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How to build a tech startup outside of Silicon Valley

by obsaysditto on 1/11/11, 2:31 PM with 13 comments

• by bhousel on 1/11/11, 3:46 PM

  Offtopic, but I hate this trend of articles titled 'How to..." where the article don't actually tell you how to do anything. It seems like there have been a lot of these articles lately. Is it an SEO thing?

  Another noiseword title I've learned to avoid is, "What we learned from..."

• by JoeAltmaier on 1/11/11, 3:09 PM

  Yes, there's more angel money these days but the investors outside tech hubs are naieve. They have to be educated, they have a long tedious investment cycle, the friction is just enormous.

• by jasonfried on 1/11/11, 3:57 PM

  How do you build a tech startup outside of Silicon Valley? You start one. Just like any other business.

• by thewordpainter on 1/11/11, 3:44 PM

  I think it's important to note that david brussin's thoughts are primarily geared towards secondary markets. As an entrepreneur who runs a startup out of a quarternary market (athens, ga), i can assure you that we would be benefitting a lot more from having the valley resources at our disposal.

  i tend to make a trip to atlanta (secondary?) every week, but the resources only stretch so far. atlanta may have a VC presence, but the angels are few & far between.

  i'd also say that the biggest problem with most secondary markets is they don't cover the entire gamut of industries. talking from my own experience, atlanta is a B2B town with a heavy emphasis on areas like security. if you're running a B2C startup (like we are at http://gorankem.com), i'd almost encourage the entrepreneur to not waste any time seeking money in GA.

  overall, the biggest advantage the valley has over all the other markets is the connections. personally, i could deal with the competition for talent because i like to think that we have a stronger product. i shake my head at some of the ideas getting funded.

  the wisdom in the tech community that is being transferred in SF on a daily basis cannot be touched.

  for that reason & many more, if anybody has a couch to sleep on come this summer, i may be looking for one...

• by drndown2007 on 1/11/11, 3:20 PM

  I'd love to know what the success and failure percentages are for Silicon Valley startups. I'm sure there are overall higher successes in raw numbers, but in per-VC dollar invested, or per-developer capita, I'm skeptical.

  Maybe it's just me, but it seems like most of the startups I hear about these days are just CRUD apps aimed at some social niche. Those can be built anywhere, and don't require rockstar programmers.

• by lincolnpark on 1/11/11, 3:16 PM

  You can start a tech company anywwhere outside Silicon Valley. The problem is its harder to scale a fast growing company.

• by obsaysditto on 1/11/11, 2:53 PM

  Relevant (has also been posted in the past to HN): http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/09/yes-phlboschisea...

• by mbertrand on 1/11/11, 3:06 PM

  Couldn't agree more. While Silicon Valley still has the upper hand on available talent, capital etc. there is steep competition for all of it.

• by known on 1/11/11, 6:02 PM

  I'd suggest you to check social/economic/cultural aspects outside Silicon Valley and then plunge.