The New Scene in NYC for Entrepreneurs

http://www.darrenherman.com/2007/04/05/an-entrepreneurs-dream-nyc/

by dherman76 • 19 years ago

12 10 19 years ago

not a true new yorker here, but i find this idea rather odd.

why NYC? goog took the plunge but it was a gigantic investment, and they can leverage proximity with partners for better efficiency, but not so for startups. without a stronger plan, this reads like stuffing a bunch of brains into a jar, without proper nutrition, and hoping them to churn out something good.

while you can reduce cost of living space, you cannot reduce tax and other living costs. and the financial district teems with money people; the vibe is completely different. back to goog; when you have a complex with 500 people working for largely the same goal, you can shape your own corporate culture and be relatively oblivious to the culture on the street, but again, not so for the startups. i bet the innovation center stays in googleplex west.

Mistone2• 19 years ago

Why Not NYC? There are plenty of great startups forming in NYC, it is a truly global city. Like other great cities it has extremely high costs of living. So why not create a place where startups gain the benefits of working in a collaborative environment and can keep the costs low.

Not everyone can built a GooglePlex! or move to Mountain View. BTW - I live in the bay Area so I'm not biased on this one.

BrandonM• 19 years ago

I think it's an interesting idea, but here in Columbus, OH, I pay $240 a month to share the rent of an 8-room townhouse with one other person, so $200-250 for a cubicle and Wifi sounds pretty insane.

Couldn't it be possible to find some reasonably central area like Columbus (I know FedEx and UPS both have major hubs here because of its centrality) where several potential founders could live in a big house and split the rent? I for one would be willing to move several hours (driving time) away and pay around $300-400 a month for rent and utilities, and I think that's thoroughly possible in a city that is not as big as a Boston, SF, or NYC.

Mistone2• 19 years ago

the $250 for rent and wifi is determined by the market in NYC, and other major cities. It sounds like you could have even lower cost in Columbus, but the most important thing is setting up a high performance environment for startups to get together, work on their projects, and benefit from the input of others.

mauricecheeks• 19 years ago

My lease runs out in June... maybe i can sleep there?

joshwa• 19 years ago

This is great for people already living in NYC who want to leverage some of the great startup-environment benefits present in other cities.

$200-$250/month for a cubicle, wifi, and a bunch of like-minded people really isn't so bad, relative to most NYC living/working expenses.

If I end up getting angel funding and not YC, I will probably take him up on it.

startupstarter• 19 years ago

please see http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=9704 for San Francisco area.

davidsrose• 19 years ago

There are actually quite a few startup tech incubators in New York, although the reality is that costs simply are not what they are in Ohio, or elsewhere in the 'real world'. They range from the completely not-for-profit ones such as Pace, to the completely for-profit ones (at rents that would give our colleague from Columbus an instant coronary) such as Eemerge. In between are the ones run by NYSIA, PowerSpace, Rose Tech Ventures, and others.

Darren's idea, while a very appealing concept, will I believe, turn out to be impractical in the long run for lots of reasons. But that's no reason not to try :-)

ohadpr• 19 years ago

i think this is fantastic,

i'm an israeli entrepenuer spending some time in NY now and would love to help.

a member of our group (www.garagegeeks.org), zvika netter, is thinking of doing the exact same thing in tel-aviv, building on the eco-system that will go on there, can be a great thing.

i'm at ohadpr@gmail.com if anyboy would like to chat and exchange ideas.

ohad 3D3R software studios

vsharma• 19 years ago

I run a startup in NYC with a distributed team (3 founders). My team is originally from the Bay Area so we do miss that community aspect of working around other techies. This sounds like a great idea but $250/month/pp would dig in a bit too deeply into the angel funding we've raised.

The New Scene in NYC for Entrepreneurs

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