Unable to find like-minded individuals in rural area.

I think that you don't realize how easy it is to move and how easy it is to still enjoy the benefits you describe by coming back for visits. A 6K population gives you absolutely no help with advancing anything significant in your life. It may be heaven on earth, but unless you're already established and can work on the net exclusively, this will be the biggest constraint on you. It will very likely mean that for your entire life you'll compromise on doing something you can rather something you love.

My advice: move. Get out of this place as soon as humanly possible, and promise yourself that once you've established a good way to do something you love, you'll come back for visits as often as possible, maybe even once a week or for long stretches of time every now and then. If you become wealthy enough, you may even be able to have a second home there.

i agree. you can move but still come back for visits & to recharge

you have to be willing to sacrifice in order to get what you want. personally i think moving away from the distractions will be a huge benefit to your progress.

i'm sure it'll also be a huge benefit to the animals in the wilderness

Though you say it's easy enough to pack up and move, there are numerous issues that come to mind. First, being in University for a few years and then living on the opposite side of North America for the purpose of playing rugby has not give me enough time to pad my resume - I know I can pretty much do anything I want, but I would have a difficult time actually proving that to someone with concrete evidence to back it up.

Faced with the problem of finding a job with my weak resume, so that I can support myself in a new area on my own, leads me to believe it is much easier said than done.

However, you may be right in saying that by staying here I am limiting myself to something I CAN do opposed to what I want to do. But what I am asking, or even suggesting, is it not possible to stay here AND do what I want? There happens to be tons of industry in the area as far as farming, forestry and trucking go, there is just no apparent 'tech-sector' in my area. It's not that I am entirely opposed to moving, it's just that it would take one awesome opportunity to force me to move, something I couldn't turn down. [offers accepted.]

So to better revise my question; I am more or less asking how I can find people like me who already exist in my area, without relocating.

6K people is a rather small set from which to try and find like-minded people to do tech startups. Especially since most of these people presumably are either children or are adults having a fairly established life-pattern.

Furthermore, there's a selection effect working against you. Those people in your area most ambitious and talented with tech have likely already moved somewhere else more condusive to their ambitions.

1) Go to networking events. Even small cities have a bunch of groups who meet to talk about "social media" or "local business growth" or other B.S.

2) Cold call CEO's and business owners in your area. They're great connectors. Pitch them a project you're working on and at least 1 out of every 5 you call will hook you up with somebody. Some of them may even become a great contact in and of themselves. Do at least 2 cold calls like this a day.

3) EVERYBODY's RESUME SUCKS EQUALLY, just some people can present theirs better than others. So the only difference between yours and everybody elses is whether you tell people it's "awesome" or sucky. so... tell people it's awesome and that you have amazing skills that are already proven through whatever project or school work you did.

4) If you like living rurally, for God's sake don't work rurally. You can find a job where you can work remotely, "telecommute" or whatever.

HTH Barnaby

I have helped run a linux users group for years, and been involved in other various groups. Here's the sort of approach I would take:

First, start with a regular, weekly or monthly meeting. You can call it a technologists group or linux group or whatever, but given the size of your community you don't want to limit it to a single topic. I advise calling it a "Futurist Society" or "Optimist Club" or something along those lines.

Remember that the kind of people you want are less likely to think in terms of the words "startup" or "entrepreneur" or "hacker" or such in a rural area. They will describe themselves as "inventors" or "tinkerers" or say "try lots of small business schemes" or not recognize themselves as a group deserving a special label at all.

The meeting has to be scheduled and held at the same place very regularly, and that place has to be free. At first people will come infrequently and on the spur of the moment, and people will not join a mailing list to get announcements on the next meeting, so it has to be something like "Thursdays 7pm back room at Joe's". If appropriate, you can use your own house for a while, but that will eventually get old.

It's good to have pre-scheduled presentations and topics, but you don't have to, and you should allow walk-in topics of any sort.

Start by giving tutorials on things you know, such as installing linux or programming or whatever it is.

Solicit short show-and-tell presentations from whomever you can. One idea I would like to try, but I would need to write some scripts to dig the patent database and find them, is to find people in your area who have been awarded any sort of patent, and call them up and ask them to give a talk on the device, or the process of getting a patent.

Another good idea is to find someone who has had something manufactured via e-machineshop.com or mfgquote.com or something similar, and ask them to talk about the experience.

Keep a web page or blog and update it with a few notes about each meeting.

Once this has gone on for a while, and you have developed enough connections with good people locally, try having a barcamp style event on a particular technology or just starting businesses in general.

> instead of submitting a Tech Crunch article

classy, it is appreciated!

I lived in rural Canada as well (st. Josephs Island, Ontario), and I found some overlap between the people that go to lan parties and those that hack - either for a hobby or for a living.

Another trick was to take out ads in the local rural papers (usually very cheap) to see if anybody was interested.

Even if you only find one person like that he or she will probably be able to point out a few more.

Once you have a little network going you can do the event and split the take together, I think that even if it is just a BBQ it will eventually draw a crowd of like minded individuals but I doubt that you will make that work on the first round, so start small when you have found a couple of buddies and make sure they understand they can bring anybody along that does something interesting.

What about starting smaller? Arrange an informal meetup in a bar or a cafe or something? At least that gives you an opportunity to gauge interest without needing any particular financial outlay. If there is sufficient interest in that event, perhaps you can then proceed to something requiring a larger investment of time and money.

Also, having made some contacts through an informal gathering, you might meet people willing to help organise a larger event, and people willing to help you attract sponsorship for such an event.

This is a definite solution, something I might even try to organize in the short term. In fact, I should have mention but I have a very nice 'in' with the Editor of the local newspaper which gives me ample opportunity to get exposed of little, to no cost. Maybe I will organize a meeting at the pub, or local cafe and gauge interest level based on that?

Hey Matt,

As someone who has lived in NB (Fredericton) for most of my life, I feel I can relate to your problem. Even though F'ton is a university town, and known as one of the more tech-centered places in NB, it is still seriously tough to find like minded individuals.

Consider that similar interests are just the first step in a successful collaboration. Finding someone you work well with, who also likes using the same technology, is difficult enough as is, especially in a small town.

I think it's a great idea to have a startup weekend. You probably don't need funding for an event; a meetup at an apartment or even a library meeting room would be cheap enough. Sites like http://meetup.com/ can make the planning easier. A good place to look would be your local universities and colleges.

That being said, I scratched my itch by moving to Vancouver. I couldn't be happier. There is much of the wilderness here that you enjoy, and it's not uncommon to walk past a bar while overhearing whispers of yet another start up idea.

Good luck!

Hey,

I am just 50 minutes up the river in Woodstock, I also attended UNBF and I am very familiar with Fredericton. You make a valid point in that finding a like minded individual is only one step, finding one you can collaborate with is the obvious next step.

I have never spent much time in Vancouver, but I did live in the Victoria area while I was playing rugby and I did notice a vast technology sector without even looking for it. Props for scratching your itch, but I don't know if I am ready for that just yet.

Your question brought to mind Hemingway's Nobel acceptance speech:

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.

We're based in a very rural environment, with very limited opportunities to network. We have amazing mountains, stunning beaches, lots of sheep and hardly anyone who has the slightest idea what we're talking about when we discuss our project.

Yes, it is possible to meet people and work online, using all kinds of great web tools, but in the end, I still think sitting in the same space as your colleagues is the best way to go. It's how we naturally communicate, and it's still yet to be bettered.

Also, you'll find that if you get a project off the ground, and need to raise VC capital or other funds of any amount, if your address is Nowhere, Nowheresville, you really won't have much chance of anyone taking you seriously.

My advice = move, build your project in the right environment, then head back to the hills to enjoy the scenery.

New Zealand, is it?

Wales, UK... close but no banana

Propel ICT looks like a good way to get in touch with other entrepreneurs in New Brunswick. http://propelict.com/

Dan Martell, an angel investor out here in the Valley, also is from New Brunswick and he's a phenomenal resource too.

Thank you for taking the time to put some actual recon into your answer. I have been in contact with Dan before, he seems like a great guy. At the same time, he seems to have a lot on the go, rural New Brunswick development probably isn't high on his list.

As for propelict, they mostly concentrate on the 3 city areas of Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. Again, not much going on in rural NB with them - perhaps I could leverage them, maybe they have some ideas for me.

Regardless, +1 for the info.

If you're set on local collaborators I guess that's as good an idea as any.

But let me make one suggestion which is to not be so fixated on your area. Yes, it's great to have local collaborators but it's hardly necessary. There are plenty of tools that allow collaborators to work together no matter where they are.

The most famous example I can think of is David Heinemeier Hansson. He worked as a partner in Chicago based 37Signals even though he lived in Denmark up until a few years ago.

The truth is, whether someone's in another part of your rural community or in Denmark the collaboration itself shouldn't be that different (using tools like Skype, IM and even 37Signals' set of collaborative tools)

The fact is though, even YC insists on its applicants to move to where ever YC is located.

There is a big advantage in working together when you are face to face. A purely virtual idea you might get off the ground when you are spread out, but even then the feeling of 'working together' when you really are together is a different one.

Maybe it's just because I'm old or maybe it is because my experiences with collaborating remotely are a mixed bag (currently working with people in Panama).

It should not theoretically be necessary but I do find there is a huge difference in practice.

YC requires that because they have a whole program that is designed around educating entrepreneurs. They all have to be in that location so they can meet the local VC community, attend the get togethers, etc... I don't think everyone being together has all that much to do with it (though I obviously could be wrong)

The bottom line is there's nothing you can do in person that you can't do with a Skype connection and a whiteboard program. Moreover as someone whose both worked with local programmers and worked with long distance ones I didn't find much of a difference. I'd almost always IM anyway regardless of whether the person was up the hall or in Prague

I find it depends very much on the people. With some people it works great, with others it really doesn't work.

And for plenty of situations there is a middle ground somewhere where you work 'apart' for a while and then meet up for a bit and so on on some periodic schedule.

Hey Matt,

I just lived in a rural and isolated (2 hrs of a horrible mountainous drive to the nearest city) town of 3k, for 2 years. We just moved to the outskirts of a city of 3.5 million about 2 weeks ago, due to a distant family member becoming ill.

I was lucky enough to have found a programmer friend in the town of 3k, and we were able to go out for beers and rant and rant and rant about the industry, technology, etc. I think that was the only thing that saved me from going crazy. Other than that... I'm not sure if your attempts to find like minded locals will be too successful. You may find some friends, but they may not adhere to your moral objectives or, know the rootin' tootinest thing about technology.

All in all, we're loving being outside of a major city. We can go hiking, camping, hunting, etc... and it's just a matter of minutes away. We can also drive 10 minutes into the heart of the city, and get any type of foreign food in the world. That was actually the crux for us. Also, if you have kids, that's a completely different factor as well, and was a big one for us. We didn't want to shelter them too much to the "outside world", but didn't want them to get sucked up into it either.

It's the small things in life that make life wonderful, no matter where you live.

Hope you find what you're looking for!

This is the reason urban areas were invented.

I will have to agree with the others here who say: move!

Personally I moved from a 'small city' (Kitchener-Waterloo, something like 200k in the vicinity) to Toronto and immediately noticed the difference in the tech community... and by that I mean, I realized that, despite it's apparent reputation, there wasn't one in KW.

Non-solution: try to scrounge up a critical mass of hackers, developers, VCs etc. in a town of 6,000.

Solution: move to a city.

Why don't you start small?

Seek out chess partners or whatever nerdy hobbies you prefer, offer "free entrepreur advice", make a weekly "technology meeting" and see what people show up etc. etc. etc.

You don't have to risk high expenses or consider moving already.