I think user-oriented sites need good communication between designers and coders, so having a native English speaker was a top priority. Additionally I've generally been impressed with US coders. I also needed someone with a good knowledge of multiple programming languages (rather than a 'solve everything with Perl' guy), and AJAX experience which is surprisingly lacking elsewhere (check out the development history of all those Indian and Hungarian companies on eLance - they might be a fifth the price, but they're generally pretty terrible).
Somewhere after public beta I'll head to SF again for a few months, maybe permanently. When I do, my dev team team will already be there.
:)Me: located in Innsbruck, Austria
Servers: located somewhere in Texas
DedaSys LLC: registered in Eugene, Oregon
I'm aguvench on gmail.
Palish, I'll be in STL 9/13 - 9/19 for business meet ups. If you have availability I'd love to buy you a drink and hear about what you have going there. Curious as to how the startup scene in STL is evolving.. -frank{&at&}actercompany.com.
I'm also mostly giving up on St. Louis and moving to the Bay Area on the 18th.