I was under the impression that participating in these events is primarily to help get funding, not to help get users. From that perspective, these events are clearly valuable to startups.
And besides, the reason so many startups go out to California is a larger tech talent pool. California has a lot of universities with excellent tech programs, very favorable laws and protections for tech workers, and very reasonable taxes for tech workers.
Incorporate wherever you want, your employees are going to look at the legal issues with working wherever you are. If your office is in a state that honors no-compete clauses, many people simply will not work there no matter how much money you offer them. Likewise, we've all got to pay our own private income taxes, and I'm not a big fan of New York's local taxes when your income rises above a certain level.
As far as I can tell, a few notable east coast bloggers are trying to spearhead a movement to call the East the new West for tech, and by and large it's failing because the reality is that despite the overhype and stiff competition, your engineers know they've still got a better shot in the Valley and surrounding areas than basically anywhere else in the country.
BTW... If your bottom line income (i.e. NY local taxes) is what you optimize for, you're probably not going to want to work for a startup anyway. Try a bank. I hear they have some nice cubes there.
I've worked at a company that secured funding because of connections made at one of these types of events. So yeah. I guess we're at an impasse, because your statement is exactly as unsupportable as mine.
> BTW... If your bottom line income (i.e. NY local taxes) is what you optimize for, you're probably not going to want to work for a startup anyway. Try a bank. I hear they have some nice cubes there.
I've made much more money in startups than I would have staying at a big company. And believe me, I know. I left a few people at Lockheed Martin (check out those 3% yearly raises!) and I've rejoined a few people who went to MS, and I've consistently been better paid, had at least equivalent benefits (better than LMCO, acceptably comparable to Microsoft) for a majority of the time.
Good luck with your startup, dawg.
1. Larger talent pool - yes. 2. Lots of universities with excellent tech programs - Stanford, UC-B. Anything else? No 3. Very favorable laws? No. California has some of the worst labor laws and tax laws in the country. You only start companies here because you need the talent. There's no other reason to be in CA 4. Favorable taxes for tech workers? Compared to what? Marginal tax rates on Scandinavian billionaires? 5. Capital gains taxes in CA are insane. Entrepreneurs beware.
I'm not an East coaster or West coaster but you sir need a reality check.
UCSB has a leading Computer Science program, with a really great talent pool for Computer Security in particular. UCSD has a fairly good department.
> 4. Very favorable laws? No. California has some of the worst labor laws and tax laws in the country. You only start companies here because you need the talent. There's no other reason to be in CA
It's favorable from the point of a tech worker. Which is why we like to stay here. For example, check out when a tech worker gets exempt status in California.
> 5. Capital gains taxes in CA are insane. Entrepreneurs beware.
Compared to New York's?
Why would that make a startup want to locate in California?