Ask HN: What's Austin (TX) like, as a place to start a startup?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2529451

by abstractbill • 15 years ago

15 2 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Austin seems like a nice place to live - from what I can tell it has a fairly liberal culture, decent weather, and houses that mere mortals can buy.

What's it like as a place to start a startup, especially compared to the SF Bay Ares?

jrsmith1279• 15 years ago

I think Austin is a great place for startups. Austin has kind of become a bit of a SF clone, but with a much lower cost of living.

triviatise• 15 years ago

austin has an order of magnitude less VC money and much less of a startup culture than SV (but better than most other cities). Austin is extremely weak in B to C companies and the VC's and overall community are geared towards B to B startups. Im not saying that there are no B to C success stories, just that there are extremely few.

Austin has a great quality of life and you can definitely create a successful startup here, but there is just simply less opportunity to "run in" to national stage movers and shakers. In SV there are constantly talks by CEOs of brand name startups at casual groups. In austin you would typically have to go to something very formal to get the same caliber of talk.

For example, the talks at SXSW are great and attract CEOs of great startups. But you can get those same talks in the bay area throughout the year.

Ask HN: What's Austin (TX) like, as a place to start a startup?

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