I was recently having a discussion with the founder of a very successful company. I was asking him how they got their start and their initial customers. They were not from the Silicon Valley originally.
He said it was slow going at first, until they moved to the Bay Area and started going to meetups. He said that meeting potential customers in person was what really accelerated their initial adoption, far more than their write-ups in the press or their "free customers" from their accelerator program.
My point is, that will be hard to replicate anywhere else for a long time. The density of startups and the opportunities that presents will be hard to have somewhere else -- it's a chicken and egg problem.
I had a friend who started a VC in Montreal. You know what happened as soon as the companies got successful? They took a round from a VC in the Bay Area and then moved here. They kept their dev office in Montreal for the "cheap labor" but made their HQ here.
I suspect that is what will happen with these investments too. Most of the companies will probably leave Ohio when they get successful.
And then they'll exit and have a bunch of money to invest where they now live -- the Bay Area.
He said it was slow going at first, until they moved to the Bay Area and started going to meetups. He said that meeting potential customers in person was what really accelerated their initial adoption, far more than their write-ups in the press or their "free customers" from their accelerator program.
My point is, that will be hard to replicate anywhere else for a long time. The density of startups and the opportunities that presents will be hard to have somewhere else -- it's a chicken and egg problem.
I had a friend who started a VC in Montreal. You know what happened as soon as the companies got successful? They took a round from a VC in the Bay Area and then moved here. They kept their dev office in Montreal for the "cheap labor" but made their HQ here.
I suspect that is what will happen with these investments too. Most of the companies will probably leave Ohio when they get successful.
And then they'll exit and have a bunch of money to invest where they now live -- the Bay Area.