[ryanricard]

As a lover of the Twin Cities, this is definitely a saddening read. Minnesota is a pretty great place to work in tech as an employee, but it's not currently the thriving area of tech innovation I'd love to see it become. It's too bad, too, since in theory the Twin Cities has a lot going for it for startups: lower cost of living, highly educated workforce, and theres nothing like a long, bitter, winter to justify long periods of time spent indoors hacking ;).

Obviously there's no simple button-press solution for a city to become a startup capitol, or else every city would have pressed that button by now, but I do think that the focus on Corporate Tax rates is particularly wrongheaded. Just about every survey of "Business-Friendly Tax Rates" tends to put CA, MA, and NY near the bottom, surely a higher tax rate can't be that discouraging to potential startups?

[danbmil99]

One thing people always seem to forget: startups are almost never profitable. Meaning, they don't pay dividends, and they expense everything else, so (with a decent accountant) the corporate tax thing is more or less irrelevant.

Much more germane to startup costs are the salaries (which are strongly influenced by personal & real estate tax rates), benefits (health can be 2X or more in expensive areas), and space.

[anamax]

> Just about every survey of "Business-Friendly Tax Rates" tends to put CA, MA, and NY near the bottom, surely a higher tax rate can't be that discouraging to potential startups?

It isn't fatal at current levels given their other properties. If you don't have those other properties, you're competing with low-tax places that also don't have those properties.

[protomyth]

It can if there is no historical technology culture. MN is in a bad spot because it has high taxes and no history. Plus, the government (both state and local) really don't care about technology startups. Heck, most of the large IT shops in the area are run by people who don't want tech startups because that would increase their costs. They already recruit from around the area (Iowa and ND) for tech to keep the price down.

[mml]

mn has plenty of history (you may have heard of youtube, or unisys, or cray), and a good number of entrepreneurs. just no angels. angels can go to hell imho. i'll bootstrap thanks.

[johns]

One of the YouTube founders having loose ties to MN does not make it a MN startup. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawed_Karim

[protomyth]

Youtube really doesn't count (see johns's comment). Unisys comes from the merger of Sperry and Burroughs which both had their origins in Philadelphia[1] and is now headquartered in PA. Cray started as a MN company, but after a long and colorful history (some would say tragic) it is now headquartered in Seattle, WA.

Well, angels and VCs are needed by a lot of people and MN doesn't have the environment to support a startup community.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_Corporation