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Comment by lgleason | Hacker News Reader

I'm in Atlanta. It's a great place to work for a non-tech corporation, but the startup scene is so so. Most of the "tech" startups fall in to one of two categories. First, ones that will not get traction and are doing something that someone else is already doing or two high tech boiler room operations where they hire a few tech people and an army of sales types to try to sell it. Sadly tech people in Atlanta are second class citizens even today. But there are plenty of "Choose Atlanta" marketing types touting the city.... There is a reason that rents and housing prices are low in ATL.

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I beg to differ. I work for Pindrop. We have a unique product and we're growing steadily, with serious funding to boot.

https://www.pindrop.com/about-pindrop-security/

https://www.pindrop.com/what-we-do/

We're also hiring: http://grnh.se/iwk5m4

One or two companies out of a city of 5+ million does not make a startup ecosystem.

It's (a little) more meaningful than your example-free claim.

Your description of the startup scene here is literally the startup scene everywhere.

Not from what I've observed with Atlanta having been involved deeply in the Atlanta community for a number of years while also being involved in other communities. But everyone is welcome to have their own opinion.

That person obviously has no idea what they are talking about.

Both myself and others who have been involved in the community share this sentiment. Straight up if you have a startup and want to get funding, getting funding in Atlanta will mean a less favorable term sheet and not as many connections to help you grow your startup.

Well if I'm playing the devil's advocate, I'd say you're one to talk with a green username.

Doing something that someone else is already doing is not necessarily a bad thing.

Indeed. It replaces one challenge with another. When you're the first to market, your primary challenge is to prove your business model and product market fit. When you're later to market, your challenge is to build a better product and execute a strategy better than your competitors.

Different teams excel at different challenges.

Personally I'd prefer a market with competitors. That means the market exists.

Yup, it amazes me that WhatsApp, an instant messaging app, was founded in 2010.

The difference was that WhatsApp was about execution with a small team. The Atlanta way would have been to hire 2 engineers and then a army of marketing people to sell it.

It's a shame because there is a lot of potential, but the leaders concentrate on the marketing of the community instead of actually developing a better community. Lots of cargo culting with incubators etc., but not a lot of large wins. There are pockets of awesome in the town, but Atlanta is more about who you know and your image, not the substance that has made runaway successful tech startups.

Who you know and your image... so basically every business community?

There will always be an element of who you know in any community, but Atlanta goes a bit further than the norm to the point of ignoring/devaluing the pieces that are at the soul of successful tech startups.....namely the tech.

Whatsapp was not a "instant messaging" app in the way you put it. It was started specifically to get around high SMS carrier rates in countries around the world, hence their ultra-fast adoption in ROW.

Not trying to nitpick, just pointing out that Whatsapp didn't start in a crowded market. They actually did something unique that made messaging their friends & family way cheaper and easier.

You obviously don't know what you're talking about. Look up the Atlanta Tech Village and the buildings around it. Atlanta has it's own "Silicon Valley" and the startup / tech industry is pretty booming here.

Atlanta Tech Village http://atlantatechvillage.com/ Venture Atlanta (for up and coming startups to get funded) http://ventureatlanta.org/

Nearby there's companies like BitPay https://bitpay.com/ Terminus http://terminus.com/ SalesLoft https://salesloft.com/ YikYak https://www.yikyak.com/home

Ah a troll account....but... Atlanta has it's own "Silicon Valley". Sorry, not true. I am VERY aware ATV and the companies surrounding it. Lots of marketing focused products where the teams often have more business/sales/marketing people than actual engineers. In Silicon Valley they automate these things, in Atlanta they throw more bodies at it.

This seems to be the thing people ignore, as the Tampa region has a fairly bustling tech scene, and due to proximity with SOCOM at MacDill AFB, more seem to be coming all the time. You could say, "Wow look at all this tech activity, 100 head engineering offices are opening and such-and-such acquisition was so huge, blah blah" but, this is all strictly within the scope of people who are local. I've never met anyone from the Valley area who has come into Tampa and said, "Holy shit you guys are like a tiny Silicon Valley!" -- though sometimes they are somewhat surprised to find out companies like Chase, AmEx, or Neilsen have large engineering offices here.

There's intentionally nothing like Silicon Valley because the Valley has a literal firehose of the most brilliant engineers constantly flowing into it. When Atlanta, or Tampa, ends up with a brilliant engineer with vision and drive, it's mostly out of luck or coincidence.

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