Why you should move your startup to a small fishing town

Hm, sorry but ages of experience show that what <i>mostly</i> works is the other way around: You want to be a <i>big city</i> because you can find clients (users), meet people (e.g. possible investors) and generally speaking do any sort of <i>networking</i> that would be otherwise impossible.<p>The internet is what it is, but you can never match the face-to-face relationship with an online approach.<p>I totally understand that this is a dream-like situation: You make a good amount of money, doing what you like in a remote island where the sun shines and the food is always tasty (yes I&#x27;m from Greece...) but if your business can&#x27;t be done 100% online, which is almost never the case, then you need offices in a <i>big city</i>. Then you need to visit and control these offices, etc.

Hey I live in a small (former) fishing town! Except it&#x27;s winter, 30 degrees and I&#x27;m inside staring at my computer screens and might as well be anywhere in the world.<p>Yes I can stop work, and &quot;go surfing&quot; (in the right season), I can even stop working and visit the local town pier and see those quaint &quot;fisherman&quot; struggling to make a living -because let&#x27;s be honest, not everyone can be a tech-ninja startup founder.<p>If I wanted I could even crank the heat in my car, squint and make believe that it&#x27;s actually a warm exotic beach in Europe but hey, at some point I gotta go back to the office, fire up that computer and get back to hacking.<p>At the end of the day it doesn&#x27;t matter where you are. If you need to &quot;break out of the box&quot; and travel a bit, go for it. But simply moving operations to somewhere foreign will not be the deciding factor in your success.

Well, I think this strategy might work if you want to keep your burn rate unbelievably low while you are writing v 1.0. But to be honest 300 Euro per week for space is actually not optimal.<p>I&#x27;ve been in the mountains of Vietnam for the last year and rent has been between $50 and $125 per month, which has made it possible for me to be unemployed for a long time and write v1.0 of my startup&#x27;s app.<p>I think that Southeast Asia is a pretty ideal location if you want to go the bootstrapping route - the people are super nice and friendly and everything is unbelievably cheap. You really can get a lot done.<p>The serious downside is that you are not really connected to the tech scene - you can&#x27;t really meet that many hackers (i.e. potential cofounders) and of course there is zero funding. And when you talk to tech folks stateside you feel pretty disconnected when you in a different part of the world.<p>Nevertheless I think it&#x27;s a viable way to go solo.

This seems like a really good option if you want to pretend to be building a startup: Come up with disruptive startup ideas while sitting on the beach, throwing house parties like in The Social Network, and drinking a beer with other people pretending to build a startup.<p>It doesn&#x27;t sound like a good option though if you want to actually build a startup: writing a lot of code, meeting with clients, hiring great people, etc.

For those of you in the UK&#x2F;London - and want somewhere cheap and amazing to code in your own back yard, I highly recommend Hastings&#x2F;St Leonards.<p>It is (or was) a &#x27;small fishing village&#x27; that retains a fascinating history.<p>1.5 hours from London, and 1 hour from Brighton, 1&#x2F;3 the cost of flats and working space, good connection speeds, good coffee. If you come down to check it out, look me up and I&#x27;ll buy you a pint.<p>--EDIT-- Some nice tempting rental listings for you :) <a href="http://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/property/search?listingStatus=rent&amp;area=TN37&amp;pricePer=month&amp;propertyType=flats&amp;minimumBeds=2" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hastingsobserver.co.uk&#x2F;property&#x2F;search?listingSta...</a>

Sounds like a great way to selfdestruct.<p>&quot;Hey, guess what, you have to move to $middleofnowhere.&quot;<p>&quot;Hey, guess what, I quit.&quot;<p>Exactly how the conversation would go if it ever happened to me. What would happen in such a situation is the good employees would quit because they wouldn&#x27;t want to compromise their salary, marketability, and ability to take a new job, while the dead weight would go with it because it&#x27;s still easier than finding a new job if they can build up enough job security in their current one.<p>Also interesting that someone thinks you should do it... who just happens to own office space in said location.<p>Cities work because there is the infrastructure and the talent pool. Going to the middle of nowhere might save a pittance on salary, but when people inevitably quit, good luck replacing them without spending even more on moving other people there.

Sounds nice and fun for a short break. I think the copy needs some work though, which might relate into tweaking how they target their market. For instance: &quot;Getting far away from your family&quot; &lt;=== If you have a family, that&#x27;s not how it works. You signed up for the responsibility.

Where are the pictures of the lodgings? It sounds very interesting, but it&#x27;s also rather expensive. I&#x27;ve never been to Morocco, but from what I&#x27;ve heard I bet it&#x27;s possible to sleep in a four star hotel and eat every meal in a restaurant for under 500 euro per week.<p>Of course you are offering extras like being networked in with the other residents, and you are marketing to Europeans so it&#x27;s not crazy to charge this amount, but it would be nice if you could have some more details and evidence on what you are offering.

I think a lifestyle location could be a cool underdog hiring strategy, at elates if you accept that you all your hire will be relocation hires. IE, if you are wiling to pay big city salaries in a small town location, that could be attractive to some people. Not everyone and obviously if you have Google&#x2F;Facebook hiring requirements it&#x27;s not an option. But, if you need to hire 5-10 a year it might work. Not everyone will want it. But, the minority that do want it want it a lot.<p>IE, imagine a couple with small kids from London comings for an interview to a nice location in Crete. Instead of a tiny London 2 bedroom, they can move into a nice cottage. They can save hours a day in commutes and get more cash into savings. That will appeal to some employees (or their wives&#x2F;husbands). You can&#x27;t say Crete is objectively better or worse than the London buzz. But, it is different in a way that will inevitably appeal to some.<p>The problem is that it&#x27;s hard not to adjust your salary expectations (as an employer) to local salaries and that just isn&#x27;t compatible with relocation hiring. People don&#x27;t relocate for a lower salary, even if cost of living is lower. I think the EU has a lot of these possibilities that are still under appreciated.<p>If you think your main win&#x2F;lose parameter is the quality of people you can hire, you should think creatively about how to win here. It&#x27;s hard to win competing head-to-head.

I am based in Cairo. Other than the rare revolutions, occasional bombings and frequent elevated security situations, it is a perfectly suitable place to try starting up your startup.

Apparently their justification is &quot;Because it&#x27;s quiet and weird.&quot; So, when you choose to establish a new business, move to the next hipster city that no one&#x27;s heard of. For... reasons.

Not sure I can really agree with much in this article, which seems to contradict itself (get more focused by not doing A and B, instead use your spare time for X and Y) and ignores that fact that getting close to your target audience and understanding their pain points isn&#x27;t really going to happen if your sitting under an umbrella in Senegal.

For years I though that the Internet would fuel re-ruralization because it allows people to work outside the limits of densely populated areas. I think I suffered from two errors in that assumption: first that many people other than me wanted to live and work in the boonies; and second that infrastructure in rural areas would catch up somehow. I think the trend toward urbanization makes perfect sense from an infrastructure perspective, and it makes a certain amount of sense that most people prefer to live with other people.

I am trying to figure out what kind of start up can benefit from this. In theory, you can be more focused if you and your team are isolated. Maybe it is easier to answer this question: What kind of start ups will not benefit from this? I&#x27;d say any startup that is passed the very first stages of product development, and needs to be talking to users, and investors and media and other businesses ... Just thinking out loud.

It would be more productive to just have a remote workforce, and let them live where they want. Some people might want small fishing towns, others will make different choices. The key is to let everyone do what works best for themselves.

I live in London and I love the rain &amp; grey skies. I cycle 15 minutes to work, but sometimes take public transport too. I feel plenty productive in this city, and if I were to start my own business, I&#x27;d have no problems being here.<p>I think it really depends on who you are, not where you are.

Well, if you&#x27;re looking for a location like that, consider Pillar Point Harbor in California. There&#x27;s a small industrial area with cheap space, 2-3 short blocks from the ocean. It&#x27;s adjacent to Mavericks Beach, one of the world&#x27;s great surfing spots. There&#x27;s a small-boat harbor. Several riding stables. Some nightclubs. Decent restaurants. A small airport. Housing prices aren&#x27;t too high.<p>It&#x27;s a half hour drive from there to Silicon Valley. 45 minutes to San Francisco. There&#x27;s bus service to both places. 10 minutes to Half Moon Bay with supermarkets and hardware stores.

They seem to be selling a dystopia:<p>&quot;Getting far away from your family, your friends, [...] Living close to the beach, and surfing or doing yoga, also helps decompressing after work, and avoiding burnout, and therefore staying productive&quot;

I have to point out that:<p>1) Traditionally, HN has been about startups: what works, what doesn&#x27;t work<p>2) This entire comment thread is reading like a tourism forum<p>At some point, maybe 2-4 years ago, HN sublty starting moving from a board about how to make your startup to folks trying to pitch other folks on stuff to buy for your startup. It&#x27;s the old thing about during the gold rush the gold miners didn&#x27;t make all the money -- the guys selling pickaxes did.<p>I don&#x27;t say that to discount these folks. Hell if I know. Probably best place in the world for a startup. It&#x27;s just every now and then HN gets especially bad about this. And it needs to be pointed out.

I live in Grimsby (UK). You don&#x27;t want to come here. It&#x27;s depressing, boring, smelly and awful. I&#x27;d prefer to be in somewhere like London than here.<p>The only good thing is that we have decent broadband.

I have a friend who works for Power Engineers. The founders built the company in Hailey, Idaho, near the Sun Valley Ski Resort.<p>They are now a massive company with 39 US Offices and 4 international offices. I&#x27;ve never been sure if the lesson is that you can start a company in the middle of nowhere, or if you need to have local offices to serve your customers. The headquarters is still in Hailey, ID, in the middle of nowhere, but they clearly thought they needed offices elsewhere to add ~1 additional office per year of the company.

Looks appealing, right near Anchor Point, a world class surf spot. Was about to pull the trigger on a 3-4 month rental...until the price. 1,200 Euros&#x2F;month in Morocco, really? During the fall and spring I pay 500 Euros <i>per month</i> for a 2 bedroom, 5 minute walk from the beach in Capbreton, France, an area with surf as good or better than anything in Morocco.<p>I can appreciate, number 1, the safety (as I had all my gear stolen in Morocco a few years ago, passport included), and living with other tech heads, but in the end I just need a decent internet connection, a kitchen, and location in some interesting part of the world; the rest are nice-to-haves.<p>Airbnb et al have totally destroyed the bargain rental market. From India, to Morocco, to Argentina, etc. formerly dirt cheap destinations now fetch luxury prices with often very modest accomodations in return.<p>Best bet for the travelling coder is probably to just do a week rental via hose-you-inc and then search locally for rentals closer to market value (i.e. not 2-5X what the locals are paying).<p>Now, it&#x27;s a fantastic market for sellers, more power to them, if I had a place to sublet I&#x27;d be more than happy to fetch top dollar for some vanilla 1 bedroom apartment with a blender, hot plate, and clean sheets ;-)<p>2cents

I&#x27;m not sure big cities are prohibitive here.<p>Sure the subway can suck but in New York City I have access to surfing, beaches, more yoga studios (and dance, and martial arts, among a million other classes in languages, the culinary arts, and virtually any other topic you could choose) than anyone could possibly count, restaurants, museums, concerts, sporting events, scuba diving, sky diving, and anything else you could ever ask for. (And even the things you&#x27;d never think to ask for). I mean the list just goes on and on and on. Of course this is predicated on the assumption that you will take advantage of it (and have the money, interest, time, and energy to do so).<p>However, that being said, the idea of waking up in my hut, and walking outside, doing a little yoga on the beach, and then setting up for a cup of coffee with some locals and hacking away in the sun does sound undeniably attractive.<p>I&#x27;d kill for some more sun in my workplace. And just whose idea were these damned open offices anyways? I do enjoy the social interactions and yet there is always that nipping feeling that I&#x27;m interrupting someone else&#x27;s zone while I do so, much as, often, people interrupt mine when they do.

I too live in a fishing town, yes, it&#x27;s nice being a small town without any traffic or people on the street (except in Summer when we get tourists) but honestly I can&#x27;t wait to move out.<p>I can&#x27;t get fast internet, power&#x2F;internet goes down when it gets a bit windy or starts raining; and it rains quite a lot, making you really unproductive. Let&#x27;s not talk about 3G&#x2F;4G, we are lucky to have 3G on a good day.<p>If I wanted to go to some conference or meetup I&#x27;d have to drive at least 4-5 hours since there&#x27;s nothing here, and we don&#x27;t have train or anything.<p>Talking about leisure time, I like surfing, but that&#x27;s only viable during the Summer, there&#x27;s not much else to do here other than hanging out with other people; we are lucky to have a cinema, but some movies don&#x27;t even make it here (I&#x27;m still waiting to watch Interstellar).<p>This would be the perfect place for a lonely writer working on a novel, but definitely not for people like us, who need to be always connected and making the best use of technology possible.<p>Disclaimer: I&#x27;ve never lived in a city, maybe I&#x27;ll end up hating it, who knows?

Founders should choose the correct location that gives them the maximum possible advantage. If you&#x27;re selling to the oil industry, build in Houston. Finance, NYC. And so on. Sometimes geography doesn&#x27;t matter, so a small fishing town is just fine.

This might be the most dotcom-ish post I&#x27;ve read since joining HackerNews.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong on this but even the argumentation is clearly wrong here:<p>&gt; work in places so magical they could be on the cover of travel magazines<p>&gt; under an umbrella on a beach in Senegal, in cafes in old Arab medinas, and more<p>&gt; Adventurous Startups.<p>and then<p>&gt; YOU’LL BE MORE FOCUSED<p>I&#x27;ve tried this myself and my experience was that working abroad is totally doable but by no means did I achieve focusing more on my work.<p>Instead I would pick any chance meeting new people and discover the new environment.<p>Also: In my opinion everything comes down to networking, which is why a lonely beach in Marocco might not be the right place to start this...

i&#x27;m not sure what this is, it&#x27;s not that clear. it seems to be an advert for a guest house that&#x27;s tailored to people building startups? here&#x27;s a hint, if you&#x27;re building a start up you want to be successful, moving somewhere to go surfing isn&#x27;t probably the best thing to do<p>and it doesn&#x27;t seem that cheap either tbh. not forgetting remoteness is a massive problem, i worked somewhere remote, it was awful. they had surfing. i moved back to the city after 6 months, i&#x27;ve never been happier.<p>that said, i hope it works for you, i wish i could live at the beach in a warm country

I really enjoyed the piece - but I wonder if the arguments made work for a highly focused coding bender and perhaps not day-to-day business growth of a startup where meeting face to face with other founders, potential partners &amp; mentors would be facilitated by being in a crowded city as opposed to a Senegalese beach?

All is perfect, until you need to hire more developers, and then find (almost) all of them live in big cites, and they&#x27;re not willing to relocate to a place without theaters, bars, discos... probably a lot like the place the came from before living in the city ;)

For the prices: <a href="http://www.thebluehouse.io/month-long-program/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thebluehouse.io&#x2F;month-long-program&#x2F;</a><p>The white on yellow background isn&#x27;t the best choice of colours.<p>Having been to Essaouira, I can only imagine Taghazout more relaxing.

You definitely want exposure to all types of resources and I find that being in a bigger city allows you do that. I&#x27;m currently a medium-sized fish in a small pond and it&#x27;s still hard to find the right people that&#x27;ll guide me along the way.

Hopefully the name of that boat isn&#x27;t a bad omen ;)<p><a href="http://www.thebluehouse.io/#surrounded-with-the-best" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thebluehouse.io&#x2F;#surrounded-with-the-best</a> (scroll up)

Terrible article, it basically boils down to hipster garbage. &quot;Adventurous Startup&quot;, give me a break. We&#x27;re such free, weird unencumbered souls lol! Eat pray love!

First of all, the guy is selling startup space in a small fishing town. Second, is there any evidence to support his case? How many successful startups began in idyllic locations?

I&#x27;m a solo bootstrapped entrepreneur but I like working in offices with others— this is perfect for me. To me, this seems like more of a focussed co-working space abroad.

Thats all well and good but some of us have families and kids.

1.) this is a recruiting blurb from TBH. 2.) I want an unbiased opinion, this one doesn&#x27;t address pros vs. cons. 3.) why would I want to smell fish all day?

Planning to do this. Any advice on how to meet people once you settled in a city? e.g. couchsurfing (request to go out for a tea)

<a href="http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hackbase" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackerspaces.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hackbase</a>

How do you deal with the red-tape? It looks like you need a working visa to work in Morocco.

Are there any small fishing towns in the US?

Sounds more like a holiday camp

Is Morocco a save place now? A relative was there to help in the United Nations peacekeeping mission, especially the southern part of Morocco &quot;Western Sahara&quot;.<p>United Nations peacekeeping mission is still ongoing: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_Nations_peacekeeping_missions.PNG" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;commons.wikimedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;File:United_Nations_peacek...</a> (blue region in north-west of Africa)

Back in 2009, I moved from Silicon Valley (Cupertino, natch, home of...well, me, until I left - rumor is there&#x27;s also another tech firm or two there, but those fruit guys well, you know).<p>At the time, I had it all. Consulting firm was paying half the bills and the scalable, bootstrapped and profitable media business had hit north of six million visitors the month before the big move.<p>New location: Maldives. Sun, sand and surf. Want to see dolphins? Top five in the world. Coral reefs? Some of the best. That underwater restaurant Tom Cruise stayed at on his honeymoon at Conrad Hilton, when it was the world&#x27;s first? It&#x27;s an amazing place, quite special - I hit it up in 2008 the year before we moved there.<p>Unlike a lot of folks that move to random locations, or say Costa Rica, the first time I moved overseas with a startup (left the US to join a Costa Rican one), the Maldives trip was my second time.<p>A few exceptions about my move: * Father-in-law was Vice President, of the country at the time (I left before he became president) * Then president was family by marriage; personally, I thought the guy was a sh!tty father when we went to the first daughter&#x27;s birthday. Imho, both parents, regardless of how busy, should make time. Eg, when it was my older son&#x27;s b-day, only the first lady showed. She was cool. The president was a bit uptight. Long story.<p>Pros about moving to Maldives: * Any foreigner can get the &quot;local,&quot; discount, like teachers, for example * The islands are amazing. Seriously. Try lounging on the beach where Madonna stayed...the resort owners is nice and well, the beach spectacular. They also have the largest array of solar panels privately owned in their region. * Fish is plentiful, fresh, and some of the very best tuna in the world. There are some amazing dishes.<p>Cons: * Everything is imported and subject to a 100% tax * Capital island is 1 square mile...most densely populated city in the world per square meter * Internet situation is abysmal.<p>I lack credibility here, as I have zero background in networking, but suffice to say after meeting multiple ministers of telecommunications, pitching the government to try to fix the situation AND lobbying after my father-in-law, at the time, was President of the Country...well, I know why in my home country, &quot;Net neutrality,&quot; makes people confused.<p>This article is too light, too shallow on details for those of us who&#x27;ve done the globe trotting thing and worked in multiple countries overseas.

I&#x27;m not so sure you should be trying to push &quot;leave your family and friends behind&quot; as an upside. You are just reminding people of an obvious downside, you aren&#x27;t actually turning it into an upside.

...and if you are really successful:<p>YOU&#x27;LL GENTRIFICATE THE TOWN<p>A win for everybody...kind of.

May or may not be great while you&#x27;re working, but what&#x27;s gonna happen when the startup goes bust and there are literally zero other jobs there.