Being outside Silicon Valley, and costs of development
November 14th, 2007 by Benjamin KuoHere’s an interesting blog post I ran across today: Why Being Outside Silicon Valley is Good For Startups. In the post, Suzanne Dingwall Williams, a corporate lawyer and former VC in Canada, says:
One of my clients has been on an acquisition spree in Silicon Valley this fall, gathering interesting perspectives between wheatgrass and soy shakes. His notes: development cost and employee retention are two of the most significant barriers to growth for Silicon Valley startups. For these reasons many SV VCs, he says, will not fund startups unless at least 50% of their development work is done outside of California.
It’s interesting looking at the global perspective, a few weeks ago I noted a post which complained about the difficulty of employee retention–of people leaving for Silicon Valley — this from soneone in North Carolina. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
What I have heard here from some Southern California firms, is that some VC’s won’t fund companies unless at least 50% of their development work is being done offshore (India, China, Romania, Russia, etc.).
