| Not all places are equal for raising money. Competition has not not suddenly equalized the markets for capital across the whole world. Why's this? Exactly one reason: 1) Physical Proximity - nearly all investors will only consider you if you can pitch them physically in-person. This is the source of the great inefficiency in equal access to capital for everyone in the world. Note: you'll have to physically be there long enough to become friends with the introducers, since most investors don't allow you to approach them directly. > But it's hard to get money in any country, rich countries have more competition Absolutely not true. I wish Europeans would stop spreading this myth to each other. Disclaimer: I'm currently living in Europe for the past 3 years, and several other places before this. I hear this myth here constantly. Some cities are FAR easier to get money in than others. The "more competition" idea that it balances out equally everywhere is complete nonsense. Some have written about this in far better detail than I will here, but consider: 1) Some cities have the convention of making early stage investments in 1 DAY, after 1 pitch meeting. Not 3 to 6 months and dozens of meetings for every single investor, as is often the convention in EU. Competition for speed between investors is hugely beneficial to the entrepreneur, in this case. 2) Almost no cities in the world, except for a couple, have tons of rich, active angel investors who themselves got rich by starting tech startups. 3) The incredible density of founders and investors within certain places is 1000x greater than the lesser cities. This speed and efficiency of being able to see dozens of investors per week with nearly zero overhead helps enormously. The density of each investor being able to immediately introduce you to several more has an exponential compounding effect. I found these to be a good intro as to why not all cities are created equally. EU and SV are enormously different in key ways that few outsiders realize: http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html |