
Top 11 reasons *not* to move to the Bay Area. - BitGeek

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BitGeek
Well, since I started, might as well get all the controversial opinions out
now. :-) Remember, advice is limited experience + overgeneralization.

\--

Building a startup is about leverage. Leverage is the ability to magnify your
efforts. The bay area reduces your leverage. Especially compared to somewhere
like Seattle, or Portland, or Boulder, or Salt Lake City, etc.

11\. Everyone is rude. It's like living in New York or LA. The laid back
california of the 70s is no more. Maybe Eureka or Weed or Barstow are good
places, but the bay area is harsh. Some relish the challenge, others just want
to be left alone so they can be productive. Being productive on your product
increases leverage...

10\. California looks so run down. This is because it is. The quality of life
is declining rapidly. There's nowhere to go to escape urban sprawl-- not close
anyway and getting there is hours in gridlock. Being unhappy decreases focus
which decreases leverage.

9\. The population density is so high, everyone is on prozac. (I'm not
kidding.) Being depressed reduces leverage.

8\. After spending 2 months there, I knew the business plans of 70+ companies
in stealth mode. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing. Thus getting an
edge on your competition is difficult, they may get your employees, and they
do know your ideas. You have less leverage.

7\. Every resource is in high demand, thus time spent finding real estate,
finding equipment, is higher. The local and state government levels of
regulation are very high, and thus time spent dealing with the burocrats is
much higher. All these are distractions you don't need.

6\. The availability of good startup quality employees is lower in the Bay
Area. Because startups per capita is much higher there, there are more
startups competing for the same employees.

5\. Office rent is expensive, Gas is expensive, Taxes are high, everything you
could want to buy costs more. Your burn rate is going to be much higher.

4\. You can't find a place to live. Your employees can't either. Both you and
your employees need more money to cover basic cost of living... your burn rate
is much higher.

3\. Being in the bay area means being on the VC treadmill. This is the
opposite of working for yourself, you are working for the VCs, and unless you
triple their money in three years, you get nothing. This forces bad decisions
and much less leverage.

2\. Long frustrating commutes reduce employee productivity and morale. They
also reduce the length of the workday.

1\. The state taxes capital gains like income! So, even if you win, you lose.

The upside... what rocks about the bay area:

10\. Better S&M; clubs. Much. Better.

9\. You can fantasize about one day getting a boat and sailing out under the
golden gate bridge.

8\. Skinnier (but more expensive) women who want to date geeks.

7\. More plastic surgery.

6\. More networking events.

5\. Better parties.

4\. More founders to commisserate with when you're forced out of your company.

3\. You can TP Arringtons house if he gives you a bad review, or doesn't
invite you to a party, or says something particularly slimy about someone.
Hell, just do it anyway.

2\. A lot of the good conferences are there, and if they aren't, Las Vegas is
closer than to other cities.

And the number one good thing about the bay area:

1\. Well, at least its not Los Angeles!

~~~
comatose_kid
As a bay-area resident who moved here from Canada a few years back, I'd like
to give my own view - my numbers correspond to your numbered points..

11\. As you get closer to larger companies, people on the road tend to be more
rude. I'm thinking of the San Jose/Milpitas area. I think most of those
workers are unhappy to be treading off to their anonymous jobs :)

10\. Disagree. If you live on the 101, I could see how you would feel that
way, but try to drive around los gatos or saratoga and say that. No urban
sprawl. Plus, 'quality of life' is such a nebulous term....for me, quality of
life is improved just by the energy of this place and the diverse types of
people it attracts.

9\. I don't know anyone on prozac, and I'm not sure what that has to do with
population density...

Speaking of population density/sprawl, I met this nice lady very recently who
had just relocated from Paris. Having been lucky enough to visit there myself,
I had to tell her how beautiful I thought her city was. She said that she was
happy to leave, as the bay area was a "lot greener" (her words) and better for
children.

8\. You point should show anyone why the bay area is a great place. Where else
would you know 70 founders?? And getting an edge on your competition doesn't
necessarily involve secrecy....

7\. Totally agree about having to find a home, etc. But the regulations are
pretty minor from a biz standpoint relative to the benefits of doing business
here.

6\. Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond? If your startup has
potential, you should not only be able to compete with other startups to hire,
you will be able to pick from among the best people in the world.

5\. Second order problems. Instead of looking at expenses, you should be
looking at the place that allows your startup to have the most room to grow.
If your primary concern is the cost of living, move to Thailand. Gorgeous
beaches, your dollar goes incredibly far, and oh, the closest thing to a
technology company there is the guy selling electronic keychains on the
street...

4\. I've been in the valley since 2000 - it's much easier to find a place here
now than it was back then. And salaries aren't that much higher here than they
are in other tech centers in the USA or even Canada.

3\. Disagree. Since when is having more options a negative thing? If you don't
need VC money, don't spend your time chasing it. But if you do, you'll have a
much better chance getting it here.

Face it - if you need VC money, the treadmill exists regardless of which city
your business is situated in - you'll just have an easier time getting on the
treadmill if you're in the bay area.

2\. Can't disagree with that...commutes certainly suck, and they're longer
here than most places.

1\. Agreed...which is why holding onto a stock for 1yr is good, but that's a
different conversation...

~~~
BitGeek
A couple follow ups-

8\. No, I didn't know 70 founders, I didn't even know one. But having a friend
in the industry who didn't even work for a startup let me know the private
details of 2-3 companies a day. This was standard dinner conversation- who's
doing what, etc.

6\. We're all in the same pond. I'm saying that your chances of beating Bay
Area companies is better if you are not in the Bay Area. Most of the best
people in the world do not live in the Bay Area.

5\. Thailand is probably not a bad place... recruiting bright engineers right
out of college is probably easier. Who wants to go live in a cubicle in a
generic tilt up rather than a bungalow on a beach in a small town? Cutting
these costs means you can pay people more, means you can hire better people,
etc.

4\. IF this is true, that's even worse. With the dramatically higher cost of
living, that means your employees are having more trouble making ends meet (or
sharing houses, 2 to a bedroom.)

Anyway, don't want to debate it to death, and was talking tongue in cheek to
some extent. Locality is much less important than it was in the 1980s and
1990s. And past success has made the bay area somewhere I'm increasingly less
interested in even visiting.

~~~
gommm
Those are the reasons why I'm moving to malaysia to create my startup....

1\. Living cost are cheap

2\. good internet access

3\. lots of people speak english there so you can go on your daily life with
english (good for attracting employees from other countries)

4\. While I don't discount the usefulness of the networking effect in the bay,
it's much more useful if you need investors... Since I plan to bootstrap my
company, this is not such a problem....

5\. Nice weather, smiling people makes for a place where people are not
depressed....

6\. I strongly believe that the best employees for a startup are curious and
adventurous, an employee that is willing to relocate to malaysia display those
qualities

~~~
BitGeek
Right, all the areas where you previously had to build infrastructure are now
free or you can rent them ... and they have become commidtized.

Thus a team of a few can focus just on adding value, making the bootstrapping
runway dramatically shorter.

I'm not sure what the benefit of physical networking is (and thus being in the
bay area) other than being closer to VCs, and if you don't need VC funding,
there's no point.

------
iamelgringo
Yes... Bay area is terrible... very expensive, crowded, rude. Please, don't
move here.

My favorite beach was packed with 10 other people there last weekend. It was
awful. ;)

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larrykubin
Very nice post. After attending startup school I found myself wanting to move
for the first time since living in Austin. Then I thought about how much
cheaper I could live in Austin while working on the startup. Of your reasons
_to_ move to the Bay Area, I am most attracted to 2 and 6. I think there is
probably a right time to make the move though.

~~~
goodgoblin
Well, you can always fly to conferences and network there.

As for 6 - Thinking back to something Paul Graham said about how the number 6
startup hub should really not even be considered to be in the same league as
the number 1 or 2, I wonder if there might be a non-geographic effect to be
gained by all the startups who are NOT in the Valley joining virtual forces to
be a counterweight to the SF-club.

I think there are likely alot of us, and the bar for our success is certainly
lower than it is if you live in the SF-area.

Weird that there aren't any pure Startup conferences, at least that I know of.
They all seem to be organized by the funders or by people who are out to make
a buck on the conference itself. A conference organized by startups with their
interests in mind i.e. no $1500 presentation fees, would potentially still
attract investors/press/etc. without having to have the impreteur of some
internet celebrity organizing it. Its almost like the word 'startup' itself
has enough celebrity around it now to pull its own weight.

We should have it in some decidely non-startup hub, like Hartford CT or
something...

~~~
semigeek
Look for alternatives to conferences - meetups for example, like the one in
Boulder:

<http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/001932.html>

I've been to a few Technology Meetups like these where 3-5 founders get to
present each month and there's usually no fee's involved, other than perhaps a
small entry fee to help cover the meeting location if it's not sponsored.

------
sharpshoot
Moving from London to the Bay Area actually halves costs. A fantastic reason
in addition to the obvious network effects which makes it worth moving there,

------
Harj
you could have 11,000 reasons not to move to the Bay Area and they would be
out numbered by the one single biggest reason to move here:

This is where the best startups have been formed and will be formed.

~~~
BitGeek
That's not a reason, that's an assertion of your opinion. You're not alone in
that opinion.

The real question is why? This has never been answered, other than "closeness
to VCs".

There's no fundamental advantage to the Bay Area over, say Seattle, or other
places that has been mentioned here.

All of the resources you could want are either a lot cheaper elsewhere, or the
same price (because they are delivered over the net.)

With the exception of venture capital...

So, fundamental ot this idea of relocating to the bay area is the assumption
that you must take venture capital. (And I think this assumption no longer
holds.)

~~~
Harj
No. Only the second part of my statement "best startups will be formed" can be
labeled as an assertion of my opinion.

The first part is fact. SV has produced more great startups than any other
area in the world. Arguing with that fact is futile.

It's not just VC that SV has as an advantage. Its a high density of angel
investors and young people wiling to take a risk and launch startups.

As for the assumption of taking venture capital not holding any longer,
venture capital in the narrow sense i.e. VC firms - possibly but in the
general sense of needing to raise investment at some point, name me a
successful startup that hasn't.

------
boomstrap
And yet so many companies are still be founded here. I wonder why?

~~~
BitGeek
Two factors: 1\. Its not as disproprotionate is it seems due to the
amplifiction effects of mainstream media. 2\. In the 70s, most of the problems
I have identified didn't exist, and so it was a good place to form high tech
companies. Now, four booms later, not so much.

------
richcollins
You like truck pulls and pit bar-b-que

