{"id":12,"date":"2012-05-17T07:29:53","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T07:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/?p=12"},"modified":"2012-05-18T06:52:27","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T06:52:27","slug":"seattle-vs-the-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/seattle-vs-the-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle vs. The Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you live in Seattle and work in or around the startup ecosystem, you&#8217;ll have heard the &#8220;why-can&#8217;t-we-be-more-like-the-valley&#8221; conversation plenty of times. The typical complaints are always the same:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s easier to get funding in the Valley<\/li>\n<li>Rounds are better priced (meaning investors pay higher pre-money)<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a stronger culture of true 24\/7 focus<\/li>\n<li>The networking is better<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s easier to sell your company for a quick flip \/ acquihire<!--more--><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unfortunately, the flip side doesn&#8217;t get as much airtime, maybe because the underdog mentality is subsumed by the sarcastic, down-on-our-luck attitude. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, I&#8217;m a Seattle startup guy, so I&#8217;m plenty guilty of pouring this whine with my cheese, too. But, the more time I spend in both places, the more I&#8217;m seeing that Seattle has serious upside, too.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Employee churn is nowhere near as bad &#8211; in the Valley, it&#8217;s hard to keep great engineers\/marketers\/salespeople\/ops folks\/etc for more than a year. Seattle&#8217;s cadre of startup folks is far more willing to commit for multi-year stretches, particularly if things are going well.<\/li>\n<li>Costs are 20-40% lower &#8211; rent, salaries, benefits, state taxes and contractors all have a Valley premium that Seattlites don&#8217;t have to pay.<\/li>\n<li>Your work\/life balance will be healthier (and I actually believe this promotes a better chance at long-term success; more on that in a future post)<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s far less of an echochamber to deal with &#8211; in the Valley, it&#8217;s hard to avoid the 10 events each month you &#8220;should&#8221; attend for the networking and at every one, you&#8217;ll hear about the latest Stanford graduates backed by the big-name VC who&#8217;s going to crush your dreams.<\/li>\n<li>No keeping up with the Jones&#8217; &#8211; Seattle&#8217;s anti-public-displays-of-wealth can be of serious help after a trip to the land of Teslas, $150 tasting menus, jeans+tshirt ensembles that run $1,000 and million dollar homes.<\/li>\n<li>However bad the &#8220;talent crunch&#8221; is up here, it&#8217;s way worse down there. Hiring&#8217;s hard everywhere, but in the Bay Area, you&#8217;d better be the hottest startup since Facebook or the CVs will be much fewer and farther between than in the Northwest<\/li>\n<li>The spirit of camraderie and friendship in Seattle is different than the Bay. I&#8217;ve built a handful of authentic friendships in San Francisco and the Valley, but there&#8217;s a massive amount of &#8220;connections&#8221; formed for no other purpose than to &#8220;build your network.&#8221; Think of it this way &#8211; if your startup friend in Seattle is down on their luck, you&#8217;ll work hard to find them a new gig, help make intros, take &#8217;em out to lunch or dinner or give &#8217;em a desk at your office. In the Valley, there&#8217;s a palpable sense that if you&#8217;re not somebody, you&#8217;re nobody, and the only help you&#8217;ll get is when the other party thinks that favor will come back to them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Want to create a startup that does more than a quick flip? Don&#8217;t join <a href=\"http:\/\/www.geekwire.com\/2012\/tony-wright-set-sail-silicon-valley-entrepreneur-good-deal-terms-hard-find-seattle\/\">Tony<\/a>.\u00a0Don&#8217;t get <a href=\"http:\/\/37signals.com\/svn\/posts\/3177-all-the-oxygen-trapped-in-a-bubble\">trapped in the bubble<\/a>. Raise money in the Valley, but build it in Seattle. Your runway, your health, your employees and your network will all thank you. And so will I.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.sparktoro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/vc-bubble-circle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-14\" title=\"vc-bubble-circle\" src=\"https:\/\/images.sparktoro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/vc-bubble-circle.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"383\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>p.s. If you&#8217;re building something exciting in Seattle and I can be helpful, drop me a line. My schedule&#8217;s busy, but I meet every week with startup teams and founders and love to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you live in Seattle and work in or around the startup ecosystem, you&#8217;ll have heard the &#8220;why-can&#8217;t-we-be-more-like-the-valley&#8221; conversation plenty of times. The typical complaints are always the same: It&#8217;s easier to get funding in the Valley Rounds are better priced (meaning investors pay higher pre-money) There&#8217;s a stronger culture of true 24\/7 focus The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seattle","category-startups"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Seattle vs. The Valley - SparkToro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you live in Seattle and work in or around the startup ecosystem, you&#039;ll have heard the &quot;why-can&#039;t-we-be-more-like-the-valley&quot; conversation plenty of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/seattle-vs-the-valley\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seattle vs. The Valley - SparkToro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you live in Seattle and work in or around the startup ecosystem, you&#039;ll have heard the &quot;why-can&#039;t-we-be-more-like-the-valley&quot; conversation plenty of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/seattle-vs-the-valley\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SparkToro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/sparktoro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-05-17T07:29:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-05-18T06:52:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/images.sparktoro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/vc-bubble-circle.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rand Fishkin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sparktoro\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sparktoro\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rand Fishkin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/seattle-vs-the-valley\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/seattle-vs-the-valley\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rand Fishkin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/2acd0781db4d1905cecfec9bea406570\"},\"headline\":\"Seattle vs. The Valley\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-05-17T07:29:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-05-18T06:52:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/seattle-vs-the-valley\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":590,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/seattle-vs-the-valley\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/images.sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/10\\\/vc-bubble-circle.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Seattle\",\"Startups\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/seattle-vs-the-valley\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/seattle-vs-the-valley\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/sparktoro.com\\\/blog\\\/seattle-vs-the-valley\\\/\",\"name\":\"Seattle vs. The Valley - 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