Ask HN: Where to find startup culture?
My current (and favorite so far) read is Zero To One by Peter Thiel.
To say that I've enjoyed this book so far would be a vast understatement. Chapter 8 on Secrets is fantastic, and Chapters 3&4 on Competition V. Monopoly was mind blowing.
Though chapter 10 prompts a question about culture that I can't seem to find an answer to.
The idea fascinates me, but I question: Where do I find such a culture?
As a mid twenties developer who loves to build things, I find it near impossible to find passionate people about software near me.
I don't know if it's my location in the bible belt, that near everyone I graduated with has 2 or 3 kids already, or if this kind of culture only exists on the coasts.
But where in the world do I go to find such a culture?
65 comments
[ 19.9 ms ] story [ 680 ms ] threadYes. You really need to start looking for either remote jobs that are headquartered elsewhere, or start looking to relocate to one of those places. The second will likely get you more culture, there are plenty of good remote companies but also plenty of bad ones.
SF seems to be the commonly-referenced location, but really any city. Portland, DC, New York, really anywhere that's not bible belt.
Portland is one of my favorite cities I've lived in but it's not a tech city by any means. If you're looking for tech culture you should definitely look elsewhere.
This can also be said about a number of other cities.
> but really any city
...is not that great of an answer. I mean look at Philly. Philly is a massive city but it's not a tech giant nor does it have a huge tech culture. Houston, Dallas, San Diego, etc. These cities are not necessarily known for their tech culture.
But this is all relative. To me Portland doesn't seem like a tech city because I've lived in DC where they average > 1000 attendees at tech meetups.
Edit: Portland OR, not ME
But then again it's all relative. Someone coming from the bible belt might consider Portland to be a tech city.
Here is why I think Portland's startup/tech culture is lacking:
1.) In DC I had ~12 co-working spaces to choose from. All of which had both bull-pen and dedicated office space. One of the spaces I worked out of had ~10 startups with their own offices, and that was just at the single location in Arlington. At their other 3 locations they had just as many if not more. In Portland I maybe have 2 solid co-working spaces to choose from and as far as I know none of them are supporting any well known startups.
2. Meetups in Portland are very low key and don't draw very many attendees. I mean check out this meetup in DC[1]. It had close to 900 confirmed attendees. From experience I'd say at least 70% of those confirmed actually showed up. Portland on the other hand has only 70[2] confirmed attendees for a very similar event.
3. There's a lack of startup accelerators and incubation in Portland. PIEPDX seems to be the largest (and looks awesome). Nike moved FuleLab to SF this year[4] and everything else that I've researched seems to have closed down. In DC you have 1776[5], Acceleprise[6] and The Fort[7].
Perhaps comparing the two isn't fair as DC is a larger city. These are simply my observations as a person who has lived in both places.
It could also be that I'm just not looking in the right places. I know startups like Simple, Treehouse and New Relic are all in Portland, I just haven't seen any presence from them (be it at meetups or otherwise).
To be honest, one of the reasons I love living in Portland is because it's tech/startup culture is smaller than other cities. I'm excited to be part of it's growth.
• 1. http://www.meetup.com/DC-Tech-Meetup/events/154948792/
• 2. http://www.meetup.com/PDX-Tech/
• 3. http://www.piepdx.com/
• 4. http://www.nikefuellab.com/
• 5. http://1776dc.com/
• 6. http://acceleprise.vc/east-coast/
• 7. http://fortify.vc/Fortifyventures/
p.s. - Let me know if you're up for a coffee the next time you're in town. I'm always interested in meeting HNers.
I really don't think it has much to do with the "bible belt" as much as it has to do with being in a large metro area and then different metros have different strengths and weaknesses. I mean, Georgia Tech is in Atlanta, it is one of the premier engineering schools in the world. Somehow it has managed to prosper despite being located in the bible belt.
Obviously cost of living, things to do in the city, etc. But should I also try to ascertain hard numbers on the "growth" of the tech sector in that area?
there's your problem!
"this kind of culture only exists on the coasts"
there's your solution!
Currently working for a startup in Boulder, and it is really awesome.
What's your stack? shoot me an e-mail erik.mingo at kapost.com
You may not need to relocate as far as you may think, or HN might suggest.
I actually started a podcast, Signal Tower, to keep in touch with people in the community. It is wearing on me though. I'm clearly out of place in this town.
http://signaltower.co/ right?
I suppose it is more of a publication, but I turn each interview into a podcast as well.
As other commenters mentioned, I suggest finding meetups in your area or driving to a larger city and attending one if there are none where you live.
(Don't move here if you don't like traffic, though.)
This bashing of the 'bible-belt' is just silly. It's just as close minded and prejudiced as what the bashers accuse the residents of the 'bible-belt' to be. Go out to Western PA or northern New York and tell me about the 'startup culture' there vs. the bible-belt.
My guess is that nearly any metro area is going to have a superior startup culture compared with nearly any rural area. As far as comparing city vs. city, I would guess there isn't a real solid rule to follow. Probably requires some investigation and also factor in your own personal likes and dislikes.
[1]: http://www.madeina2.com/
Hope that helps!
However there is near zero startup/tech culture to be found (duh). My idealistic streak would like to change that somehow ("forty acres and a emacs MULE"), but that's unlikely.
Anyone in AR, feel free to message me to geek out.
NWA TechFest http://nwatechfest.com and Little Rock TechFest http://lrtechfest.com/ are good events for networking.
There's a good network of local .NET User Groups across the state, too. NWA, Little Rock, Fort Smith, Jonesboro all have one. If that's too Microsofty for you, I'm pretty sure there's a Cocoa group in NWA.
Was it http://www.denverstartupweek.org/ ? I couldn't find any in October, but this looks like the one I missed.
There are also strong scenes in certain midsize markets that buck the larger trend (e.g. Austin, the North Carolina triangle, etc).
However, if you are in a midsize or small market outside of that handful of exceptions... then there are either few tech job opportunities at all, or the only jobs available are "line of business" type work that no passionate developer wants. It doesn't matter if you're in Memphis, Tennessee or Syracuse, New York. The problem isn't regional, it's market size.
Whenever I hear people griping about technology and "The Bible Belt", etc... I picture people fresh out of school who have never been anywhere and spend WAY too much time trading political memes on Reddit. Nonsense. There are plenty of technology hubs in large Southern cities, and plenty of backwoods hicks in the Pacific Northwest.
I can speak most intelligently to Texas' large cities, as I spend a lot of time traveling between Houston, Austin and Dallas. Back in 2010 or 2011, you might find two tech (or tech startup) events going on in a particular week. Now all three places have 2-3 events happening on any given night, and you can hardly choose which you want to go to, or if you want to spend the night just hacking and getting shit done (because that matters too!).
An example: In order to help run an event for Houston's Lean Startup Circle this past Thursday, I had to skip a talk at a startup speaker series and miss the launch party of Texas Medical Center's new Healthcare Accelerator.
Austin, has a better reputation (or just visibility?) on HN, but if you're comparing for places to live long-term, I wouldn't necessarily put it above Houston or Dallas in any absolute sense. My honest take is that tech in Austin feels more visible and "Valley-like" because of how small Austin is. Technology is simply larger in terms of percentage.
Single biggest resource is the Startup Houston blog/site [0], followed by the Houston Startups Facebook Group [1], and the Startup Digest calendar [2], both of which are linked to from Startup Houston. The calendar can be a bit cluttered, so working with the Lean Startup Circle [3], I help compile a monthly, semi-curated list of events that gets sent out to anyone who subscribes to "organizer announcements" within Meetup.
Plans are in the works for a unified calendar/feed for Houston's many, many Tech meetups, which currently have no central point of organization. Example of what I mean: there are 2 (or 3?) Python meetups, 3 separate UX meetups, and while there is a broader "Functional Programmers" meetup, the Clojure folks have their own separate one in addition.
Lastly, the three major coworking spaces inside the loop [4, 5, 6], as well as the SURGE seed accelerator [7] all put on good events. Not all of those events reliably make it onto the startup calendar, as each has its own little calendar page, but that's being worked on as well.
[0] http://startuphouston.com/
[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/houstonstartups/
[2] https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/houston
[3] http://www.meetup.com/leanhouston/
[4] http://www.starthouston.com/
[5] http://www.platformhouston.com/
[6] http://whitespacehou.com/
[7] http://www.surgeaccelerator.com/
I ended up introducing hackathons and brown bag lunches to my former employer (a real estate brokerage).
Many of the really neat ideas I've had and pitched just don't go anywhere because either A) It's new and shiny, which corporate doesn't like (My company is in the Fortune 500 but we are painfully slow to market). or B) I'm expected to do things as they have always been done because "That's the way we do it."
sigh
You didn't ask for this, but here's a rather weak plea not to move.
Please don't leave us for San Francisco!
Why I don't feel compelled to move:
1. I feel connected to the "startup culture" via the twitter, HN, etc. I understand the desire for physical co-location but really, this is why the internet is so powerful.
2. Brain drain is a real phenomenon. You'll be leaving the bible belt a worse place.
3. You can create the culture! Be on the ground floor! I helped to organize a hackathon in Memphis (http://hackmemphis.com/). It was exhilarating.
4. This will be an unpopular opinion on HN, but I find many aspects of the stereotypical "startup culture" to be repugnant. The obsession with status. I didn't go to Stanford, MIT, Indian Institute of Technology, or even lowly Berkeley. Fuck me, right? Also, the greed and cut-throat competition.
5. There are massive opportunities that won't be visible in the somewhat insular urban environment of coastal cities.
A word of caution - not everyone considers this a bug.
I'll hunt around to see if I can start/find some Hackathons!
(I liked 0->1 too, especially chapter 8, but it's being massively overrated. Go read PG's thoughts on rhetoric - 'a real essay doesn't take a position and then defend it' [2] - then go back and look at 0->1. Thiel is compelling, but his paragraphs feel like advocacy rather than the unveiling of new information.)
Recommendation: check out Founders at Work, Revolution in the Valley for some fun firsthand accounts of startup culture. Then move to a big city, not necessarily a coastal one.
1: http://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/2j3g14/walmart_provi...
2: http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html
Tangibly you experience startup culture in three ways:
1. Being at a hub where that scene happens (almost always a co-working space or accelerator), 1871 here in Chicago is such a place, and it's a co-working spot 2. Having access to an organization that hosts events and alerts you to events and dispenses local news, BuiltInChicago is our local site that has keeps an up to date event calendar and where announcements happen. 3. Working with a startup, freelancing for startups or building projects at hackathons. Where you know, "work" actually happens.
If you find those three things you'll get more startup culture than you need, and it doesn't have to happen in a big city. I'm pretty sure Kansas City fits that bill. Omaha definitely does. Nashville, pretty sure.
I've attended both Dallas and Houston TechFests, and Tulsa usually comes-out on top even though it's in a smaller city.
Also looks like Steve Wozniak will be speaking at the Mabee Center in April, 2015.