Of course being in Silicon Valley is a big deal for a lot of startups. Facebook, Groupon, LinkedIn, Zynga, Skype, and Twitter,Tumblr, Pandora, Formspring, Posterous, Apture, Quora, Asana, Path, Flipboard, AirBnB, Booyah, Gowalla, RockMelt, Scribd, Shopkick, Square,Foursquare etc are all in the valley. Some may have started outside the valley but have moved to the valley. Silicon Valley has become the “mecca” for technologist and entrepreneurs looking to make it big on the Internet. The big question is, can your startup survive outside of the valley.Yes it can!. My reasons are as follows.
- If you develop the right formal mentorship relationships with mentors within and outside the valley, you can still tap the knowledge the Valley offers
- Connect and network with investors who have experience in growing startups and building companies. Dont just go after the money, The experience also matters
- There is now a better way to communicate and share knowledge with like-minds, make use of this opportunity and introduce yourself to the people who matter in the industry and chances are that a few of them will listen to you and give you that advice you meed so much.
- Read TechCrunch, Eric Ries, Steve Blank, Dave McClure, Marc Suster & Chris Dixon, Onstartups and Mixergy for lessons and inspirations.
- Great companies are being built outside the valley including Gilt Groupe, Foursquare, Grooveshark and Groupon
- You can call (not email) someone brilliant who lives in the valley or who has the experience you need to get their advice on a specific topic to make that crucial decision.ou dont have to compete with all the big shots
- An advantage of building outside the valley is that you won’t be competing with the big shots for people as you build your team
- Identity amazing entrepreneurs and ask them about their lessons in building great businesses, you will be surprised about what you will hear.
- Skype and Spotify have done it in Europe, why cant you.
- You can have access to innovators, technology and trends at any time.
- Nokia has done pretty well, So did SAP , and mail.ru group did an interesting things in Russia where there were few success stories.
- Check out DLD in Germany. LeWeb in Paris. LIFT in Switzerland and NextWeb in Amsterdam.
Building tech companies outside the Valley is a trend that will keep growing and you should take advantage. Share with us your success story if you are outside the valley and we will help with the exposure you need. Send details to thomas[at]alltopstartups.com.
5 comments
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I am really impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the nice quality writing, it is rare to see a great blog like this one these days..
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