tech-company, silicon-valleyQuite often in articles, presentations or blogs people involved in the start-up scene mention the move of the startup to the Silicon Valley as a big advantage. What are actually the advantages of doing this? If I’m a UK, German or Dutch start-up with an established start team (founders) why and when should we do this move?
I’ve been in the Silicon Valley tech community for over 15 year now so I have an insiders perspective on this.
(1) Access to resources. Silicon Valley was built to start startups. The highest caliber engineering talent is here. Early stage and late stage investors are here. Support staff like lawyers and banks that work specifically with startups are here. Conferences and tech meet ups of the highest caliber are here. The wealth of talent and resources is unmatched.
(2) Culture accepting of startups. Most startups fail. In Silicon Valley that’s ok, in fact it’s almost encouraged. It’s part of the entrepreneurial learning process and fully accepted as normal course. Also, people working in startups tend to work very hard with long hours. This is accepted as part of the culture, and if that’s something that you want to feel fulfilled in your life then you are fully accepted.
(3) Proximity to major partners or potential acquirers. Google and Apple are in Silicon Valley and they acquire a lot of companies. But there are lots of other companies here as well that could be your partner or acquirer: Yahoo, Salesforce, Cisco, Twitter, or Facebook, just to name a few. As a tech startup you will invariably be working with or relying on technology from one or more of these firms. If you achieve any kind of scale you will have direct relationships with them.
(4) Proximity to Stanford and Berkeley. Two of the top computer science schools in the world are in Northern California. This means that there will always be fresh talent, fresh ideas, and access to intellectuals unlike anywhere in the world.
The truth is that you can build a business anywhere. There are plenty of outstanding businesses built outside of Silicon Valley and there is absolutely nothing wrong with being elsewhere. Come to Silicon Valley if you want to be deep inside the tech community and be part of a dynamic ecosystem built around starting companies.
Recently I have attended to several talks about why and when moving to Silicon Valley, here in Brazil. In general, what they say is that depends on some factors. For instance, if you are aiming on a local market, or at least aiming in a short/medium term, the best would be to stay at your current place in order to have a presence and be able to follow what is going on, check implementations etc.
However, if you are aiming a global market, being in Silicon Valley you may be in contact with a huge network for (very well qualified range of) employees and clients, have a bigger visibility.
Also, there are several companies that after a while moved their main development and some operations successfully to Silicon Valley in order to achieve bigger success.
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