Hacker News Reader

Comment by McDoku | Hacker News Reader

Real estate is better in Montreal. Was paying 2K for small loft 700sqft in Gastown vs 1.3K for a 1600sqft loft in Old Montreal with a view of the basilica.

Startup dollars will go further here and the office will be twice as awesome. Much easier for new people to make friends and the art scene is not priced out. Montreal is undeniably more fun.

And lord, the festivals... Mind you, winter lives here but it is sunny even when it snows. Rain will tends to drive most people in BC a bit wonky.

I would say do Montreal if it is in the summer. Else BC. Or if it is about the quick plane ride to silicon valley, same deal.

View on HN

I've lived in Montreal (born & raised), Silicon Valley, and currently Vancouver.

You're right that in Montreal, investment dollars will go much further, and it is a more interesting city for a young person. If you are looking for a place to incubate, as a young company, Montreal might be almost perfect. Similarly, it's a great deal for a student.

But then you have to grow up and live there.

The tech talent pool is very thin, the laws are mindbogglingly perverse, and the taxes are very high. The French/English split becomes very difficult when you think about bringing more workers over from a non-francophone country, not to mention their spouses and partners.

Just like foreign students, a YC company that's growing up will probably want to get the hell out of Montreal.

At least in Vancouver you have some kind of chance to hang around, and if you want more techies there's a reasonable local talent pool, and people from the rest of the world don't mind moving here so much.

Hiring has been a bit tough here, but we have also tried Ireland, Bulgaria..etc... Good people are hard to find period

My kingdom for a fullstack capable graphic designer.

As someone who grew up in Montreal, and moved to Silicon Valley, one of the appeals of SV is the weather. Montreal winters are long, cold, and dark. These are not conditions everyone wants to live in. Additionally, the Office De La Langue Francaise will make the life of any English company a nightmare. To top it all off, taxes in Quebec are absurdly high (especially considering the quality of social services). So while Montreal is a great city, I think it would be a poor choice for a YC office.

Well, taxes for individuals with out a lawyer or a good accountant. I think there if you spent the time making a deal with Quebec they would accomodate.

Secondly, it is cheap to hire someone for translation and companies should launch with multiple languages. It just increase the global audience for the product. I am sure YC could develop the capacity to translate the product at little cost.

Peixe Urbano, Baidu ... etc clones eat up the market that VC backed startup could accomodate for.

http://www.rudebaguette.com/2012/02/21/against-copycat-debat...

Winter... well try the rain in BC for a winter. Again I have no issue, I am from the Peg (Winnipeg) where it was -58 last year. It is the same weather as NYC and close to Boston (MIT, Harvard)

I know there is alot of development capital floating around.

http://www.investquebec.com/quebec/en/financial-products/smb...

> you keep going back to the rain in vancouver as being a negative.

Here is the total precipation over the last 3 months

Vancouver = 103.1 mm < Montreal = 366.4 mm

SRC = http://montreal.weatherstats.ca/charts/precipitation-3months... ( environment canada)

Next your going to try to convince us that poutine > sushi

Dude, compare average rain fall. Pointing at an outlying time period is unsciency. Lets though in total sunshine ;-)

poutine > sushi ... well not in Vancouver. Poutine is rough out there, all megabites with sesame seed pizza. It is just going to be tougher to bootstrap start ups out there.

There's more to location than real estate costs. If that was the main factor YC wouldn't be in the bay area. The existing talent pool and ecosystem are much more important factors. Vancouver also has the advantage of being in the same time zone as YC.

Complaining about the cost of office space in Gastown is like complaining about the cost of office space in SOMA. There are many cheaper alternatives if you don't insist on being in a trendy neighbourhood. Office space in Burnaby or Coquitlam is a lot cheaper than Gastown.

You may think Montreal is more fun but I'd disagree. I can't scuba dive in Montreal. I can't walk five minutes and be hiking in a rain forest. Even if I agreed that Montreal is more fun this shouldn't be a consideration for a YC location. YC companies will be busy working.

http://builtinmtl.com/

Saying Montreal does not have the talent is silly. It is in the most populated region of Canada.

1) Mont Royal - Hiking

I don't think scuba might be a silly reason to discount Montreal. Fact is developers will build social ties faster in Montreal. Vancouver is clique driven and most people coming at not are really not prepared for the rain. Almost like Stockholm.

Metropolis real estate with creative spaces and inspire the imagination. McGills, Harvard, MIT, NYU all in the same time zone and a quick flight.

Burnaby or Coquitlam is like any other suburb and prices are already so high any big influx is just going to highten tensions. There is a strong Anarchist movement that surfaces time to time in Vancouver as well as crippling homelessness.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com