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Comment by bradleyjoyce | Hacker News Reader

The Dallas startup scene is exploding right now, especially for B2B companies.

Geographic convenience to both coasts, low taxes, low living costs, high concentration of Fortune 500s and a lot of good talent itching to leave their cubicles.

http://launchdfw.com/

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I always forget about TechWildcatters even though I live 3 blocks away from them (Softlayer is 6 blocks in the other direction from my apt.)

I wonder why TWC's most recent class has so many concert related businesses (2-3 on quick inspection.) That's something I'd expect from a city like Nashville (a past home.)

Anyways, go Dallas!

TWC focuses on more of the enterprise/b2b side of things. They also recently opened up a new incubator dedicated solely to healthcare, which could turn into a HUGE market. It seems like many of the accelerators (TechStars, even YCombinator) go through phases where there will be 2-3 similar companies at a time.

Quite so. Add to that list an increasing willingness of the SV venture community to invest outside the Valley - alot of that money is finding a home in the DFW area. Used to be that only companies that could exist independent of venture funding for most of their life cycle could get going here, but that's starting to change.

And tons of oil money flowing around Texas right now and into venture capital, courtesy of the fracking boom.

There is no shortage of money in Dallas, that's for sure. The problem is that currently a lot of that oil/gas & real estate money isn't really comfortable with the high risk nature of tech investments (no hard assets, etc).

The local accelerators (Tech Wildcatters, Health Wildcatters, VentureSpur) are starting to change that by getting those money guys involved, but it's been a very slow process 5 years in the making.

I love seeing more and more online blogs/publications/hubs like Launch DFW popping up for startup activity in cities across the US. A great way to connect people locally and share the happenings with those all over.

Perhaps I should have put a disclaimer in my original comment that I'm the founder of Launch DFW (though now am only slightly involved)... the long term vision is to find people passionate about their own communities and create a network of these types of blogs.

More power to ya! I hope to see the network of these types of blogs continue to grow.

How about the weather? I hear it is really hot in summer. Is it comparable to Pheonix?

I believe it was last year that we had 100 days straight of 100+ degree weather. It's a beating... Pretty much Juneish - October are unbearable. The rest of the year is lovely.

The record of days over 100F (not consecutive days, but number of days in the year) was set in 2011, and it was 71 days http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/?n=danncon10

For what it's worth, I wasn't seeking out info to disprove you, rather I was trying to make the argument that no humans should exist in Phoenix so I was collecting data on that. I thought you might like to have the measured figures.

I appreciate the correction. It only felt like 100 days straight. That's what I get trying to go from memory.

It's comparable to Phoenix, if your point of reference is somewhere very mild like SF. While Dallas may have had a hot year, they only average 18 days > 99F[1], whereas Phoenix averages 109 days[2]. When you look at just the last handful of years, Phoenix has been having more than 30 days with a high above 110.

[1]: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/?n=d100info [2]: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=psr

All that said, yes it is typically quite dry in Phoenix. No, that does not make the heat somehow less significant. The sun scars the land and kills most life. It's a rough place to be.

Also, the tech scene there is quite meh. There's a few big data centers and some little companies hosting things in them, and there's GoDaddy, but there isn't much else. Don't even think about Phoenix over Dallas unless you really like hiking (that scene is amazing in PHX).

I'd thought I'd add a bit about the Phoenix heat as someone who lived in Phoenix until moving to Austin for university.

Saying Phoenix is a 'rough place to be' is an exaggeration. Yeah it gets pretty hot in the dead of summer, however the low humidity makes being outdoors far more tolerable (on average) compared to most places in the southern United States (such as Texas). Even then, I wouldn't think of it as a big deal other than the larger-than-average electricity bill for air conditioning.

You're definitely right about the tech scene though, it's why I came to Austin.

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