flavor of the moment. Startups _didn 't want to be here_ until a few years
ago, and it isn't exactly a practically motivated decision today. Startups get
founded here mostly because a certain subset of 20-somethings want to live in
the city.

~~~
wildgift
I don't know what SF is like now, but CNet, Wired, Craigslist, and a few other
companies started out there. There was also Hyperreal and SF.NET, the ravers,
and Mondo 2000 up in Berkeley too. Maybe it wasn't the same kind of startup or
the same people, but there it was.

Anyway, I was almost instantly burned out on that hype almost before it
happened. It wasn't the tech but the whole utopianism that was tiresome.
Technoids in fantasy land. Ugh.

I couldn't afford SF and liked Oakland a lot more, especially Chinatown and
the area around the lake, and the swap meets, and the tiny computer stores.
The Black culture, southern culture, Black Muslims, all that was new to me.
The crime, not so cool, but whatever. SF had hella crime too.

I guess my old San Francisco and old Oakland are no more.

------
jaredhansen
Welcome! Breezy's been based in Oakland since starting in 2009 (or 2011 if you
prefer to count from initial funding), and it's great.

There are more people than you might think who are happy to live and work here
here, and you just can't beat the rent or the weather. Feel free to swing by
sometime and say hello - we're always happy to meet others in the small club
that is the Oakland startup world.

~~~
fourstar
Another fellow Oaklander checking in here (working in Mountain View though).
You, myself, and Jared should all get a beer sometime (and whoever else).

------
guelo
Yea, the gentrification is spilling over from SF to the east bay. Long time
residents are being pushed out while "beer gardens" and other businesses that
cater to 20-something yuppies are popping up all over.

~~~
Apocryphon
What's there after Oakland. Richmond?

------
Apocryphon
There was a story last week about a startup moving to Berkeley. At this rate,
there will be startups in Vallejo to revitalize that city's economy.

------
chudi
I'm not from San Francisco and never been into, but I cant understand how is
this something important. Oakland is a bridge away from SF, is there a real
change?

~~~
seldo
I live in the Mission, and I agree with you. Oakland is 30 minutes away from
SF. This is like moving to South San Francisco and claiming it makes a makes a
substantial difference to your business. You're still in the middle of the bay
area.

------
spo81rty
Why not just not partake in all of these startup events and meetings instead
of moving? I have the same opinions as the author about all the startup noise
and groupies here in KC. Which is why I avoid most of them.

~~~
brennenHN
This is a good question, and I have two answers. 1) You are paying a high
premium in San Francisco for the privilege of that stuff and it's simply not
worth it. 2) The culture is pretty affected by the echoing and it gets kind of
hard to escape. For example, going out to bars people frequently start
conversations with things like "what startup do you work for"

~~~
7Figures2Commas
The fun will really begin when the question becomes "What startup _did_ you
work for?" Those conversations are a lot more interesting.

------
benblodgett
Let me start by saying I like the sentiment here. The hardest thing about
living in NYC is knowing too many people. They distract you and give a false
sense of comfort towards your situation. I get that.

But, I have a problem with this, is moving an hour outside of a city really
relocating? I'd argue if you don't want to be comfortable move to a city where
you have no connections. Focus on somewhere not particularly welcoming to tech
entrepreneurs and really get out of the comfort zone. Otherwise, I don't think
you really moved your startup anywhere.

~~~
wildgift
LOL, yeah, move to Fresno or Kern County.

------
jchrisa
We started in Oakland and it was great from a community and creativity
perspective.

~~~
jessepollak
Did y'all move away? If so, would you mind giving a little insight into why?

------
venportman
If you want me to leave Fruitvale to take the Bart to SF, you better be paying
me to do so.

~~~
smtddr
INFO:
[https://www.commuterdirect.com/cdimages/commutercheck.jpg](https://www.commuterdirect.com/cdimages/commutercheck.jpg)

Companies, especially tech, in SF usually offer these cards. I think it's the
law'ish. It's a mix between the company straight giving you money + pretax
deductions. I have the purely company-paid-for option, it covers about 10 days
of me going from Concord to montgomery and back.

------
avty
Move to Texas!

------
yeahrightoak
Did you factor in the risk of dying when you made this decision?

This kid is naive.

~~~
yapcguy
Why the downvotes for the poster?

Most of San Francisco is safe, with just one or two neighborhoods being dodgy.
Most of Oakland is unsafe, with just one or two neighborhoods being safe.

Oakland is one of the most dangerous cities in the USA. Just because you live
there and haven't been gunned down yet, doesn't mean it's not happening to
many other people.

It's literally your life, so do your own research and don't listen to me or
anybody else.

~~~
smtddr
Please HN'ers, ignore these people. These comments have confirmed a pattern
I've been seeing on various websites' comment-section.

<BIGconspiracyhat> Any attempts to show Oakland, Africa or African-americans
in any kind of positive light or as victims will always, __ALWAYS__ , get
troll'ish/meta/hyper-pedantic comments that derail the main topic and/or
meaningful discourse of the subject at hand, completely blowing up the comment
threads. It works well on places like HN because almost everyone here likes to
debate & discuss. But their arguments will become so spacious that you'll need
5 screen-lengths to debate with them and thus ruining the comments for anyone
else who actually wanted to talk about the article. </BIGconspiracyhat>

Please let's ignore these guys. We know they're wrong, no point debating with
them. We'll never convince them and the comments will get bloated with
arguments back-in-forth about crime stats, someone will eventually use the "R"
word and then BOOM, all meaningful discussion nullified by 5+ pages of of
debate about some non-significant detail. Example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6365495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6365495)

NOTE: An idea for the comment section, a way for users to flag a thread as
"superfluous". If it gets enough of these, the whole thread is moved off to a
small link on the side labeled "Superfluous thread started by $USER" where
clicking on it give you a little scrollable window to view it and easily
dismiss it when you're satisfied the thread had no real value. Perhaps each
user's profile even shows how many superfluous threads were credited to
him/her.

~~~
yapcguy
This is about Oakland, why bring race into it?

If the original poster had moved his startup to Stockton, we would be having
the same conversation.

~~~
steveklabnik
Race is always a factor for anyone who knows anything about the history of
Oakland. For example, the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland. There
has been class war and racism at the heart of Oakland for many, many years.

This post is another example of a long history of gentrification, which also
has a racial component. Race is absolutely on-topic here.

That doesn't mean I expect said discussion to be productive.

~~~
wildgift
The BPP starting at Laney is one of the cool things about Oakland. There's
history around the corner when you're roaming the city. That and the Oakland
Museum and Chinatown. And Flints BBQ, and E&J, and Doug's. And the markets in
Fruitvale. And the anarchist and communist stuff in Berkeley. I'm getting all
misty-eyed.

