Ask HN: SF vs. NYC?

[warewolf]

My team is currently discussing a relocation to either San Fransisco or New York City in the next 2 months our so. We are a social network startup currently based out of Atlanta. ATL is a young growing city and we believe the media connections and partners here are great. However our reason for wanting to relocated is 2 things.

1. Talent is really hard to find here in Atlanta. 2. The network of investors in Atlanta aren't interested in our space.

I personally have lived in both locations. I find them both to be expensive but livable. I've also found that 3 months networking at these locations is 12 months in ATL. I'm interested to see what the HN community thinks. Any founders who have made the move that can share some wisdom would be great.

[JSeymourATL]

> 1. Talent is really hard to find here in Atlanta.

Finding talent will be even more difficult in NYC & SFO. Look where other people aren't looking. Jason Fried has a brilliant take on this > http://www.inc.com/magazine/201607/jason-fried/tech-poaching...

> 2. The network of investors in Atlanta aren't interested in our space.

ATL benefits from 2500+ daily flights -- there are potential investors all over the map. They don't care where you're based, as long as your model works.

Here's a solid list from 2013 of VC's interested in Social > http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2013/03/29/meet-the-inves...

[jefflinwood]

Neither - I'd focus on staying in Atlanta where you can be a big fish in a smaller pond, rather than yet another startup in NYC or SF.

Several reasons: * More likely to get local press in Atlanta, because the "scene" is smaller, and you probably have connections through people you already know

* Cost of living is so much lower - you can get an incredible house in Atlanta for a much lower monthly payment than what you would end up renting in either one of those two cities.

* Talent may be hard to find in Atlanta (I can't speak to that) but plenty of people might be aging up-and-out in either NYC or SF - getting married and/or having kids, and now looking at exactly what kind of living situation they might get in those cities on a senior developer salary. Sure, they would most likely take a salary decrease for Georgia, but their dollar would stretch a lot further.

* One of the best airports in the country, on MARTA - easy to get anywhere in the country, as long as you really like Delta (or Southwest these days).

* Outside-the-bubble - Atlanta isn't a "tech-only" city, so unless you are building to flip, you should have better success staying grounded in ATL.

[ruler88]

When it comes to building a successful startup, you really should focus on just 2 things: 1) Build great product 2) Talk to customers 2.5) Iterate + repeat

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'networking' and what you expect to get from the said activity. You can just as easily raise money from SF/NY investors even if you are based in Atlanta - if you have a great product and good growth. If you are missing great product or good growth, you can't raise money even if you live in the investors' basement.

In terms of talent acquisition - that might be a legitimate reason. Keep in mind that (good) talent is also very very expensive in SF/NY. You are basically competing against the best companies in the world in terms of mission + compensation. So really ask yourself if you have what it takes to attract the best talent.

[ThomPete]

This is from a guys perspective.

Pros

The Valley -

- Great tech thinkers

- Great engineers

- Great companies

- Great tech sector

- Great VC scene

- Great weather

- Great nature

- Great food

- Great wine

- Great tech startup culture

- Great interface design scene

New York -

- Great food

- Great intellectuals

- Great financial sector

- Great fashion scene

- Great media sector

- Great energy

- Great serendipity scene

- Great industry spread

- Great club scene

- Notoriously beautiful woman (i.e. great dating scene)

Cons

- The Valley -

- Decentralized tech scene

- Lots of driving needed

- Lots and lots of "me too" startups (surprisingly many)

- Horrible club scene

New York -

- No real tech scene

- Expensive

- Lot's of conservative business

- Extreme weather

In other words

Both The Valley and NYC are great places to be. In a perfect world you would spend half your time in The Valley and other half in NYC. How is it the saying go?

Live on the West Coast once but leave before it makes you too soft, live in New York one but leave before it makes you too hard.

Personally I think NYC is best for young people (<40) and the Valley is where I want to retire others might think the exact opposite.

[ActsJuvenile]

Man, every other comment is trying to talk you out of moving.

Atlanta is kind of like that Facebook friend who thinks she is a "model". Atlanta start-up scene believes it is hotter than it really is.

If I were you, I would rent a cheap house in SF for 2-3 months as a team, stay there and spend at least 50% of the time networking at meetups and pitching.

It will give you clarity in 3 months if you idea is sellable or not. If you get major breakthrough in 3 months, stay longer otherwise fly back home and start over with a new idea.

[baccheion]

If the OP really wants to get out of Atlanta, then maybe he should expand his pool of locations. What about Denver or Boulder, Colorado? Austin, Texas? Madison, Wisconsin?

Best cities/towns/etc (most correlated with experiencing an exit, rather than failing/floundering (shut down, or founded before 2004 + no exit/acquisition/IPO)) to create a startup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11988900

Atlanta ranks 16th (which is pretty good), so if you were to decide to move, it would probably make sense to end up somewhere higher on the list.

Worst: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11988902

[bogomipz]

Why would you move your start up to one of the most expensive places in the US? Especially if you don't have funding.

1)For talent perhaps you should consider a remote and distributed team. Its 2016, this is not uncommon and it can work quite well.

2)Why do you have to be in the same location as investors? You can set up appointments with VC folk over the course of a few days and fly out for that.

[MalcolmDiggs]

I did the first half of my career in the Bay Area (>10 years) and am finishing it in NYC. Been in startups in both places. Here are the biggest differences I've noticed since moving to NY:

1. Old money. In California, the VCs and Angels I met were mostly self-made; they had cashed-out of the dotcom boom, or recently been apart of an IPO. They were all 20 - 40 somethings. NY is very different. I had never been exposed to the "country club" / "summer house in Nantucket" / "trust fund" scene before. It definitely feels like a different planet sometimes. So if you're raising money, be prepared to have conversations with the type of people you might have thought didn't exist anymore.

2. No echo-chamber. For the best and brightest in NYC, tech is often NOT the obvious choice. In many circles, going to the tech scene, (let alone the startup scene), is seen as odd. ("Why didn't you go into finance?" "Why didn't you go into law?" "Why aren't you a doctor yet?"). The greatest minds of the generation are becoming MOTUs (Masters of the Universe) at hedge funds and big banks. They're making a ridiculous amount of money, and really have no interest in this little tech thing we're doing. Talking about your startup in NYC feels odd sometimes. You're not praised or catered-to like you are in SF. Nobody really cares what you're doing, and nobody takes you that seriously until your run-rate is the hundreds of millions per year. It's a nice change in context actually. The SV echo chamber is gone.

Besides that (and NYC's insane weather), things are pretty much the same. Lots of talent, but it's expensive to hire. Lots of businesses, some good, some bad. Lots of VCs and Angels. Terrible rent, good food, etc.

Is it worth the move? Yes. Simply because when you move to NYC you may be seated at a cramped restaurant shoulder-to-shoulder with your next investor; and in SF you might see @sama walking down Market street. That kind of "right place at the right time" moments are more rare outside of those cities. Which coast you choose is entirely up to you; either way you're making a good move.

[baccheion]

You'll probably have better luck hiring someone and allowing them to work from wherever they are (telecommuting) than trying to descend into the chaos/noise/"dead end" that is San Francisco. New York may work, but why take on a higher cost of living for no reason?

[adude2016]

If you just move to SF or NYC, I am not sure if you'll get plugged into the network of investors immediately. Get plugged into a network takes time.

If you are doing a social network, what investors will want to see (no matter where they are from) is users (and retention rates of those users). Actually, if location matters for your product's user base, actually probably it's better to do it in a city that isn't SF or NYC. (since everyone else launch their location based networks in SF or NYC first, and so much competition, and users in SF and NYC tends to be more jaded.).

[frozenport]

Go where there are less competitors in your verticle.

[davidw]

Come here to Bend, fly in to SF from time to time. It's not cheap here, but it's a nice place to live.