Ask HN: Would you move to Montana to work on a startup?
Hi. I co-founded an ISP in Helena, Montana that's about to do 1Gbps FTTH and I'd like to see more tech in the area. We're working with a local economic firm who has a building that it would like to see used for economic development purposes...and an incubator seems like a great fit.
So, free Internet and office space in beautiful Montana (which has a low cost of living, BTW). Is this enough to get you to come visit?
86 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 300 ms ] threadWhat else is there in terms of opportunities in the tech industry in Helena besides your new ISP?
Keep in mind that high speed internet won't make an idea into a product people want. The critical issues in tertiary markets are access to smart capital and technical talent. How does the incubator plan to make money? What is the Ruby/Python/Clojure/etc. community like?
Good luck.
Maybe instead of an incubator, you should focus on local education. 'Growing your own developers' outside of Silicon Valley seems to be a trend. It's working in Nashville, at least.
I hated the cruft enough to build my own private company.
Ugh. Tell me about it. The old guard in tech around here has led to some real hair pulling moments for me.
I think we're headed for a schism, though. Can't wait.
Parent may be speaking about the Nashville Software School[1]. Very recently it has been turning out some great talent in the 0-2 yrs of experience range.
The rest of this post is pure anecdote from the perspective of someone that has hired tech workers in Nashville, both full time and contract.
We seem to have a decent (but not enough, never enough) supply of junior devs (0-2 yrs experience). Really experienced talent seems more elusive. I believe that it's here, I just think most of it is employed already.
Additionally, the tech scene here is a little strange. There's an ever expanding pool of web folks (e.g., Rails, Node, etc) and a surprising amount of more Enterprise experienced developers (e.g, C#, Java) that arose as result of all the HealthTech hiring that's been going on the last several years. So veteran (e.g., 7+ years) software developers I've encountered seem to skew toward Enterprise.
There's some startup activity here[2], and we're seeing some larger non-healthcare outfits set up shop in Nashville (e.g., Warby Parker, Lonely Planet). The technology scene here is really starting to come together, but it's by no means a Silicon Valley, NYC, Boston, or even Austin yet, really. It's getting there, but we're still a ways from seeing Music Row's inevitable transformation into Silicon Row ;)
[1] http://nashvillesoftwareschool.com/ [2] https://angel.co/nashville
We weren't looking for juniors, either, which complicated things.
Most of the start-up crowd seems to think that it's worth paying several times more rent to be physically near the big money in SanFran. But there are a few cities that have an active tech scene (Dallas and Kansas City come to mind) that have managed to make it. The difference is that those were decently sized cities with lots of other infrastructure to start with. Can a city with a population under 100,000 offer the other infrastructure needed to create a successful business? You've got fast internet, but do you have enough blue collar workers to support your office needs? An airport big enough to offer flights out to important meetings that can't be done virtually? There are several other things to consider when picking a city to base a company from.
I'd recommend getting in touch with the Chamber of Commerce to see how you can come together to pitch the city. Helena is certainly a nice place, but you have to sell the other aspects than just fast internet.
It's not an unfounded belief, imo. I've been trying to convince several of my friends to move to San Francisco, and the "it's too expensive" refrain is something I'm getting a little tired of hearing. Yes, it's expensive, but in general, the salary and other income opportunities make it worth it for a decent software engineer.
I don't know how much the cost of living is in Montana, but I'm from Alabama, and I assume it's relatively comparable, and I had a 40K/year job there. My rent was $500/mo. I'd say my monthly expenses were a little less than $1600/mo, which puts my annual expenses at around 20K. Over the last five years in SF, my annual expenses approached 60K, mostly toward rent (like you said, rent is high). Whoa. That's crazy, right? But let's stop and do the math.
Let's throw out a nice round number and say my average income over those first few years in SF was ~120K and say 30% tax rate, to keep things simple. In San Francisco, 120K (income) - 60K (expenses) - 36K taxes = 24K savings. In Alabama, 40K (income) - 20K (expenses) - 12K (taxes) = 8K savings.
My expenses in Alabama were 1/3 that of SF -- the rent was almost 6 times cheaper in Alabama than my rent in SF is! But in San Francisco, my increased salary means that I'm saving three times as much in San Francisco versus Alabama. My cost of living in SF is 3x higher than my cost of living in San Francisco -- but my income is also 3x higher! And I'm not even included income from stock or freelance work. (Granted, I could get stock and freelance work elsewhere, but again, like you said, "the big money" is in SF, so roughly the same math would apply.)
All this is to say that, assuming you enjoy living in an urban environment and are responsible with your money, it IS worth paying several times more rent to be physically near the big money in SF. A dollar is a dollar anywhere in the United States. Saving 24K per year for 5 years gets you awfully close to 125K, well on your way to a nice house pretty much anywhere else in the country - Montana included. It would take you over twice that long to get to even 100K if you lived in Alabama.
Is it worth paying a high rent to enjoy the benefits of living in SF? I think so. I love SF -- the city, the culture, the weather, the working environment, and yes, the money. There are times when I wish I had a bigger house, but by and large, I'm extremely happy here.
But more to OP's point: Would I move to Montana? I agree with you. There would have to be really, really attractive incentives aside from money. Great schools, great entertainment, friends, family, and plenty of job opportunities. Solid infrastructure is a must, but my day job isn't my identity -- there are another 12-18 hours in a day that command my time and energy as well, and those needs must be met!
For one thing, though this may not apply to Helena, the salary differential is not nearly that big when you compare to many other cities. You can easily make over $100k working in tech in lots of places that are comparatively cheap: Austin, Pittsburgh, Houston, Chicago, etc. I think you will have trouble running the numbers on salary vs. CoL in Google Mountain View vs. Google Pittsburgh in a way that makes Google Mountain View come out ahead. I think whether you prefer to rent or buy also makes a difference. SF is just about doable on a high salary to rent, but requires serious wealth to buy. But the strategy you allude to of renting there a few years and saving up to later buy elsewhere is plausible.
But not in a position to move to Montana!
Since you mention that you live in a semi-rural area, one hugely important factor is the density of premises along a street. The less dense an area, the fewer potential customers you can "pass" by installing a new fibre cable down a street. Not all premises that you pass with a cable will want to sign up and pay for a fibre plan.
Construction can be made dramatically cheaper if it is possible to re-use existing infrastructure. This is important, as if you are laying underground fibre then the cost of digging new trenches (~AUD$100/m) is a huge component of the total construction cost. For example, when installing underground fibre, if there is existing underground duct with capacity that can be used then it is far cheaper to re-use that (~AUD$20/m) than digging new trenches. Similarly, if there are existing poles that can be rented then installing aerial cables (~AUD$30/m) is cheaper than digging trenches, but more expensive than using existing underground duct [1].
Another way to re-use existing infrastructure to reduce construction cost is to make use of existing cable, such as copper lines or HFC, instead of laying fibre over the full path from the exchange to the premises. The quality/speed of the connection will not be as good as a pure fibre connection, particularly if the existing infrastructure is old/degraded. These approaches are now being favoured in Australia's national broadband project [2].
[1] note that in the U.S. labour costs are lower than in Australia, so don't take these cost-per metre estimates too seriously. These costs exclude the cost of the fibre itself, which is typically a few dollars per metre.
[2] personally I think it is short-sighted to embark on a major infrastructure project and then try to save money by avoiding building the new infrastructure, and instead re-use the existing degraded infrastructure. These decisions were hugely influenced by political factors after a change of federal government, i.e., the old plan was necessarily bad and needed changing because the previous government started it.
We are ~10Km from the nearest village that likely has decent bandwidth, though no idea on the backhaul available from there.
Still 10K @ $30 (AUD/CAD)\m would be $300K+ to put it along existing hydro infrastructure. Wonder what the likelihood of getting 100 households to put up say $3-5K in installation costs would be? That would represent a decent fraction of those reachable along that stretch, and those nearer in may already have DSL.
For reference, the overall construction costs for Australia's FTTH rollout was somewhere around AUD$1000 - AUD$2000 / premises -- probably toward the high end of that scale, but the order of magnitude is right. This would underestimate the cost for a semi-rural area. In Australia's project they use fixed wireless / satellite for some areas where FTTx was not cost-effective.
Another thing to keep in mind is the maximum optical path distance -- from memory this is probably somewhere around the 20km mark from the exchange, probably a bit less, will depend upon the technology used. That still gives you a ~10km buffer region of potentially reachable households around your main fibre-atop-hydro stretch.
It's not entirely without charm, of course. Here are some photos I took on a solo hike out the back of my parents' place: https://www.flickr.com/photos/beefman/sets/687958
One thing I like about being on the west coast is the slow dismantling of the gender binary.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
https://www.facebook.com/theshophelena
A business in an isolated location like that might have more luck hiring remote employees.
I could see folks that are starting a new business with relatively few employees and no immediate plans for explosive non-remote worker growth being interested though.
As for me, I don't have a reason to move to a small city without many non-related work activities to engage in. I like the city life. I understand that others would embrace the slower-paced outdoor Montana life style. However, for me it is not a selling point :(
As a sysadmin by trade, trying to pivot into software development/engineering, I wonder if I should study and work in a 'hub' city (like the Bay Area) with lots of bright and eager minds, or somewhere with cheap rent and few distractions (like Helena) so it's easier to tune out the world and hit the books/code.