

Why Omaha is a great place for startups - moses1400
http://www.centernetworks.com/why-i-love-omaha-startups

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rabble
You've got to be kidding. Evan Williams who co-founded Blogger, Odeo, and
Twitter is from there. He tried to do several startups in Omaha before
deciding that the problem was the place. So he moved to San Francisco and has
been very successful. Follow his advice.

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danfitch
<http://evhead.com/2007/11/where-should-you-be.asp>

~~~
rsheridan6
>I got a job at O'Reilly as a marketing coordinator for their software group
as a way to get me to California. I was 25. I had no degree or significant
tangible skills. (I could "code" HTML, ColdFusion, VB...and write marketing
copy.) I had spent the last few years trying to get my own Internet company
going in Nebraska, which was a painful (but educational) mess.

Maybe the problem was not so much Nebraska but the fact that he had no
significant or tangible skills - in 1994-1997, when it would have probably
been more difficult for a guy in the middle of nowhere to pick up the
necessary skills by himself.

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JoelSutherland
I lived in Omaha for 10 years and now live in the Research Triangle area of
North Carolina where I started a company three years ago. Because of my Omaha
ties we do some business there.

Omaha is a great place to live.

For startups as HN defines them, Omaha is not an ideal location. There are two
big reasons for this:

1\. Low cost of living. For a tech startup, Ramen and split-rent costs about
the same everywhere. A low cost of living generally means that the people
around you are used to paying less for things. Silicon Valley is nice because
the population has money and is ready to spend it and founders can get by for
dirt cheap just as they would anywhere else.

2\. University System. SF, NYC, Boston (and RTP!) all have strong startup
communities as well as great University systems nearby. This is not a
coincidence. Omaha is an hour from the University of Nebraska. The next
closest are the Iowa schools which are several hours away.

A good part of Omaha that the OP mentions is the creative scene. I am
continually impressed by it. Omaha has also been making some great business
development decisions over the last 10 years so I do believe the situation
will only get better.

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tptacek
I don't understand. It sounds like you're saying rent costs the same
everywhere. It manifestly does not.

~~~
JoelSutherland
If I'm going to quit my job for a full-time startup the difference between
$500 on rent in Omaha and $1000 rent in SF is not large enough to optimize
for.

Those numbers are probably exaggerated as well. If you really wanted to live
cheap you could do $300 and $600 I'm sure. The point is that the difference
between the costs of living decreases in an absolute sense when you are living
cheap.

Paying double for Ramen is not a big deal if it means you are living in an
area where there are investors.

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dennmart
I bet if everyone thinks long enough, they can come up with enough reasons why
their city / state / country is great for startups.

While I do believe that location plays a large enough part in the life of a
startup, once the product is up and running, do people really care if the next
cool product was built in eastern Timbuktu and not in the Bay Area?

~~~
danfitch
Its not that one place or another is a great place for startup xyz it is the
fact that Omaha is in the middle of the country and no one associates it with
creativity, entrepreneurship, or technology. But there is a growing group of
people in those scenes here, and we have as much to offer talent wise as the
bigger cities.... If you can't tell I am biased because I live in Omaha and
know most of the people they are talking about in the article. But you are
right there is no reason why some city should not be included, so make it a
point to be the one that gets these people together in your city and make it
happen. That is what so many of the people in this article are doing, growing
a community, and making things happen.

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jff
Why X is a great place for startups [where X is a member of the set of US
cities larger than 100,000 people but not including San Francisco]

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michaelcampbell
Anyone but me first read that as, "Why Obama is a great place for startups"?

Getting old sucks.

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Anon84
And you can have Warren Buffet as your neighbor!

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tjdziuba
And then you realize you live in fucking Nebraska and fellate the business end
of a 12 gauge.

