10 point on where to locate your start up

1. Business is to enhance life, not life to enhance business.
2. I’ve posted here both home is where business is good, and business is where home is good. I don’t mind the contradiction. It’s another example of how almost everything in small business and entrepreneurship is basically case-by-case. There are no general rules.
3. One of the great advantages of building your own business is that potentially you can decide where you want to live.
4. And of course there are trade-offs. If I were independently wealthy I might live in Yosemite Valley, but I don’t think that would generally be a good place to start a business.
5. We can deny that some locations have advantages. Having a startup community, investors, history, and potential team members can make a huge difference.
6. But there are lots of ideal places to start businesses. Your preference really matters. For example, I’m biased towards the Silicon Valley because I grew up there and did business planning and consulting and startups there during the 1980s and early 1990s. But as I write this today I’m in New York looking at Silicon Alley, the New York startup world, and that has its advantages too. A lot of people in New York want to stay in New York, and here too they have community, investors, history, and potential team members.
7. Let’s not forget that costs are different in different places. Office space, living space, housing costs, salaries … and of course these costs are higher in the more well-known locations.
8. On the other hand, you know the ins and outs where you are. You have connections. You know the territory. That reduces costs.
9. Moving before you start a business, just for the sake of a business, and not because you want to live there, is a bad idea. That increases your uncertainty and your degree of difficulty tremendously.
10. On the other hand, moving to somewhere you’ve always wanted to live, just before you start a business, that’s not such a bad idea. You take advantage of the flexibility, you make the jump, and add it to the positives of doing your own thing. Yes it adds uncertainty and probably degree of difficulty, but it’s about living well, and choosing where you want to live can be part of that.