Can You Build a Startup Ecosystem Outside the Valley?

instigatorblog.com

8 points·matbalez··6 comments

Didn't Paul Graham already cover this in his essay "How to Be Silicon Valley" (http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html)?

yes, good call.

Looks like it. Still, something I had to write from my own perspective working at the center of the Montreal startup scene (or trying to!) and comparing that to the Valley.

the technology park/corridor concept won't make it happen. building a "funky" building and slapping the incubator tag on it doesn't work. i belive it can only happen organically. you can't force it. it's not like making soup.

Agreed. One of the reasons it works here in SF CA is because of the type of people we attract -- and have been attracting for 150+ years. Do-it-yourselfers, iconoclasts, vagabonds, that type of person. Twain, London, those guys. Seriously. It takes an adventurer to want to build a startup, and for whatever reason, CA attracts those types.

Obviously that's not the only reason, but I think it's a factor.

So, the secret is a high bohemian ratio?? Man, I've gotta start eating organic. :P

But I totally agree, you've got to be a certain personality type to start a startup, and that kind of eccentricity usually finds a way of conglomerating together. That culture certainly does propagate itself; I know where I live, it's almost a taboo to start something yourself. I've never been to SF yet, but I get the feeling that it espouses a completely different kind of philosophy?

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