Maroon on Techstars | Hacker News Reader

Maroon on Techstars

mattmaroon.com

18 pointsimmad14 comments

There's a lot of money in Boulder - far more than the random towns Matt mentions. As far as quality of life goes, it's utopian and not very expensive (4br house in a great part of town for $2200/month). The pace is a bit on the slow side, but I can't speak to the pace in the bay area. I'm headed to a tech event in Boulder in early Feb to get a better feel for the size of the startup community there - I know a number of people out there are working to improve the community. Could TS help? The stats on the TC article are good - 80% funded? It's not Silicon Valley, of course, but if the community there is enough and the access to additional funding rounds is enough and this recession hits it's a beautiful place to weather the storm.

You can get housing even cheaper than that I was in a 3br in boulder for $900 during a summer I lived there.

The New Tech Meetups in Boulder are huge, hundreds of people Their are also active user groups for many different languages in the Boulder Denver area.

Just starting to get to know the angle VC kind of stuff around Boulder, but it seems to be fairly developed.

Anyways it is clearly much better than some of the small cities mentioned.

It frequently places in the top 5 or so start up cities... http://smallbusiness.aol.com/features/best-cities-for-entrep...

I was obviously joking about Boulder being behind Sheboygan, but it's so distantly behind SV that it's essentially worthless.

Also, that 80% stat means nothing. Who funded them, for how much, with what terms. Getting some funding is trivial, getting good funding is not.

Also I believe the stat from techcrunch was 80% received either funding, are profitable or received acquisition offers.

Being profitable at such an early stage and if you aren't drawing salary is a bit meaningless. Acquisition offers are almost completely meaningless without an actual acquisition. Also agree with matt, raising $500 from your parents might be "funding"

I think YC is better than Techstars, but between Techstars and "just move to the valley", I'm not sure that the latter is better. It depends on what sort of connections the Techstars guys can provide you with.

And I'm not so sure Boulder really is that bad, either - there are a lot of guys who made their cash in the valley and then wanted to live somewhere that's not an armpit who have moved out there.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I suppose. It'll be interesting to see how they compare to YC. My guess is either they'll not fare as well in the long term, or there will be no difference. If the former, then that means that SV and PG really are super extra valuable. If the latter, then maybe it's just the seed funding + advice that pushes companies over the edge to success. Personally, though, I'm super glad I'm part of YC and not TechStars...

at some extent i agree with you. My reaction when i saw they copied the form was pretty much the same.

Although most people here agree that implemention and execution matters more Why should someone trust their ideas with them if they copy so open without a note and lets be serious good ideas dont come knocking the door unless you really cope for.

  However lets dont trash them just yet. i dont know even how is life in colorado so i cant comment on that except that it really doesnt matter because you wont have a life during start up anyways but i am pretty sure for someone not living in US anywhere would be just fine plus you could easilly relocate after you get traction and investors which they seem they can get you

Yeah, they're not setting a good precedent of respecting (often vulnerable) IP by copying YC.

There doesn't seem to be any reason to fuel the fires of any intended or unintended conflict here. You know - high road and all.

You are absolutely right. Some people still think that yc funding has little value to startups, but most of us here believe the opposite. Let's give techstar some room and if we can't support, let's not throw stones at anyone who is trying to fill a void.

Frankly this whole startup hub crap just gots to be over with. I mean we are talking about tech companies and we still can't overcome location. Like we are real estate agents. Boulder has to start somewhere and I think they should push it. There will be a time (soon) when hubs won't exist anymore. Startups won't need to move, even after acquistion.

Face to face communication is still the best. One of the reasons that Silicon Valley works so well is that it is so small. Many industries develop from hubs and it's not surprising that web technology companies would be any different from automobiles (Detroit), insurance (London and Hartford CT), or movies (Hollywood and Bollywood (Mumbai)) to name three other examples.

For some background on Silicon Valley see

Anna Lee Saxenian's "Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128" http://www.amazon.com/Regional-Advantage-Culture-Competition...

"Clusters and the New Economics of Competition" by Michael E. Porter in the November-December 1998 Harvard Business Review http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/...

see i think if we all sit down and say SV is the IT and fold our arms it won't work. there needs to be some of us who say "it can be another way". people and money, no matter how abundant in SV, are resources that can and should be distributed in a better manner. before bollywood, first came hollywood. now what if Indians said "we can't compete with the billions of dollars and actors, and connections in CA?" it all starts with "what if?"

I believe that Silicon Valley will be a startup hub for at least another ten years. I believe that many successful technology startups will thrive in other parts of the world. I don't think these two statements are contradictory. Silicon Valley doesn't have to fail for you to succeed somewhere else. Especially if you are bootstrapping.

As far as I can tell, Bollywood formed around India's domestic market, a market that Hollywood was doing very little to serve. I think the primary barrier to establishing other Silicon Valley equivalent hubs around the world is finding a local culture that doesn't punish failure. It needs not just to tolerate but to celebrate the level of prudent risk taking defines entrepreneurship.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com