Comments on: A Grand Experiment: 4 months in Silicon Valley

By: Kim Oakland

Kim Oakland — Sun, 20 May 2012 00:26:00 +0000

Just made the move from Seattle to LA … major transition. Gotta say that I’m a little jealous. Would much rather be in SF!

By: Jasmine

Jasmine — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:29:00 +0000

Sorry about the typo. I meant, Tony

By: Jasmine

Jasmine — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:23:00 +0000

Hi Adam, I agree that early stage hiring is more of a concern when scaling the business. On the other hand, I feel some engineers have great potential that is not utilized at some big companies around Seattle ;). I believe they could accomplish much more if there are more innovative startups and better ecosystem here.
The Growth Hacker is a great meme. Not just for startups, marketing has shifted significantly away from the traditional ways for all businesses. Startup is all about being creative at identifying target users and reaching them. I think you and Adam did great Growth Hacker work for Cubeduel.

However with the Growth Hacker marketing, particularly the way described in the Airbnb case study, when more and more startups/businesses run bots on these platforms, it will likely get less and less effective. But providing well designed feature and easy mechanism for enthusiastic users to trigger sharing and make the product go viral, is critical for consumer focused startups.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:46:00 +0000

Hey Jasmine– Good question! I think Seattle has top notch engineers and there are a mess of them I’d love to hire. There’s still a very real possibility that we come back north to build and/or scale the business.

Expense is something that (being in the earliest stages) I’m less concerned about. Unless your product is incredibly geeky, you don’t need a ton of engineers to take a run at an idea. Add to that, our founders are designers/devs. The larger cost down in the Valley really doesn’t still until you start to scale the business.

Now, the SPEED of recruiting is worrisome. But then again, that comes later too. Generally the first bunch of hiring comes from your own network.

One additional thought… Seattle might be light on a new flavor of engineer that I think is critical for the modern startup: The Growth Hacker (see: http://andrewchenblog.com/2012/04/27/how-to-be-a-growth-hacker-an-airbnbcraigslist-case-study/ ).

By: Jasmine

Jasmine — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:52:00 +0000

The Seattle startup community will definitely miss you. I agree with all the points you made. But hiring good engineers is challenging and expensive in the valley. What do you think about hiring engineers from Seattle?

By: natala

natala — Wed, 09 May 2012 04:38:00 +0000

Great post. We will have to have a “Seattlites in SF” happy hour for you when you officially get into town.

For me personally, the Seattle Tech Community was awesome — but the energy in the valley is unbeatable.

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:15:00 +0000

Good luck to you, Tony! Really sorry to see you leaving Seattle, but I’m sure you’ll do great things down south.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:00:00 +0000

congrats on taking the plunge and look forward to crossing paths more frequently in the valley…

By: Donald DeSantis

Donald DeSantis — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:08:00 +0000

Will miss bumping into you around town. I understand the rationale though. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for you next time I’m in SF.

By: Nathan Parcells

Nathan Parcells — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Thanks for the post Tony. It’s not easy to leave a city you love, but sounds like you made the right decision. When moving to the Bay I was worried that the larger tech scene here would mean less intimacy and entrepreneurial support, but was shocked to find the opposite — the bay startup community is so dedicated to mutual growth it is inspiring to think about how this could be applied in other industries.

Congrats on what must have been a really hard decision.