

Why You Should Start a Company in... Kansas City - levirosol
http://www.fastcompany.com/1700939/why-you-should-start-a-company-in-kansas-city

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levirosol
I'm hesitant to share such a poorly written article, but the topic is a great
one. It highlights a great city here in the Midwest that is starting to do
some great things in the startup world. I'm really looking forward to seeing
what the Kauffman Labs is able to produce.

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Scott_MacGregor
It looks like the startup climate in Midwest is starting to get focused. With
the state of the economy right now that is a great thing for everyone.

One thing that swayed us as a company to move to Austin was the great business
climate offered by Texas. One of the stated purposes of the Texas government
is to "get out of the way" so a company can focus on the competition, and they
seem to do that very well. That along with the favorable tax climate (no
personal income tax, and a relatively high threshold before any
corporate/franchise tax kicks in) made Austin seem very attractive to us. You
don't even need a business license in Austin. Basically, you can keep and
reinvest a lot more of what you earn.

Maybe Kansas City can take a look at what Austin has to offer and use some of
the positives to build an even "greater" startup atmosphere than you guys have
now.

Here is a YouTube speech by the governor of Texas outlining the Texas
philosophy about startups. He pretty much hits on all of the points that we
found attractive when locating here. Maybe you guys could use some of these
ideas too. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbOtHDshfj4>

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ojbyrne
Surprised that there's no mention of Django, which came from Lawrence, KS,
only 40 miles away. That makes me think this is an MBA-led/business plan/top
down startup scene, rather than a techie-led scene.

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missinlnk
The local newspaper created Django for their own internal use, and then open
sourced it later. That doesn't fit into the article's topic of starting a
business from the ground up.

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ojbyrne
I just meant that it establishes some "geek cred" for Kansas, and not even
mentioning it suggests there's not much geek involvement in the article.

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jws
Make sure to check their health insurance laws. I have friends whose child is
uninsurable in the state because of a minor, treatable condition, even though
his father is a significant level employee of a very large government agency.

Depending how you locate, your employees who need to could live on the
Missouri side and get access to the state high risk pool, but with a 12 month
pre-existing condition exemption, and no coverage for most cancer treatments.

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tomotomo
Scroll to the bottom and you'll get links to the other cities, outside of
Silicon Valley, you should start a company in. A lot of potential in the
Midwest; Chicago has already been covered and I expect a spotlight on Detroit
in the future - opportunities to do business with a reshaped auto industry,
wealth of IT people, access to VCs and incubators, easy access to Canada, etc.

