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>I might not be seeing potential problems with Canada. If you understand things better, please leave a comment here.

Well, just my two cents as a Canadian citizen:

- the major cities have a fair share of high-tech companies and workforce. Finding good talent is hard everywhere, but it should be easier in Canada than in SF - a lot of good people are probably dying of boredom at a financial institution or just finished university and are looking south for interesting jobs, rather than starting their own.

- cost of living is lower than in SF, but in the major cities it's not MUCH lower

- there is a start-up scene, you might just have to look a bit harder

- from what I'm told, investors are more cautious, money doesn't get thrown at you

- health care!

- you don't get to enjoy the perfect temperatures in the Bay Area

- all cities are different. Vancouver != Toronto != Montreal, just like San Francisco != Boston != New York. Do your research.

>Vancouver != Toronto != Montreal

But can you give an "equal to" map between US and Canada. Like SF=Vancouver. New York=Toronto etc. I will find such a map very useful.

Not really. Information I can give you would likely be a lot more vague (and less accurate?) than what you can research on your own. I guess I'll try anyway.

Toronto is the largest, and the financial center, but you can't really draw a parallel to New York, it's a lot slower-paced - San Francisco actually reminded me a lot of downtown Toronto. You can easily find graduates from the top two computer science/computer engineering schools in Canada.

Ottawa had a very active tech industry before the dotcom bust, but not much after. I'm not sure today. Terribly boring city to live in, though.

Montreal would be a good choice for French speakers. There are a number of large video game studios in Montreal, I can't tell you much about start-ups there (beyond, say, http://montrealtechwatch.com/2007/07/22/poll-of-the-week-4-m... ). Culturally, a very strong city, there's always something fun going on.

Vancouver is probably the closest to San Francisco in geography and climate, I didn't know it had a strong start-up scene before I read the article on montrealtechwatch.com. It's relatively small though, not sure how easy it is to find talent (on the other hand, it's close to Seattle).

Calgary and Edmonton are booming and have a lot of oil money floating around, but skilled workers are at a premium.

The Canadian Dollar is also going to pass the US Dollar any day now. One of the main advantages of doing your startup outside of the United States is that you get to base your worth in a currency that isn't facing impending doom.

Even if you're located in the US, can't you keep any significant amounts of money in the currency of your choice though? For any debt it should be good if the currency loses value. And startup ownership is percentages of future value instead of some fixed nomination in a currency.

When the value of the US dollar keeps falling, it becomes more and more difficult for foreign companies to keep their prices low for the US customers.

All of your points are true and it's especially good to be USD based if you're debt financed. Most startups intended to grow rapidly are financed with equity though, not debt.

If you're outside of the USA, it's much easier to keep your money in a foreign currency. You just go to the ATM and deposit the money instead of having to go out of your way to maintain a portfolio hedged against the collapse of the USD.

Now that I think of it, perhaps the USD going down means the US markets lose their importance, also in the eyes of the US companies. Their problem would be, when you're based in the US, it might be difficult to understand international markets. At least I've yet to see an ATM where you can deposit money ;-)

Just about the only thing the USA has that is truly valuable is our international brands like Coke and Nike. The rest can be duplicated overseas and I think powerful international brands will emerge eventually, unless we're already past the age of brands.

I think the peak of US civilization was the first bubble era. After that, George W Bush and his horrendous economic and imperialist policies combined with the worst Congress ever have further hastened the decline of America.

Our currency is worth half as much as it was in 1999! It's hard to notice for the rich, but for young people without money, life is getting harder. If you don't have an engineering degree or a CS degree+portfolio, there aren't any jobs without graduate education in something relevant. And good luck paying for graduate school when your net worth is already -$100,000.

Inflation is creeping up but it's hard to tell because the government doesn't publish M3 numbers anymore. I just don't see anything that can reverse this trend and I'd like to get out while I can. If I don't make a good amount of money soon, I'm afraid of being trapped in America instead of being able to move overseas and cheaply rebuy America later.

As a Finn, the only example of a powerful international brand I could directly come up with was Nokia. Others would probably remember the Japanese and German cars. Interestingly, there isn't a single Canadian brand in BusinessWeek's top 100: http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/top_brands/...

But the way you talk about the reality of the US economy sure paints a grim picture. I can only hope the country finds its place again in the new world order.

That's a great link, thanks. Go Finland for placing so high on the list. Also note that there isn't a single Chinese brand on the list -- the Chinese government really, really wants to get some international brand names out there. They wanted to make Lenovo into a true international brand but that hasn't worked.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200507/fallows This is a really good piece of speculative fiction about the election of 2016... obviously it won't all come true, but American travel infrastructure assumes that every family owns one or more cars. At this point, it's clear that personal transportation is just unsustainable. $6/gallon gasoline is going to hit the average (poor) American very hard. Mobility is going to be severely reduced, especially as public transportation starts getting cut.

I'd like to see how this study was done.,, methodology sucks. Did they even ask a single Canadain?! There's PLENTY of Canadian brands out there and for some reason they didn't make a list. I'll just say one: RIM. Why isn't it on the list?

Let's take a look at this list for just one example...

#22: Merrill Lynch

it's ahead Pepsi and Sony and Nike. Huh?! That MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER! Just safely ignore this list... their methodology is CRAP.

So you're saying there should be a lot of Canadian brands on their list? Should they change the criteria for "global", sort by something else than "brand value", or have they miscalculated the value of all those Canadian brands? Here's the target of the "Methodology" link above the table: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_32/b4045421....

As far as RIM goes, I can only ask if it isn't more of a single product than a brand worth billions? I can't comment much as Blackberries aren't used in this corner of the world if they're even available. The local alternative (ie what people in the management want) must be the Nokia Communicator line of devices.

So are you telling me that Merril Lynch is more famous than Pepsi and Nike?!?!

Generally, you don't build brands to become famous, you build brands to create value for your customers, you, and your investors.

Pepsi sells sugared water. Nike sells shoes.

Merrill Lynch takes money and turns it into more money and is rather well known for doing so. It makes sense to me that there is more money in the financial business than in the shoe business.

The ubiquity of US currency abroad (especially asia and south america) would strongly suggest the US dollar is not anywhere near "impending doom."

At best, the dollar is facing a slow, inevitable decline. At worst, something like this happens. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/...

Easier time finding great talent is a big plus. Probably the biggest of all of the things mentioned here. Silicon Valley's full of great companies and you'll be competing with some heavy-weights to gain attention of great candidates. Also, you will most certainly ovepay. Canada does not have such a big problem with finding great talent.

Can you give more details on getting a visa to start a startup in Canada?

I have a potential co-founder just across the border in Vancouver, but I was under the impression that you need a whole heap of money to get in as an entrepreneur. Or would you go in under the skilled worker program (er, programme)?

You can go read a lot of economical studies trying to answer this one question: why can not Canadians achieve the same level of entrepreneurial productivity as the US.

Canada is welcoming as a direct result of limited demand.

The good news is that US is changing the requirements.

>The good news is that US is changing the requirements.

May be in 10 years or maybe not. Thats fast for a government! But I didn't want to wait for 8 years - remember.

It's cause we're frozen here half the time, mtafifi.

Startup Visas..?