How To Build A Startup From A Beach

I spent a lot of time this winter up in Tahoe. My days consisted of hitting the mountain for first lift, snowboarding for a few hours, back at the condo by noon and spend the rest of the day working. My productivity during these days was absolutely insane. Not being able to meet anyone for drinks, dinner, etc. just means you end up with an awesome 8-12 hour block of completely uninterrupted time to just crank through shit.

I was expecting some fluff piece about how to make a passive income on SEO while living a jetset life style. This was not it. The article makes surprisingly much sense actually.

All of this advice is great except "Hawaii" which is merely good advice.<p>There are <i>much</i> cheaper beach towns with unbelievable weather that aren't so isolated. Hawaii is particularly nice for US residents without a Passport, but you should get a passport!<p>I recently did something very similar, though I was at several beaches and in a couple mountain ranges. There is a sort of inverse relationship between adventure and monetary cost with regard to what your options are and you have a lot of choices.<p>Hawaii is relatively low on the adventure and high on the cost; while something like Nosara, Costa Rica is a bit more of an adventure, and a bit cheaper while things like the language barrier still won't be distracting from getting work done.

As a YC founder of a venture backed company that lives in Hawaii now... Like everything in life, it's all a balance. My quality of life in Hawaii is hard to beat. My tech scene is hard to find. Which is why I come back to SF &#38; NYC almost monthly. The travel is a bit of a pain, but I feel like I'm living a close to perfect balance.<p>It helps that I'm from Hawaii, so I'm not in "vacation" mode... I'm in "home" mode. Where I feel relaxed, comfortable, inspired &#38; supported. From that place is where I run the chaos of a startup.

Back when I was living in Hawaii, we had a "Castaway Hackaday". We got some waterproof pelican cases, loaded up our laptops and a few solar panels, then headed out to the mokes (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/46801360@N07/4368503769/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/46801360@N07/4368503769/</a>) - two tiny islands off the eastern coast of Oahu. We set up a cantenna from one of the houses on shore and connected some wifi out there. It was fantastic - completely free of distractions, great weather, and it kept everyone on the team pretty happy.

I can understand the upside of this, with the better routine, health, everyone living in the same house etc.<p>However, I think the isolation is VERY dangerous. Yes, silicon valley is a bit of an echo chamber, but at the same time, you are around some of the smartest minds in the world. Our first few VC meetings resulted in a "pivot" of sorts. Still same end goal, but different way of going about it. Being around everyone in the travel tech industry, and being able to set up meetings with them, has changed our go-to-market strategy and our priorities.<p>These smart people have a way of poking holes in your strategy. There is something to be said for talking to "normal" people, but I can say we have talked to hundreds of normal people, and the most valuable advice we got was from those VCs and angels, or travel tech people.<p>We possibly would have wasted months if we didn't seek out these experts and learn from their success and failure.<p>By moving to Hawaii you risk losing that.<p>The Adioso guys kind of mentioned this, that living in Melbourne they weren't around the same type of environment and PG brought them back to earth when they got back here. The ruthlessness of silicon valley has it's upside.

I did this once. Instead of Hawaii though we did Palm Cove in tropical Australia. We did get away from a lot of distractions but you manage to find others. Also the work environment wasn't super comfortable being that we worked at a kitchen table in the apartment we rented and the internet was on a very low cap and frequently unavailable.<p>I think if you're going to do this then have a plan in advance of exactly what you want to accomplish and go there to build it. We went with a general idea and a few more and ended up trying to many things in the month we had for it to really pay off.

Joyce, Eric, Wynwyn and Caleb were great to work and eat with! Loved the beach. Working in Hawaii now a days is great because of all the coworking spots like The Box Jelly and The Greenhouse. Hawaii is really taking off and will soon be the tech hub of the Pacific.<p>Side note about working with the SimpleHoney team - One time in the Ko 'Olina house I killed a cockaroach (follow him here - <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/householdroach" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/#!/householdroach</a>) in the bathroom but was too scared to pick it up. Joyce "The Terminator" Kim went in there and picked it up for me LIKE A BOSS!!!! True Story!

I am born and raised in a sunny southern city and always admired nordics (from canada, north europe, moscow till japan) to excel at technology. Now in nordic town of 9 months of cold, I always witnessed due to snow, cold climate, and restriction to be at home most of the time, people focus more on brain work, and in south more on outside activities(cafes, dance) etc. That said, california is against my argument, but I find it really curious to understand which climate is the best one for programming; though I bet more on stockholm than hawaii.

Absolutely great story and shows off the lifestyle you can achieve outside the city.<p>However some drawbacks (to compliment the positives of the article):<p>+ Short Term: While a retreat allows your team to focus and integrate, like all holidays - they end.<p>+ Talent: You currently recruit in a tech hub city, however eventually your talent leaves and you need to find replacements in the local village. You cannot find anyone as good or as friendly (as they joined the team/party late).<p>+ Too friendly: You are all new to the place, so you are a little eco system hanging out all the time. The fun will eventually wear off as internal relationships grow/breakdown.<p>+ Networking: The valley offers fantastic opportunities to meet other like minded people. Opportunities are much higher to meet that next co-founder, angel or VC. What are the chances of this on an island?<p>So, it can work but not forever and offers startups a constructive way of building strong team dynamics and creating tight focus on building their alpha/beta product.

Jameson and I spent Mochi's first summer (2005) on Maui, where we built the majority of MochiBot and MochiKit. Worked great for us, although we didn't keep California time or do any planking.

I've known a number of musicians and writers who have gone on escape retreats to isolated areas in order to finish a book or an album, typically with a lot of success. Many of the most productive remote engineers I've worked with live in sparse areas where there is very little to do thats more fun than programming.<p>There's some merit to removing distractions when knocking out a marathon product build, but that said a good office environment can also serve the same purpose...

Please don't sell that startup from a beach dream on exoticism.<p>I would like to cast a diverging opinion from my personal experience. For various work-related reasons I left Europe in early 2008 to live in Martinique, in the French West Indies.<p>It is very close to what the article describes - tropical weather (you will never get cold - 25 C/ 77 F is what we call cold and take a jacket for - home weather station on <a href="http://guylhem.org" rel="nofollow">http://guylhem.org</a> - only the webcam is down ATM), great food (french creole! do I need to say more?), beautiful wildlife (It's 9:20pm I'm listening to the various frogs and birds and stuff), healthy lifestyle (can't be helped ! even if you have bad habits it is like something from the environment you are surrounded with contaminates you and make you follow an healthy lifestyle). Same currency (euro). No need for a passport.<p>Also you can swim every day of the year in the caribbean. Sounds like your dream ? I went swimming on new years eve like 2 years ago. Got sunburned.<p>That's the honeymoon, the first few weeks/month/years. Little by little I went to the beach less and less. At the moment maybe one every couple of month, to go with the gf.<p>Along the way I realized something : what was initially the selling points, as good as they may sound, place you at risk of isolation. And this may not always be good, especially for a techy - there seem to be more introverts among us. I would have called myself an introvert.<p>You know these things you call "distraction" and the people you do not call normal? That's what I dig now, whenever I go somewhere. I'd love to have a beer and talk about technical stuff with people who will understand me (running my website on my mips dsl modem, packaging a distro). Hitting the same 3 guys you know on the island who do free software quickly loses its novelty.<p>So for my last few vacations, I went to Florida, Montreal twice and Paris. Basically to a conference, a LUG meeting + visiting some friends, and a technical conference. While in Florida I was a bit bored (like home, only chilly, but with techies it was fun) so I also went to see an old friend in San Diego. Since there was a HN meeting we attended. It was like being alive again, being surrounded with people who share the same interests and the same cultural references. I was quite bored for weeks when I went back to my tropical paradise - because the grass is always greener on the other side, but I don't think I had realized that yet.<p>I had one of my most productive week last year when driving between Montreal and New-Bruswick - at the end of the autumn. The cold was so exotic! I loved every single minute of my vacation. I could only have loved it more if it had been snowing, but I know I'm partial with snow, so I wanted to test myself and see if even without snow I'd enjoy my vacations in the very same place, to remove a bit of exoticism. And yes I did.<p>Do you see how it relates to the experience mentionned in the article ? There will always be something that's attractive because it is different. Then the new become usual, and we get bored. And we leave and try something different, again and again. I think it's just human nature.<p>We want difference and exoticism, we want to be surrounded with people we can relate with but not too much, all these are incompatible needs. The problem is not in your work environment but in yourself. When no longer needs the exoticism to be happy, that's when the fun begins.<p>If you know what makes you tick, inspiration comes not only from an exotic place - like a cafe in New Brunswick can be to me - but also at the place you call home, wherever it might be.<p>Then it comes down to personal preferences about what weather you are more comfortable with, what kind of people you prefer having around, and your own philosophy. But not exoticism. It's a trap, a burden that can becomes non necessary. It happened just like that, someday I just started feeling that way.<p>At the moment, I'd say I only regret that my work will have little impact, but I've settled with the rest. 2 tech conference a year and I get the minimal contact with other techies I need to survive :-) And while some exoticism is good (I say I enjoyed my vacation) it is no longer a <i>need</i>.

As much as I love this idea, I'm skeptical it would work for everyone. Personally, I'd feel pretty antsy knowing that outside my door is a tropical paradise. It would give me too much 'perspective', and inevitably force me to close my laptop and carpe diem.

As I resident of O'ahu, I'm psyched to see this. We don't have enough startup activity here.

we should do an exchange program, so HI startups get a taste of ground zero in Bay Area.

I bet you can get a cheaper ticket to Puerto Rico and take advantage of all the tax exceptions for startups. No passport needed if you are a US citizen.

I was living in Hawaii when I finished my time as a navy officer. I realized that I would never get a post-Navy career going because every day, and I mean every day, you look out the window and think, "wow, it is much to pretty a day to be inside".<p>But if aren't susceptible to "Polynesian Paralysis", sure, no place better than Hawaii. I couldn't and, much to my regret, moved back to the mainland to get things moving.

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An interesting thing about working in Hawaii is the timezone. If you have an international angle to your business, this is a great place to be. And you can surf before work. You can still get sh*t done!<p>Mornings: 9am HI time 12pm SF time 3pm NY time<p>Afternoons: 3pm HI time 10am Tokyo (tomorrow) 9am China (tomorrow)

This is exactly what I've been wanting to do. Well done simplehoney; sounds like a great time.

Less time at beach, more time focusing on uptime.

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Our startup &#60;a href='<a href="http://www.gethopscotch.com&#62;Hopscotch&#60;/a&#62" rel="nofollow">http://www.gethopscotch.com&#62;Hopscotch&#60;/a&#62</a>; is in the midst of something similar. We came from NY and have managed to do it very much on the cheap by staying with friends and using miles to get here. I could definitely see a tech scene blossoming here, it's a great environment for coders.

This was my favorite quote, "Being in paradise lets everyone open up and share their own dreams and ideals." I've never been to paradise, but the promise of that is worth a try on my next startup.

Hey - if anyone is starting a startup and wants to go to hawaii for an early code phase AND I can get a solid 1 hr surf session morning and evening in around coding....sign me up.

My loose plan along these lines is to temporarily relocate my (three person) office to Kerala in India for a few weeks. Offshore development, but not as you know it.

I am thinking of ways to convince my boss to do this. It might work better if I attempt to convince him in the middle of a cold Midwestern winter.

The next step is to have a reality show about this. A few weeks into it they're gonna start fighting over who took who's toothbrush.....lol

Well, it worked for Megadodo Publications.

They don't seem to be productive there in Hawaii:<p><a href="http://simplehoney.com/" rel="nofollow">http://simplehoney.com/</a><p>"502 Bad Gateway"

Less blogging about beaches, more finishing what looks like it will be an excellent service :D

Nothing like a SUP session in the early AM to get the creative juices flowing.

I was an intern in a startup that tried exactly this. It was a lot of fun. We got a ton of VC cash to burn and so why not do it in a nice environment? In the end, the company failed. We all got too much into a "holiday" mood. The webdesigner won a surf contest. The CEO started an affair with not one, but two of the female employes. We all got fat from eating delicious food from the 5-Star hotel and high class Restaurants near by.<p>Moral of the story? Stay frugal even when you dont have to. It might be better for the company.