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...
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
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.