Web Design Advice - <AUTHOR>

Don't just use gray text on white background. If you really want to make your text difficult to read, you will achieve even better results with white text on white background. <comment><USER2> Responsive Design ProTip: When screen size decreases it becomes increasingly difficult to read the text, solve this problem by increasing text size in proportion to decrease of screen size.</comment>


Vim blowfish encryption - <AUTHOR> https://dgl.cx/2014/10/vim-blowfish

<comment><USER2> I use gpg to work around vim's encryption inconsistencies across different versions. This vimrc does the trick for me: [https://gist.github.com/iatrou/9da751368aecdf0a37f1](https://gist.github.com/iatrou/9da751368aecdf0a37f1)

</comment><comment><USER3> while reading this the only thing on my mind is how un-vim that feature is.

i would expect an hex editor mode would make much more sense to be added before they went to such shenanigans feature such as frivolous encryption. which can be trivial to use the Unix way... the way hex editing must be done for great pains btw.

<comment><USER4> I don't see how you can justify hex editing without justifying encryption. In both cases, you can either do a conversion with a separate tool outside of the editor, edit the converted text, and then covert it back, or have the conversion logic integrated into the editor.

I would argue that, encryption, if implemented properly, is best integrated into the editor because the editor can be sure to store the clear text in mlock'd memory and avoid leaking clear text in other ways (such as into ~/.viminfo). If you have to decrypt with a separate tool, the clear text hits the disk and the editor doesn't know to be careful with it. These are concerns that aren't present with hex editing.

I have no idea if vim is this careful though and sadly I wouldn't count it.

<comment><USER5> The editor doesn't have to do crypto itself to know it's dealing with sensitive content. A somewhat overblown concern in the age of encrypted swap, anyway.

Cleartext doesn't have to be saved to disk for a separate tool to be used. You can pretty much use GPG from vim as-is just by piping the buffer through it: ":%!gpg -e -a -r yourself" and ":%!gpg -d". The vim GPG plugins can take care of the remaining annoyances.

<comment><USER4> It's not just swap (I don't think encrypted swap is that common anyways) but also the viminfo and swp files.

The UX for vim's encryption is really good - it's convenient and easy to use. Any replacement would need to be equally easy and well-integrated. If you require users to do manual steps, like type commands or remember to tell vim that it's editing sensitive content, then mistakes will be made that harm security. If the plugin interface can provide a sufficient level of integration, that's great and would be a good alternative to building crypto into vim itself.

<comment><USER5> Every OS has supported encrypted swap for some time now. It's the default on Macs since Mountain Lion and either the default or a checkbox away on popular Linux distributions. It's a single terminal command in Windows, and encryption of everything is default in Windows 8.1 with a TPM 2.0 module.

They all support general disk/filesystem encryption, too. If you're technically minded enough to be using vim and trying to encrypt files with it, and you're not using an encrypted filesystem to start with, you're pretty nuts.

The core UX for gnupg.vim is open .gpg/.pgp/.asc file, be automatically prompted for passphrase (unless file is new), edit file, save (be prompted for recipients if new). Done.

You're obviously going to have to complain to the vim maintainers about sensitive content. There's been a patch floating around for over a decade to get vim to support mlock. Its blowfish encryption is certainly no safer than gnupg.vim in that regard. gnupg.vim does turn off the viminfo/swapfile/undofile functionality.

<comment><USER4> > The core UX for gnupg.vim is open .gpg/.pgp/.asc file, be automatically > prompted for passphrase (unless file is new), edit file, save (be prompted > for recipients if new). Done.

> gnupg.vim does turn off the viminfo/swapfile/undofile functionality.

Thanks. That is excellent UX and knowing that I can agree it's what people should use instead of the built-in encryption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am beginning to think Vim has too many features. And it must be hell managing that codebase.

<comment><USER7> That is why neovim maintainers decided to remove encryption from the codebase.

check [https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/694](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/694) and [https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/699](https://github.com/neovim/neovim/pull/699)

<comment><USER8> No, this is one thing I love Vim for and use it. It is fixed going forward. It is the only x-platform one that isn't messy at some point.

<comment> nezza-_- Have you actually looked at the Vim codebase?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can anybody with knowledge of vim see if the GPG plugin at vim.wikia.com is secure with regards to mlock?

It is what I currently use. Very convenient. I never trusted something editor- specific.</comment>


Twitter Does 19 Billion Searches Per Month, Beating Yahoo & Bing (Sort Of) - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/twitter-does-19-billion-searches-per-month-39988 <comment><USER2> According to these numbers, Twitter is bigger than Yahoo and Bing _combined_!</comment>


Predictions on the future of Bitcoin over the next 5 years - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/rabbiyitziweiner/21-bitcoin-experts-share-their-predictions-about-t-37p3h#120251726 <comment><USER2> Here's the summary of these guys' bios and predictions.

1) Sara Rose, Dmanna: Founder of a company with a website that sells a product with no description. Buy it!

2) Adam Toren, Coinzy.com: Bitcoin might go up or down.

3) Ofir Beigel, CEO, 99Bitcoins: CEO of a blog? BTC at $50,000.

4) Joe DiPasquale, BitBull Capital: BitBull BitBull BitBull.

5) Dan Gailey, CEO, Synapse AI: There will be other coins that do stuff.

6) Craig MacGregor, Nav Coin: Bitcoin was first, so, yeah.

7) Spiros Margaris, Glance Technologies: Ranked 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 5th, and 10th by Klout

8) Piotr Piasecki, iComplyICO: "Bitcoin might start gaining some recognition".

9) Rebecca Devaney, Hunter Creative Labs: A thinker. "quantum cryptocurrency", AI make you fly.

And it goes on like this.</comment>


Quit your job, travel, learn to code - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jonathanlau/5-reasons-you-should-quit-your-job-travel-and-learn-to-code-fac3d90bd73

<comment><USER2> You may want to read the Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


Sshtalk - <AUTHOR> https://2ton.com.au/sshtalk/ <comment><USER2> Greetings again to all HNers,

This was up here ages ago, I still use it personally but for some reason it has gotten renewed attention today from a random post to 4ch/reddit. Happy to see some people still dig my x86_64 assembler work :-) Cheers!</comment>


We're living on Caprica - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/2016/10/15/wereLivingOnCaprica.html <comment><USER2> I was with him until he said "it's the Nazis". Then I did not know what he was talking about. "We" (not sure who that is) are afflicted by "them" (not sure who that is, either).

I used his software -- Radio -- long ago. I do not share Dave Winer's political views but find his positions and arguments frequently compelling.

But this? I have no idea what the message is. There must be some secret inside-group signaling that is opaque to me.</comment>


Show HN: Bookmark and Annotate Webpages with Others - <AUTHOR> https://www.stacklinks.com/ <comment><USER2> I've used various bookmarking / annotation services for the past 7-8 years, some as bookmarklets, others as extensions. None of them ever evolved into a great community.

What's different about this one ? It looks like an MVP but without a mention of how it stands out.

Here are a few from the endless list ...

[https://www.diigo.com/](https://www.diigo.com/)

[https://hypothes.is/](https://hypothes.is/)

[http://annotateit.org/](http://annotateit.org/)

[https://annotary.com/](https://annotary.com/)

[https://www.scrible.com/](https://www.scrible.com/)

[http://genius.com/web-annotator](http://genius.com/web-annotator)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's some prior work in this area: [https://hypothes.is/](https://hypothes.is/)

Very functional, but I stick to private annotations and haven't noticed very many by others. They're also entirely open-source and there are components isolated for those who want to embed a custom instance in their website.

<comment><USER4> Here's some more prior work in this area:

[http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www- talk.1993q2/0416.ht...](http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www- talk.1993q2/0416.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The irony of needing a Facebook account to use a web annotation service... It needs some other way to sign in/up.

I recently started using Pinboard after hearing the praise for its no-nonsense simplicity and impressive functionality. Couldn't be happier. Sure it's a paid service, but it just does what it does without trying to be too cool for school: pinboard.in/tour/

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds interesting but definitely needs some tour, demo, screenshots, or something to get a basic idea of what to expect beforehand.

</comment><comment><USER7> This looks amazing (concept, not UI/site which I could not test due to signup requirements) - I had this idea for years but, of course, never got around to implement this. Now give me this as a self-hosted solution that is not phoning home and I could see many organizations using it.

<comment><USER8> Would you like some fries with that?

<comment><USER7> I don't understand your comment.

I've been part of various privacy and drug policy groups and we regularly share comments/annotations on sites in private databases. I can imagine that others want the same - let it be hackers, scientists, bizdev folks in a company or just a group of friends who want to debate a topic.

I just don't want this information to be stored "somewhere else" because I don't want to be denied entry to a country just because my opinions are not what oppressive governments don't like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Give Facebook your bookmarks, too! ;-)</comment>


Submersible Robots Hunt Lice with Lasers - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2017/04/10/submersible-robots-hunt-lice-with-lasers/ <comment><USER2> I was wondering if they've considered the impact of their activity on natural selection. Are they just helping lice evolve that will be either harder to spot or have a more reflective skin?</comment>


Miniature Macintosh Plus - <AUTHOR> http://spritesmods.com/?art=minimacplus <comment><USER2> Another nice hack by SpritesMod.

The miniature in this case is a really tiny 1/6 scale, i.e. half (double?) the scale of the known 1/3 one by John Leake:

[https://www.cultofmac.com/242234/smallest-working- macintosh/](https://www.cultofmac.com/242234/smallest-working-macintosh/)</comment>


"There were 17,000 YouTubes before YouTube" - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/boris/2013/10/28/17000-youtubes-youtube/ <comment><USER2> Sure, there were 1700 YouTubes before YouTube and yeah, the YouTube we know and use today just happened to make it due to a serendipitous combination of "execution, focus, timing and luck."

I have an idea for Twitter that's better than Twitter. I have the focus, I have the execution plan - I just need the luck and the timing. I'm willing to join forces with an Irish co-founder for the former. I'm willing to keep probing and pushing until I achieve the latter. Now, is there anybody in the house willing to throw their multi-million dollars at me?

I was hoping to read the story of how Twitter managed to fill the niche that was being slowly created by long blogs and short attention spans. The timing part wasn't serendipitous, either. IIRC, Twitter spent a year in the shadows before it really took off. I'm sure someone can structure the YouTube story in a similar timeline.

In other words, rather than ambiguously stating these four (relatively) 'oft- quoted' factors for success, I was hoping the author would explain how the serendipitous combination actually came about. And if anyone feels inspired by the authors post, I have a bridge in San Fransisco I would like to sell to you. It's not all that new but it works great!

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Vine is a pretty good example of this. I'm pretty sure every hacker in the world who heard of Instagram being sold to Facebook thought to himself, "If it works for photo, why don't we just make a video version?" Vine went and did it--and did it well.</comment>


Ask HN: Best Startup City - Outside the USA? - <AUTHOR> I know the recommendation is that your startup should locate in the Bay Area or another startup hub for the best access to resources and networking.
But for many people, the US is not an option.  These days you can't necessarily easily get a visa, especially if you're a young startup.
So, the question is, what location is the most like SF in all the ways that are beneficial for starting a startup but outside the USA?
We're a two person team.  Founders have been together for a decade.  One is engineer with deep experience, other is marketing and design expert. We're already slightly successful with our first product that has pointed the way to the Big Product for us.
We can relocate just about anywhere in the world, except the USA.  Our passports will allow us to visit most countries without a visa and we should have little trouble getting work/residency visas in countries that welcome entrepreneurs.
So, where's the silicon valley besides silicon valley?
We've thought about: Toronto- seems to have a very strong startup scene, but this is just an impression.
Bratislava- Near vienna, but relatively low cost. Seems to be growing in leaps and bounds and has a well educated populace.  Environment of low regulation and capitalism, so this could be the startup hub of the next decade.  Might not be that now.
Big Cities in Asia-  There are a number of candidates here, from Manila to Bangkok. Seems the creation of a middle class has unleashed a wave of creativity and desire to create internet startups amongst the youth in asia.  Hong Kong is an obvious possibility.
But these are just impressions.  We'd like to find a place where there is the possibility of having relatively low costs, since the access to venture capital will not be the same as it would be if we were in the Bay Area.
But access to talent, and more importantly, a startup culture seems like it would be really valuable.
But where can you find this best outside the US? <comment><USER5> * Berlin is bursting with new ideas & startup culture, cheap, great people & scene (access to money less easy but changing fast). Scott Wheeler (<http://www.directededge.com/>) a HN alumnus is based there. The guys from Dopplr (@ Nokia now but it seems they are up to sthg)

* not just Bratislava but Vienna, I heard it is also great to startup there (Schnitzelconf. sept 7 there)

* Zürich (ETH university, many Google engineers there)

* and btw Chile offers you $40 000 to start there (not sure that is a very convenient location, but that's a bit of cash and the wine is good;) my2cts Good luck with your venture.

<comment><USER6> A vote for Berlin. I'd definitely pick Berlin over London at the moment.

London is really expensive to live and financial sector is sucking in programming talent with their lucrative pay checks. I lived in London for a year and I feel that many smaller cities in Europe have as vibrant startup scene as London.

Berlin on the other hand is the cheapest capital in Western Europe, startup scene is becoming more and more lively and it's location is great for moving around Europe.

Nordics are also an option: Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen all have quite lively startup scene. In Helsinki, where I live, early stage investing is improving with very fast pace. There are no VCs here, though, but almost anywhere in Europe, you have to take look for investors from abroad in any case. But granted, Nordics are pricier to live than Berlin, although not that bad as London.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am shocked Tel Aviv is yet to be mentioned. Tel Aviv and the area are an incredible place. Israel is home to more publicly traded companies than all of Europe, 2nd to USA and Canada. More patents per capita than anywhere else, etc. Lots of young people right out of the army eager to organize with friends with the chutzpah to challenge the status quo and change the world.

See <http://www.startupnationbook.com/> A fantastic read.

Though living there if you don't have Jewish family may not really be an option, visiting for business and pleasure is easy.

<comment><USER8> Out of curiosity, I looked it up -- Israel may even be harder to immigrate to than the United States. Background: I am a US citizen, but my mom's family is Jewish. Most of my mom's family came over from Hungary during WWII, while the ones who stayed behind were killed in the Holocaust. While I am not a practicing Jew (my immediate family is mostly atheist now), this should actually allow me to immigrate to Israel as an Israeli national.

Here's the tricky part. First, Israel has an acceptance of dual citizenship, so that is not a problem. However, an immigrated citizen is also subject to conscription in the IDF, just like every other Israeli citizen (and that includes women). It seems moving to Israel and then having to do 3 years of military service would put quite a damper on your startup plans.

If you're not Jewish and of Jewish ancestry? You're screwed. There is no easy way to gain a long term visa otherwise. So I would honestly have to put Tel Aviv at the bottom of the list, not the top, for international startup cities.

<comment><USER9>
        If you're not Jewish and of Jewish ancestry?
        You're screwed. There is no easy way to gain
        a long term visa otherwise.

I personally know several non-jewish ex-pats living and working in Israel (and a ton of jewish ones), so it must be at least possible (although might not be easy).

<comment><USER8> If you know how they got their visa that could be very interesting. From what I read, the other major way to gain work entry is to have a company sponsor you (which your own startup doesn't usually count for that).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> London.

There are so many things happening here, every day, every night. The Anglo- Saxon cultural origins of England (which are shared by North America) mean people regard individualism and independence a lot more favourably than elsewhere which creates an ideal climate for starting up your own company.

As a leading global city, people are drawn here from all around the World every day so there's an incredibly large talent pool here. By definition, everyone speaks English here which can make things easier. As one of the main financial centres of the World, obtaining financing here is a lot more easier than at many other places.

England being an EU member, you can enjoy the advantages of being located within the EU (hiring, easy access to the European market, etc.); at the same time, there's considerably less government regulation than in other EU countries so you would have to deal with a lot less red tape.

<comment><USER11> What is the cost of living like there? I've always gotten the impression it's very expensive to live there, especially for housing and rent.

I've also never been there, but want to visit someday.

<comment><USER10> The costs if living in London are similar to those in New York City. Some things are more expensive, some things are cheaper but it's generally the same "ballpark".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You don't say where your passports are from, but if you're in Europe, there's London.

There are many startup and entrepreneur events on meetup.com, such as minibar, london bloggers.

Also, in terms of a geographical 'valley', there's Silicon Roundabout ( [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=silicon+roundabout&...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=silicon+roundabout&aq=f&aqi=g4g-m2&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=) )

Ah, relatively low costs - that could be the kicker. London is an expensive place to live. That said, one can still live frugally by cooking for yourself rather than eating out, and the GBP has fallen in value so it's become a cheaper place for those dropping foreign currency.

Finally, GOOD LUCK in your venture - keep us posted on your unnamed product, and where you're heading, in whatever sense of the word :)

<comment><USER13> I can recommend Brighton (100km south of London), which is great for new media kind of startups with huge pool of musicians, designers and such. It is also much cheaper than London.

<comment><USER14> Now that you're mentioning other cities in UK, I'm currently doing an internship at a startup in Oxford. From what the guys are saying, the city is a great environment for startups, with an active community and a number of VCs, but it's not that much more cheap than London.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Singapore. The government seems hell bent on kick starting the startup scene.

[http://www.e27.sg/2010/07/26/singapore-startup-government- fu...](http://www.e27.sg/2010/07/26/singapore-startup-government-funding- chart/)

[http://www.spring.gov.sg/Entrepreneurship/FS/FS/Pages/young-...](http://www.spring.gov.sg/Entrepreneurship/FS/FS/Pages/young- entrepreneurs-scheme-start-ups.aspx) "This scheme provides funding support of up to S$50,000 for youths to set up their innovative startup."

However, the startup culture and network is not as vibrant as it is in Silicon Valley/Bay Area. Also, I hear top quality developers are difficult to hire. That being said, no strings attached seed grants are bound to help to some extent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lots to recommend singapore, but getting a work pass looks like it will be fairly difficult.

<comment><USER16> Getting a work pass is bureaucratic but not difficult. Working in the tech industry plus degree is a shoo in for a work pass. If you can fill out a straightforward form and photocopy a certificate...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Montreal, Canada, for:

* Strong, diverse and friendly startup scene. From 2 to 5 startup events every week. see calendar <http://63sq.rs/52c> (View @mtlnewtech for more). Many local developer groups (montrealonrails, montrealpython, phpquebec, js-montreal,dotnetmontreal, uxmtl, etc.)

* Strong existing angel investors + new VC funds being created. You mention Toronto but actually there is more money flowing in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada

* Montreal is half european and half north american, half-french, half-english. Lots of diversity, lots of creatives. Literature : "Nearly a fifth of the Montreal region's workforce forms a super-creative core: techies & cultural & entertainment types ... Montreal also benefits from its dense, compact geography. Most experts agree that innovation and productivity are driven by density, and Montreal ranks third among all North American cities in average population density"

* Montreal is 2nd happiest city in the world <http://bit.ly/dAWLW5>

* 4 universities, plus engineering and business schools, such as McGill University, Hec Montréal, @SUPINFOMontreal or ETS

* cost of living is cheap. Not as cheap as Bangalore of course, but cheaper than Toronto, Boston and of course cheaper than San Francisco or London, U.K.

* lots of initiatives, one startup incubator (@bolidea), another one coming in September, blogs and publications dedicated to the community ( <http://montrealtechwatch.com> or also upcoming @nextmontreal), student/entrepreneur groups (@Startupifier), startup weekends (one coming in early October), conferences drawing hundreds of attendees (wordcamp, rocococamps, startupcamp, podcamp etc), big startup space soon (@notmanhouse)

* plus of course many technology projects launched every month, in average 1 or 2 new products launching every week. OstrichApp launched 10 days ago featured on apple.com, BeyondTheRack funding, statusnet, vanilla forums, Tungle etc.

<comment><USER18> Can someone explain the Montreal craigslist apartment listings to me? What does the "4 1/2" in "2br - 4 1/2" mean?

<comment><USER19> When there's a listing that states "X 1/2", it means that there are X rooms in the apartment. A 4 1/2 is usually 2 bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen area - the ad will usually indicate if this is not the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Amsterdam has:

\- The largest internet exchange in the world, which means very cheap and high quality colo

\- Several large universities with CS departments in the vicinity should you need team members

\- Excellent quality of life

\- People speak several languages, including English

\- A great startup scene

\- Tax breaks on innovative (software) products

Downsides: not cheap and hard to get a working permit if you're from outside the EU. Don't go there if you get offended by a very liberal value system.

<comment> tomh- Can you elaborate on that great startup scene? I'm only aware of companies with relations to "thenextweb" and their founders, but don't hear a lot about other Amsterdam based startups that much. I'm not aware of any regular meetups or stuff like that.

<comment><USER20> With great startup scene, I mean there are bunch of cool startups within biking distance of each other (To name just a few <http://www2.layar.com/>, <http://www.phusion.nl/>, <http://www.ebuddy.com/>, <http://www.supersaas.com/>, <http://www.guerrilla-games.com/>). So you're bound to run into fellow entrepreneurs.

It also has a large number of headquarters of multinationals (Cisco, Philips, etc) so expat services are well developed.

I'm not really into generally accessible meetups myself, but I'm sure I've seen a few announcements come by of various functions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hard to believe nobody has mentioned Tel Aviv. Definitely the #1 spot outside the USA. Soooo many startups coming out of israel lately.

<comment><USER22> Tel Aviv has many pluses:

* Good programming talent.

* Access to capital. (Yossi Vardi alone funds a lot of startups.)

* Great English skills.

And some downsides:

* Young tech people can be whisked away by the military in a heartbeat. (And the draft can go up to 40 years old I hear.)

* Not as cheap as it used to be. Talented people make only a bit less than they would in the US.

* The culture tends to be more argumentative than the US. You can find yourself spending too much time arguing about minor details and not building product.

* Design talent can be atrocious. They aren't as focused on aesthetics as Western Europe or the US.

* Ethnicity based immigration policies.

* Flying there is a nightmare for non-Jews (sorry to put it bluntly, but it's true, I know from first-hand experience). And if you hire a young male Arab in the US, they will probably refuse to go back after visiting the airport once.

<comment><USER23> Most Israelis get drafted at age 18. They get out of the army at ages 20/21 or so. People out of top quality computer related military units have a lot of experience both as hackers and managers. There's really no being 'whisked away by the military' once you've served your term (Other than reserve duty, but that's relatively minor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Try Waterloo Canada! It's a couple hours out of Toronto, and has a pretty strong technology and startup sector. RIM is based here, and many large tech and software companies have their Canadian offices (the non marketing offices) in the area.

It has the University of Waterloo sitting there, which disgorges tons of CS and engineering students every 4 months looking for coop jobs. I'm currently attending UW, so I might be a bit biased, but I really believe that taking on waterloo coops is generally a good experience for any company. There are plenty of students there who enjoy working at startups (many graduates go on to form their own startups actually), and the university goes out of its way to encourage students to attempt startups.

Definitely worth looking into. (and more companies offering coop jobs is always welcomed)

<comment><USER25> Also, OpenText is there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Hands down, Tel Aviv.

London, Beijing, Boston, Tokyo (all places where I have been and interacted with the entrepreneurial community, at least in consumer internet) have nothing on it.

There are naturally downsides to Tel Aviv, which are mentioned below and chief among which is the stupid immigration policy which probably makes it hell for non-Jews to get in to work on a start up.

However, if you can figure out a way to work there, here's what I think Tel Aviv has going for it:

1\. High appetite for risk and hunger for success/opportunity among young people. Lots of the best people are technical, and many come from middle class backgrounds.

2\. Highly entrepreneurial society/culture.

3\. Strong presence of many US Firms, VC and technological (intel, google etc..). Very tight communication lines between the Valley and Israel (many entrepreneurs and investors spend time in both places during the year).

4\. Lots of highly skilled engineers and somewhat lower costs (by US standards).

5\. A city that never sleeps and has wifi everywhere.

I mean this quite literally. You can go out at 4am to one of Tel Aviv's many cafe/restaurant/bars, order a shot of Jager, a wiener schnitzel with fries and a side salad, and an espresso to top it off, all while enjoying great wi-fi and being only minutes (walking on flat ground!) from the beach (where as opposed to SF, the water is actually warm most of the year). Nobody will even give you a second look.

Try that anywhere but New York City (with its six months of crappy weather) and I guarantee you will want to shoot yourself.

6\. Hot weather throughout the year. No need to deal with stupid externalities like snow storms or days where you get SAD because of the weather (see London...).

7\. Great research universities.

8\. Only hours flight from all major european cities. If you need to fly to London for a day or two, no problem. It would cost you a few hundred dollars - and it's shorter than flying from NYC to SF.

9\. Tons of amassed experience in building tech startups.

10\. Access to capital.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds great in many regards. However, it looks like Israel is happy to have us visit for 90 days, but not interested in having us relocate there for an extended period, unless there is a local business who wishes to sponsor us.

<comment><USER9> That seems to be the case pretty much everywhere you'd go where you're not already a citizen.

<comment><USER27> I believe the OP said he has a European passport which would probably permit him to work in most parts of Europe. The US apparently is not an option because of it's immigration restrictions, so we probably could not consider Israel an option because of it immigration restrictions also.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> London, UK. It's expensive, but it has a startup culture that's probably only second to the Valley now. You can pretty much go to a startup event every day of the week now. The scene's still developing but the growth's been huge over the last couple of years.

Another alternative maybe Cambridge, UK which is cheaper, has it's own startup community, has a good talent pool because of the uni, and is only 45 minutes away from London using the commuter train.

Elsewhere in Europe, Berlin and Stockholm both have startup communities. I'd look at Talinn in Estonia if cost is a major issue, the government offers grants for companies hiring developers which can be of significant help in reducing labour costs.

<comment><USER29> _You can pretty much go to a startup event every day of the week now._

Even worse... there are overlaps between events now. You can go to _several_ startup events every day of the week some days...

Which is, actually, awesome. Yay.

<comment><USER28> Heh I never realized you were actually in London ! - did I ever bump into you at one of those events without connecting you with your HN/irc nick ?

<comment><USER29> Possible... I go to DrinkTank on occasion, and some other events every once in a while. Usually you can recognise me by the name tag that says "Daniel Tenner" (or just check my photo on my blog...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Warsaw Poland!

I live in San Francisco, but I have to say: Warsaw is a super cosmopolitan city (though half of that is Turks), still relatively affordable, very high level of education, and it's the fastest growing economy in Europe.

Not to mention, the amount of foreign investment pouring into Warsaw is just ridiculous.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's the kind of unexpected answer I was hoping for to some extent.

How's the cost of living? How much would a 2Br 2Ba apartment in good proximity to mass transit go? Would it be super expensive to get broadband to said apartment? Or would it be something like the US where you just ring up a provider and they turn it on?

How much is english spoken there? I'll look into the residency and visa issues and put it on my list though.

Thanks!

<comment><USER31> English is common among educated people of our generation, rarely spoken at all by elders. In malls, business locations, or downtown pubs/clubs you won't find any particular problems. In terms of public service there's a pressure in this field due to hosting Euro2012, municipal police takes courses for that, etc. There's lot for improvement but it's constantly getting better.

Depending of the available provider in the area 6-10Mbps is about 15-20Euro/month, if building is covered by a nice cable network for the same 20 you can as well have 20Mbps+. You sign 1-2yrs contracts. Public wireless coverage is poor.

Real estate - rent? _take my prices only inicatively, I'm not into real estate, they're from a quick search_ ~~80m2 in the city centre goes from 700Euro/mth in an average building to 1000-1500E for a more fancy location. Places uptown with good transit (20-25min subway to centre) are a bit cheaper and there's more to choose in quality, f.ex. a modern building or an old one in a cosy quiet place. I'm talking about west riverside, eastside is much cheaper, but offers less in terms of neighborhood quality or transit.

Public transport is 20Euro/mnth, gas is currently 1.1-1.2E/liter.

If you consider moving here and got any questions, u got my email in my profile, feel free to drop a line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> IMHO the only place in Europe where there's been real innovation - and not just copycats of American startups - is Scandinavia. Think Linux (Finland), Opera (Norway), Skype, MySql, Spotify etc (Sweden).

<comment><USER33> Yes, come to Scandinavia! It's happening a lot here, there's some great iniatives to become a real innovation hub for tech companies. And most importantly - we have competence and willingness to make great inventions. Stockholm is the natural hub, but both Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo & Malmö is great. The South of Sweden have become a great place with many iniatives, companies and events.

I know, we have higher taxes, but it's a lot cheaper than UK (for example).

<comment><USER32> Hi, are there any links you can share about the South of Sweden? Many thanks! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Move to a place you are familiar with. It would take too much time learning the language, learning the culture, getting used to the local way of doing things, building your network, having support from friends/family. I don't think that the place where you found your startup is really that important.

It surely depends on the kind of startup you are building, but knowing the local industry / companies (names, people, market shares) has helped me a lot more then the actual (lack of) regulations/startup "feeling", cost of rent, size of town.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see your points, and they are valid in many cases. But if you're from morocco or south africa or vanuatu or fiji, etc it may well be the case that finding others to work for your company is near impossible or there are external factors like lack of security or rule of law, that make relocating reasonable.

Our business is a consumer internet play and so local industry isn't a big help, but the language barrier might be an issue. We'll certainly be taking these things into account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I would guess Vancouver or London.

<comment><USER36> I second Vancouver (not only because my wife and I who are both in the US are _desperately_ trying to get there ASAP).

* The tax breaks for software/web/tech-type startups is huge, not only the federal SR&ED tax for tech & biotech research startups, but KPMG also rated Vancouver #1 for "tax competitiveness" because of all the breaks the city (and province) provides to businesses, particularly startups.

* The mix of Hollywood, Video Games, and little tech businesses gives the tech atmosphere a really eclectic mix to draw strengths and pluck skilled people. The energy is "west coast" paced (meaning fairly swift but casual).

* Along with the "young" startuppy atmosphere and skillset is the commensurate payscale. It's cheaper than other cities and provinces to hire people, especially programmers. From everything I've read so far about the city, I think starting out is around 45k, then sr. positions is 60, and tops right out at around 70k for level IV guru coders. So, it's definitely not the Valley in terms of developer salaries.

* The climate is 7 months of never seeing the sun ever + 5 months of the most gorgeous weather you'll ever see. That gives you a space of 7 months to hunker down and _seriously_ work on your startup and hacking and 5 months to play as if you're a kid outside in the forest, mountains, AND ocean. It's a one-of-a-kind place for outdoor recreation, unmatchable really.

* The cultural mix is one I've never experienced before. The racial breakdown is ~50% Caucasian, 30% Chinese, then a 20% mix of mostly South Asian (Indian, Indonesian, Pakistani, etc.), Filipino, SE Asian (Vietnamese mostly), African, and Caribbean.

* You will _never_ blank on exotic cuisine restaurants, and most of them are inexpensive (well, aside from 12% "harmonized" sales tax that was recently implemented). In fact, Vancouver was named by Conde Nast Traveler magazine as having the greatest Chinese food in the world (yes, better than China and Hong Kong). And, it seems every immigrant to the city has opened up a restaurant to hawk their native cuisine.

<comment><USER37> > The climate is 7 months of never seeing the sun ever + 5 months of the most > gorgeous weather you'll ever see.

Hey, I vividly remember going outside on the day after Christmas in a short- sleeve shirt and sunglasses. Like many West Coast locations, the weather can be very random. Although it's dominated by drizzle and mist most of the year.

> The energy is "west coast" paced (meaning fairly swift but casual).

Have to disagree with you there. If you're from the east coast or the Bay Area you are going to feel like you're wading in molasses. People from Vancouver usually don't have that sense of urgency, perhaps because the lifestyle is so good. The startups I know that had real ass-kickers on staff tended to import them. ;) I'm not saying you couldn't build a team that moved quickly, but you'll have to spend time inculcating that as a value.

<comment><USER38> Upvoted for using "inculcate."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> If you love the beach, super cheap to live, eat (fresh food) and really good devs but hard to find, consider Manila.

I am from Silicon Valley but have been here for almost 7 years. Downsides: traffic, small startup scene and hard to raise money. But there's a new local fund focused on local tech going after the world. They just funded my startup. I can make intros.

Subscribe to <http://thestartupdigest.com> Philippines to get a feel for the local startup events.

</comment><comment><USER40> Vancouver - great startup scene and one of the nicest places to live in the world. Plus it's a quick flight to SF, a 2 hour drive from Seattle (an amazing startup area) and you are in Canada.

No-one in this thread has even talked about macroeconomic conditions. A lot of the places mentioned (especially US) are going downhill in a hurry for most professions. Yes, high-tech exists in a bubble that is excellent for startups, but debt is debt. Just consider the future before you move to that place.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good point. One of the things that is going to really be hurting California, and probably Portland and Seattle over the next decade is the poor way the state governments have managed their budgets. This means high taxes, on top of the increasingly highly regulated and business hostile environments there.

I can't speak to how Vancouver is in terms of taxes, as it is another west coast city. But is the BC government in a fiscal emergency?

This is something to be concerned about for England, Germany and Spain as well.

While I think I would love to live in Berlin and will consider it as a location if the visa investigation looks promising, I probably wouldn't domicile the business there due to the very real expectation that Germany will be having a crisis like Greece in a few years.

<comment><USER41> Vancouver had a big housing bubble, and now their sales have plummeted, so I would imagine the state government might struggle a little bit. [http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/07/vancouver...](http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/07/vancouver- home-sales-drop-30-percent.html)

However, overall Canada is in good shape financially compared to the other G20. Not alot of public/external debts. Here are the stats, as well as the other countries mentioned in the thread

Canada - 833 Billions external, 75.% GDP public

US - 13 Trillions external, 52.9% GDP public (~70T owed in social security/medicare uncounted)

England - 9 Trillions external, 60% GDP public

France - 5 Trillions external, 77% GDP public

Germany - 5 Trillions external, 72% GDP public

Israel - 84 Billions external, 78% GDP public

Netherlands - 3 Trillions external, 62% GDP public

Chile - 60 Billions external, 6.0%!! GDP public

Poland - 201 Billions external, 46.5% GDP public

Singapore - 19 Billions external, 113% GDP public

China - 340 Billions external, 16.5% GDP public

India - 223 Billions external, 58% GDP public

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_d...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt)

[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Dalian, China. Oil spill there recently but China has designated the entire place a tech zone and is working to make it the "Bangalore of China." Super- low living costs is a plus for entrepreneurs. Only main problem I guess would be language barrier -- while many do know English, it isn't like India where most people actually can speak it (with an accent but hey that's the least of your worries when you're trying to find the bathroom).

<comment><AUTHOR> Does this also mean that they have visa/residency programs for entrepreneurs? Or is it just focused on chinese nationals?

One concern for china is the level of bureaucracy necessary. But in every other regard China would certainly be a hoot- it is an amazing country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Berlin, Germany. Tons of startups, low costs for renting.

<comment><USER44> Just curious -- why is Berlin rent cheap? Seems like capital cities (or large cities in general), in wealthy Western countries, are generally really steep.

<comment><USER5> Berlin population was 4,338,756 in May 1939 and now it's 3.4M. Another reason is it's a subsidized new capital, lots of incentive for real estate investments in hope that the business/employments take off.

<comment><USER34> You have to take into account that in the earlier days more people lived in an appartment then nowadays.

<comment><USER43> And you can't compare WW2 Numbers with today. A lot has happend since than.

<comment><USER45> Sure you can. Berlin had no chance to really grow all through the Cold War, even worse, part of it was walled off and frontline at the same time. That's why Berlin's population plummeted even when Germany's population grew.

It's not easy to rebound from that (after 45 years), even when you become capital, pretty much all of Germany's successful post-war industry established itself in western West Germany. And not just industry, Post and Telekom are both still in Bonn and will probably be forever.

Berlin is also in the middle of a huge sparsely populated area. If there are no companies in Berlin that have jobs to offer not many people are going to move there.

(By the way, looking at lists with the biggest German cities is a bit misleading. Sure, Berlin handily comes out top, but look at this map: [+]. That's not a zillion different cities like those silly natives with their tradition would want to make you believe, that's just one city with five million people in it.)

[+] [http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Ruhr_area- ma...](http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Ruhr_area- map.png&filetimestamp=20100608150716)

<comment><USER46> Similarly, London is a mass of connected towns with suburbs in between, and perhaps two "cities" of Westminster and the City itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Come to Shenzhen. It's beside Hong Kong but without the terrible rent prices. See my latest blog entry, link in profile.

<comment><USER48> Overall, what's the cost of living like in Shenzhen?

<comment><USER47> Rent - 3000rmb, each meal 15-20rmb, coke 8rmb for the big bottle, taxi fare - 30rmb average distance, nice dinner at restaurant for 5 people - 300rmb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Is getting a Canadian visa to start a startup actually that easy?

When I looked into it, it seemed that I had to have arranged employment, or a net worth of CAD 800,000.

I'm a citizen of an EU country.

<comment><USER37> I've never heard of anyone getting a visa to start a startup.

Getting a visa to work for an existing Canadian company is generally not a problem, and Canada has a points system for accelerated naturalization if you decide you want to stay permanently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is all based on hard data we have collected from my company StartupDigest. direct link: www.thestartupdigest.com

The strongest 5 cities outside of the US for us (60% of our issues are outside of the US) based on subscribe size, growth, and click through rate are in this order:

1\. London 2\. Paris 3\. Tel Aviv 4\. Beijing 5\. Toronto

Granted I haven't lived in any of these cities long enough to know whats it really like but these are the top cities from our data alone.

My advice would be to get in touch with with founders, hackers, and VC's in these areas to get the real feel for what these cities are like. Then visit your top choices, and cowork there for 2-4 weeks.

Hope this helps!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's good advice. We'll probably do tourist visas for 60-90 days initially.

I appreciate seeing the results from your subscriber base. I also see the list of cities for which you provide info as an interesting shortlist ot consider. For instance, one city in France and Japan but three in Germany!

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> If any Canadians disagree with this post, just keep in mind these are my own impressions based on incomplete data. If you have an opposite opinion I would love to hear it to expand my knowledge.

Toronto, Waterloo, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal. All have their pros and cons.

Toronto: My town. People who say there isn't money here are full of shit. I know someone who is raising a million without revenue or a finished product (in a solid space, and the team is awesome, but still).

Benefits of Toronto: Lots of money, especially when you consider MaRS funding and all the angel networks around. Solid Rails and JS scene. Solid mobile app scene.

Problems with Toronto: Too much social media focus. Half the startups here are twitter clones (sprouter) or twitter add-ons (crowdreel), groupon/other coupon tools (can't remember the groupon clone, but there is: clip mobile for location based coupons and pinpoint social (by orange rhino media) for coupons to help track your facebook/social media campaigns), multiple "we make it easy to find a place to rent" apps (zoocasa), there is a eventbrite clone (guestlistapp (FD: my roommate is one of the founders)). I can only think of a few startups that really _invented_ anything in Toronto (like FreshBooks, my former employer, or Bumptop, I guess). There is also a lack of really hardcore hackers. Maybe I'm just going to the wrong events, but when I was studying at Waterloo, there were so many people soldering together circuit boards AND writing their own operating systems for them. In Toronto I've only really scene someone program together a computer driven laser cutter. Oh and the banks eat up a good portion of really smart hackers with their 20 year old data warehouses.

 _tl;dr:_ too much social media & finance, too little hard core hackers outside of the mobile and webapp space.

Waterloo: I studied engineering at U of Waterloo. Some insanely smart people. Smarter than you can imagine. If you hang out in the right places you'll find guys that were patching the kernel at 14. Amazingly smart and connected profs too, only too willing to help you hire alumni and coop students.

Waterloo pros: Extremely talented hackers. With two premier universities, as well as a world class research center (perimeter institute) and a focus on education the whole city feels smart. CHEAP rent. Extremely cheap. I knew a guy that rented a room for $200 a month, utils included.

Waterloo cons: The public transit isn't the greatest. Doesn't really matter because the town is small, but a pain to get groceries. Definitely a car town. I've never really seen anyone get funding for anything, besides university expansions. $50k here or there until they are good enough to make the trek to Toronto (about 1.5 hour drive away). No where near the community of Toronto. In Toronto I could find somewhere to go every single week. Rails night every third monday, JQuery night once a month, Democamp, Podcamp, hacklabs, Open Web standards night, Toronto Hacker News Night (by yours truly). There is nothing like that in Waterloo.

Ottawa: My mom's side of the family is from there. I've spent many summers hanging out near or in Ottawa.

Ottawa pros: It is fun. Clean. Well laid out. Enough hackers, no where near as good as Toronto or Waterloo (or Vancouver for that matter), but damn are they cheap. Most of the coders I know there make between $30k - $60k. Contrasted to Toronto where a really, really good rails hacker can make about $130k and where most fall in the $60k to $100k range.

Ottawa cons: Tons of political contracts and work. No real innovation. A couple really good startups though, like Shopify.

Montreal: Some family lives in Montreal, but I don't know that much about it. Been there many times, almost got engaged to a girl that is fairly influential there, but she wasn't in the tech space.

Montreal pros: Money. Game dev community, so you get some really talented coders.

Montreal cons: Everything feels run down. People can call it European, but that is ONLY in the historical and art district. Everywhere else feels halfway between Toronto and Detroit. Their highways are so bad (gigantic potholes) the speedlimit has been lowered to 60km an hour, for what clearly should be a 100km/h road. Make sure you speak French (or at least TRY, they want to see you try) if you want to go to certain areas, otherwise you just get bad service from the hardcore separatists. Also, compared to Ontario drivers, Montreal drivers are really mean.

Vancouver: Lived here for about a year and a half. Was too young to work at the time so I can't comment on much besides the non-startup factors.

Vancouver pros: Extremely lax. Feels like Seattle, but prettier and with more weed. (I list weed as a pro, despite the fact that I do not partake strickly because to most people it would be). Very beautiful. Just amazing mountains and valleys and rivers and fish and bears. Everything is nice about nature in Canada is there.

Vancouver cons: Expensive. Try buying a livable place there. Almost NY prices, without the NY salaries to compensate. Highly regulated government, Ontario is much more business friendly.

Overall I recommend Toronto if you are a web startup or Waterloo if you are in a different startup space. You say you want low costs? Go to Waterloo and if you need to get capital you can always drive to Toronto.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the very extensive writeup! I've added Ottawa and Waterloo to the shortlist. I had never even heard of Waterloo before. I'm well familiar with Vancouver and agree with everything you say about it.

Thinking about Vancouver makes me question whether conserving burn rate and finding a cheaper city is a tradeoff I shouldn't make, as it would exclude cities like Vancouver which has probably everything one could ask for in a startup hub.

<comment><USER52> Don't write Vancouver off quite yet. There's Vancouver and then there's Vancouver. Vancouver proper can be expensive or not so expensive, and then there are the numerous very closely-located suburbs which are less expensive and situated well enough that you can take advantage of everything the Vancouver area has to offer. Heck, in many cases the things Vancouver is known to offer are not in Vancouver itself but rather in those very suburbs.

This area certainly isn't the least expensive in which to live, but it isn't the most either. I can only speak for myself but I find that the view that it is too expensive has been largely blown out of proportion, especially given the benefits the area provides.

For someone bootstrapping it does depend largely on your budget and support system, so if you have any ballpark budget numbers it would be relatively easy to give you an idea of what the Vancouver area would be like on that budget.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm going to go ahead and recommend Bangalore (Disclaimer - I live here right now). While popular belief and stereotypes might have you believe that the city only has Call Centers and Outsourcing companies - it has a pretty bright startup community, which I'm only beginning to discover.

While I was born and brought up in Bangalore, I moved away for five years to College. I decided to start up after and moved back here, only to discover a very vibrant culture around technical startups. Due to the very strong proliferation of the internet, a lot of people have been picking up some pretty good technology and development stacks, and are not afraid to network and interact.

 _Language:_

Most of the population you run into have a basic working knowledge of English, and as far as communicating with potential employees goes, it's not going to be a problem. You're going to have to put up with the funny accent though :)

 _Government/External support:_

While there aren't fast-track routes to quickly get started, and there'll be a bit of paperwork involved, for which you'll need to get a local's help (heck, even _I_ am finding it a little hard). But as for bootstrapping and for staying in stealth mode, there's no place like it.

 _Cost:_

It's incredibly cheap here. Maybe not China-cheap, but cheap. I am staying with some friends in a very large luxury apartment in the center of this very large city, and the overall cost is near 480 USD a month(for 5 people). Programmers are cheap and widely available. The Experienced ones aren't as economic, but pack more bang for their buck. If you're willing to be a little flexible, it's surprisingly comfortable to bootstrap on <$400 a month.

 _Networking:_

There are meetups and networking sessions almost every weekend [ for example - <http://www.meetup.com/Mashable/16063/?a=bn5_l1> which is tomorrow). Within a month, I'm starting to meet familiar faces, and a lot of people are looking for co-founders or someone with a good idea.

I recently attended the Yahoo Open Hack Day, which attracted over 500 hackers - and was amazed at the number of people who worked nearly 40 hours nonstop to come up with some very impressive hacks.

Another great example is "Startup Saturday" - a monthly networking session held by Headstart - a company to help people startup. I went to the June 12th Meet:

<http://startupsaturday.headstart.in/event.php?eid=43>

And found nearly 180 people cramped into a little auditorium. Plenty of people from abroad, and lots of people moonlighting - trying to make connections.

 _Examples of startups:_

Just off the top of my head. There are tons more but these are from people I know personally.

<http://www.capillary.co.in/capillary/>

<http://c42.in/>

<http://www.notionink.in/>

<comment><USER54> As someone who has lived in Bangalore for the last decade (and also in the USA for a while) and knows the local tech scene pretty well, I find the idea of putting Bangalore up as a candidate for "Best startup city outside the USA" amusing. There are a _lot_ of people _talking_ about startups, reading and quoting PG's essays, attending meetups and "networking events" and so on - <USER2> not too many companies with world beating tech or validated and _scalable_ business models - which is what one would expect from a "best startup city outside the US". (Notion Ink is something of an exception in that they are at least trying to build something world class, but the jury is still out on their eventual success, but I thought they were based in Hyderabad not Bangalore. I could be wrong).

Sure, the programmers are cheaper than in the USA (I could say the same thing about say Rio De Janeiro or Beijing). There are hundreds of thousands of programmers in Bangalore but the majority are numbingly incompetent and work for body shoppers of various kinds. The good ones are rare and expensive and already have very well paying jobs. Good luck persuading them to work on your unfunded startup ;-) Nutshell: The entrepreneurial _and_ technically competent hacker is very much a rarity in Indian society.

If you don't _already_ know the devs you are going to work with in your startup _before_ you come here I for one would _not_ recomend that you try to build a company here and hope to hire good people after you land.

Also, there are no government incentives or tax breaks for startups (vs yet another bodyshop/outsourcing centre/ call centre).

Minor factual error: C42 (quoted in the post above) for example is a Rails consultancy (Yes I know the people who work there too. Ex ThoughtWorkers mostly). They might be a software startup (as the term is understood on HN) some day, but they are not one today.

There aren't any universities doing pioneering/cutting edge research (no not even the IISc, their _research_ quality is at best mediocre) which might form the basis of a successful startup.

"There are tons more" (startups)

No there aren't. At least not as startups are understood on HN. There are a _few_ startups and a lot of frothy talk. The number of people attending "startups meets" are not a good metric for "best city for startups outside the USA". _Successful_ startups that have changed the world/been acquired for large sums of money, extensive angel funding and VC funding networks, top class universities doing cutting edge research etc, are. Bangalore lacks most of these or have only rudimentary stubs of all the above.

That said, the parent post makes some good points. Bangalore _is_ cheaper than the USA (hardly surprising) and it has the _potential_ for some good startups to emerge. That potential is, as of today, deeply buried. Vancouver or London or Tel Aviv or even Vienna blows Bangalore out of the water as a "city for startups". Things _are_ changing in Bangalore but (a) _very slowly_ and(b) under the radar of such things as "startup meetups"

My 2 cents. I write this to add a bit of counterpoint to the rosy picture presented above.

YMMV. As always Caveat Emptor.

EDIT: A blog entry written by one of the founders of Riya.com when he wound up his Bangalore operations - [http://munjal.typepad.com/recognizing_deven/2007/04/episode_...](http://munjal.typepad.com/recognizing_deven/2007/04/episode_26_indi.html) .

I am not saying his observations are valid. I think Munjal did everything wrong about trying to operate in Bangalore, ("We tend to _only_ hire folks from IIT or other top schools." is almost guaranteed to ensure that you end up with a mediocre dev team for e.g.) but that is a post for another day.

<comment><USER53> OP was inquiring about opportunities in Asian cities, so I just pitched the positive sides. Sure there are tons of negative sides (some of which I have to deal with as well) and isn't exceptionally friendly to non-locals. But if you're looking for requirements as "cheap place where you can find some degree of labor", I think Bangalore can match up to some degree, atleast.

Still, if you can infer from my post, I'm still fresh out of college (read: naive and somewhat ignorant), and you should really do your homework. While there's much more talk than work (that's a fundamental Indian trait, almost), there is some minor degree of work happening. Unfortunately the people who are doing some serious, innovative work (like our small team) are exceptionally quiet.

I got the chance to watch Bala Manian [ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bala_S._Manian> ] speak, and he's currently on his latest venture here as well. It's not _impossible_ to make things work here, but it's certainly not easy. The frank opinion is the ends nowhere near justify the means unless you have a co founder who is Indian, or you're on a near zero budget (I met an American founder who travels with a Mac Mini and a keyboard in a suitcase).

tl;dr - Don't book your tickets yet, but it never hurts to keep your options open.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> shame, no mention of china, at least from what i scrolled through. china has a relatively low cost of living (food, housing, etc) and excellent infrastructure in 2nd tier+ cities. the talent pool can be somewhat mixed, i don't think you'll find very many rails or django developers, but each year there are over half a million university graduates in engineering/computer science.

in terms of living here, english doesn't go very far so if you've got any chinese speaking ability, this would be a great place for you to start something.

i'd recommend setting up LLC and so forth back at your home country and just running the show remotely.

but like the poster says, the environment is probably the single most important aspect, for that i would say that nobody beats the valley.

if language is an issue, hong kong/singapore are options, though they're too costly, but the infrastructure is first rate.

i hear in china that you can get special funding from the government to open offices here where the benefit for china is that it produces more jobs for the high tech industry. sometimes free rent + utilities. anyway, some things to think about, i know when i worked with dextrys, they mentioned that to me, i'm not sure how they arranged this though.

</comment><comment><USER56> Beijing by a country mile. The seat of gov't is here, top universities are all here, dozens of NASDAQ-listed companies which were once startups themselves are here, terrific world-class infrastructure with relatively low-cots are to be found here in the Northern Capital and - most importantly - on top of that foundation is found the same kind of virtuous cycle found in Silicon Valley and Boston's Rt. 128. That virtuous, self-perpetuating cycle is built around industry insiders peeling off of existing companies and starting out on their own with the support of a burgeoning angel funding ecosystem along with scores of world-class int'l and local VC firms.

On top of that multi-layer cake add a nice coat of all-natural entrepreneurial frosting and Beijing is simply unstoppable as a startup hub.

Up to now the vast majority of the startup effort has been spent on addressing the domestic market spawning literally dozens of publicly listed companies in the internet and wireless space (are there more than 4 or 5 countries in the world that have dozens of listed companies in the consumer internet/wireless space?). In fact, the 3rd largest internet company in the world, after Google and Amazon is China's Tencent/QQ. Up to now, China's market has grown from basically zero in 1995 to by far the largest wireless subscriber base in the world and the largest internet subscriber base in the world.

What's next? Chinese companies will start to aggressively expand via acquisition and geographical expansion and it's already happening. All those market opportunities and forces are combining to make China, and Beijing specifically, a powerhouse in creating new startups and innovative business models. The west likes to think that China is neither creative or innovative, but within a decade it will be clear that that's just not true.

</comment><comment><USER57> For those of you that have been through startups that involved investors. How important was the cost of living, office rent space? How does that importance compare to how easy it is to hire the right people? I can see how "lifestyle startups" prefer cheap places.

PS. I visited Vienna this summer and really liked it. A one-hour train trip to the east and you're in Bratislava (i.e. daily commute possible) which also was a nice city. Prague, Venice, Budapest, all reachable in over-night train trips or less with ÖBB (austrian railroads). The whole area is interesting.

Myself I'm from Stockholm and I doubt we have anything else to appeal startups with than well educated people and a beautiful place to live.

</comment><comment><USER58> Surprised to see no mentions of Barcelona. I was under the impression that it was one of Europe's startup/tech centers.

</comment><comment><USER59> Seoul, Korea. I know I am in a minority when suggesting this

Some Amazon competitors like NexR <http://nexr.co.kr/> are coming out of here

<comment> tomh- Can you tell a bit more about the startup scene in Seoul? In my experience Korean web companies are very focused on the local market or they make computer games (but don't hire international people).

<comment><USER59> You are right. Its highly local but the scene is changing slowly as the local market is fairly saturated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> It seems there are many other who are looking for a good new location. Maybe we should go together, anyone interested in cooperation?

<comment><USER61> I'm interested in relocation & cooperation. I'm a contractor working for SF- based startup while bootstrapping my own company. My problem: time-zone shift (10hrs). I like to get somewhere non-us and time-aligned with SF. Panama, Chille and Canada sounds good in this respect. Vibrant startup community and low cost of living is a plus. I don't necessary need to hire locals, because I work mostly over the Skype anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Panama City and Panama in general is the city of the future in this hemisphere. It is strategic to the chinese who are modernizing the canal, and the canal provides funding for the government. They are getting the best and the brightest as they seek to escape Venezuela and Chavez. They had a housing boom and bust, but Panama City is likely to replace Miami as the center of Latino commerce.

Costa Rica is right next door. They are very laid back. Both countries have 90 day tourist visas. So you can live in one full time by taking a weekend vacation to the other every 89 days and getting your passport stamped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> If you've got anything to do with hardware, probably Cambridge (UK).

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm interested in Chinese, Malaysian and the Philippine cities, anyone familiar with a startup scene in these countries?

<comment><USER39> I'm in Manila and running my startup here. Email me.

<comment><USER64> I'm interested in the Philippines. Is there a startup culture in Manila or Cebu, and what does that look like?

<comment><USER65> The startup scene in the Philippines is concentrated on Manila. Friendster, Insync, ProudCloud seems to lead the pack. I suggest you mail @terpua since he can introduce to the details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> IRELAND, loads of tech companies have set up in Dublin, and also with the recession Ireland has become cheaper.

I live in Galway is an amazing city loads of creatives around and a HUGE hackerspace and many festivals all year round.

Irish are cool and laid back, anglo-celtic culture and everybody loves the irish around the world.

</comment><comment><USER67> We're based in Reading, Berkshire, UK. On the one hand London is great, really great for certain things. It is up there with NYC. On the other hand it's easy to end up paying a massive premium. Reading and the surrounding area (known as Thames Silicon Valley) is a tech incubator. You've got Oxford Uni to the north, Reading Uni in town and Holloway to the East, all good for tech grads. There's cheap office space going all the way up the M4 and you're 20 minutes from Paddington.

Is it the best outside the US? Possibly not, Cambridge might be better, but you get all the advantages of London and Oxford without the failings.

</comment><comment><USER68> Not Milan and definitely not Italy.

</comment><comment><USER69> Israel, The Start-up Nation <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQliG9Wsdo> <http://www.startupnationbook.com/> [http://www.amazon.com/Start-up-Nation- Israels-Economic-Mirac...](http://www.amazon.com/Start-up-Nation-Israels- Economic-Miracle/dp/044654146X)

</comment><comment><USER70> Just wanted to say this is a very interesting and helpful post (+comments) - <USER3> don't have any experience working in cities outside the US, though some travel / extended study - but it's very interesting to see so many perspectives. Clearly the fact that there is so much disagreement points to the fact that you can find good success in many different places!

</comment><comment><USER71> Lisboa, Portugal, Europe

<http://seedcapital.pt/2009/11/18/lisbon-by-the-sea/>

\-- MV

<comment><USER71> Some important projects have decided to be located in Portugal <http://living- planit.com/aboutus.htm>

\-- MV

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, had not considered lisbon. Amazing broadband connectivity.

Any thoughts on what a 2BR 2BA apartment would go for?

<comment><USER71> Between 500€ and 1000€

\-- MV

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> @lzw This is very interesting, please keep us informed. Can you post your shortlist / decision when you have made it? Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER73> Chilean Startup Scene

On Chile, since 2007, the startup scene has been initiated at Santiago with two most highlighted products developed by Chileans, those are Needish.com & Bligoo.com.

Needish is like Redbeacon.com while Bligoo is like Blogspot.com for chileans. I have to say that Needish launched the service before Redbeacon, so Cheers for the chileans.

On 2008, I went at differents events, like www.FirstTuesday.cl and www.Webprendedor.com, doing networking with local people (investors & developers) and it was great to feel that finally the chileans are currently working developing startups. On these conferences, there were people like:

\- Pedro Pablo Fuentes Schuster who is a developer, and who's the Director of the website <http://www.chileayuda.com> specially developed to help people find information after the last Feb 27th Earthquake. He also organized the last RHoK [1] event at UChile. He haves two web development companies: <http://diDigital.cl> and <http://OXUS.cl> with a good portfolio on both companies.

\- Daniel Undurraga <http://twitter.com/eldani> Is the founder of Needish, what's Needish? Please read this article: <http://blog.needish.com/content/view/4/About.html> Also this year, Daniel with the team behind Needish, launched <http://clandescuento.com> on March and on June, Groupon acquired Clandescuento [2]

\- Cristián Sepulveda <http://twitter.com/crsepulv> is the founder of <http://Ubiqq.com> (real time conferences)

\- Paolo Colonello <http://twitter.com/colonnello> is the founder of <http://Bligoo.com>

\- Tomás Pollak <http://www.bootlog.org> <http://twitter.com/tomaspollak> One of his projects is Prey Project, a lightweight application that will help you track and find your laptop if it ever gets stolen <http://preyproject.com/> [3]

\- Leo Prieto <http://leoprieto.com/> <http://twitter.com/leoprieto> He's the founder of Fayerwayer ( <http://www.fayerwayer.com> ), the most visited blog about technology on Latin America.

\- Juan Francisco Diez <http://twitter.com/jf10> He's the founder of Chile Hardware <http://www.chw.net> , the same thing that Fayerwayer, but on Hardware things..

* Leo Prieto and Juan Francisco Diez founded BetaZeta.com, a network of Blogs.

\- Nicolás Orellana is the guy behind Webprendedor or the Chilean Startups Conference. This year is going to be held on November 19th & 20th See <http://www.webprendedor.com/conferencia-2010/>

These guys didn't went to Webprendedor, but they are also involved on the startup environment:

\- Javier Salcedo <http://twitter.com/JavierSplitcast> He's on the team of Splitcast.net, their product is a new P2P Multicast Streaming technology, which reduces the bandwith consumption on 70% and can increase the people already connected up to 70 times. <http://www.twitter.com/SplitCast>

\- Agustin Feuerhake <http://twitter.com/AgustinF> He's the founder of Voxound.com, this web application is like a music recommendation system. I didn't tested yet.

\- Esteban Sosnik. He's the founder of Atakama Labs <http://www.atakamalabs.com/> (gaming industry). Check his profile on Linkedin [http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=369165](http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=369165)

On 2009, Chris Anderson (from Wired Magazine) and Sarah Lacy (from Techcrunch) came to Chile to an event organized by Wenceslao Casares [4] and Tiburcio de la Carcova [5], called Traweln [6].

* Traweln is an informal gathering of entrepreneurs, executives and investors that work with technology, design and entertainment companies in Latin America. This year Traweln will be hosted in Silicon Valley at 455 Old la Honda Rd, Woodside, CA. More information at <http://traweln.org/>

On 2010, If you are interested to launch your business on Chile, you should read:

\- Chilean Government to attract entrepreneurs <http://www.corfo.cl/startupchile/> <http://startupchile.org/>

\- Top Reasons to Invest in Chile in 2010 <http://www.investchile.com/>

\- VISA Stuff <http://www.extranjeria.gov.cl/ingles/>

\- Startupweekend: For first time, Startupweekend.org is hosting an event on Santiago, Chile on December 10, 11 & 12, 2010. Check <http://santiago.startupweekend.org/>

Reviews of Chile on the Startup Scene: \- [http://www.inc.com/articles/2010/05/chile-next-silicon- valle...](http://www.inc.com/articles/2010/05/chile-next-silicon-valley.html) \- [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/10/chile-wants-your- poor-y...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/10/chile-wants-your-poor-your- huddled-masses-your-tech-entrepreneurs/) \- [http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2009/tc200...](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2009/tc20091020_195682.htm)

Hope this helps to get an idea of what is the startup scene on Santiago, Chile.

For any question, don't hesitate to contact me. I'm @cleiva <http://twitter.com/cleiva>

[1] <http://www.rhok.org/> [2] [http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/24/groupon- clandescuento-clube...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/24/groupon- clandescuento-clubeurbano/) [3] [http://lifehacker.com/5273620/prey-phones- home-to-help-you-r...](http://lifehacker.com/5273620/prey-phones-home-to-help- you-recover-your-stolen-laptop) [4] Founder and co-CEO of Bling Nation <http://twitter.com/wences> [5] He founded <http://www.atakamalabs.com/> with Esteban Sosnik <http://twitter.com/tiburcio> [6] Flickr Gallery: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/42080094@N03/>

<comment><USER74> Thank you for the very extensive response! Chile sounds really interesting. I have some additional questions:

What about immigration: How hard is it for a foreigner to move there / get long term visa ?

Are there many good developers and what's the average salary of a developer ?

Are there other foreigner software startups / companys or immigrants ?

What about the government / bureaucracy: How hard is it to hire developers for a foreign company ?

What about the English skills ? Of course, if we come to Chile we have to learn Spanish, but our software is written for English-speaking (and German- speaking) customers

Last question: What is the cost of living like there and where's the best place to live?

<comment><USER73> About life in Chile, visa processes, doing business in Chile, and the general cost of living.. well, you can find information here: <http://startupchile.wordpress.com/destination-chile/>

In terms of salaries for a developer with at least 2 years of experience:

Program Analyst: $1210/mo Informations: $1450/mo Civil Engineer, Information: $1700/mo Programming: $1100/mo Design and Industrial Production: $700/mo

Are there other foreigner software startups / companys or immigrants ?

There are companies such as Wanako Games (NYC), Bio Architecture Lab (Berkeley), Bling Nation (Palo Alto), Atakama Labs (SF), Entegris (Nasdaq: ENTG), InquiroGroup (Palo Alto) and Zappedy (SF). More information on [http://supercoolschool.typepad.com/startupschool/2010/08/sta...](http://supercoolschool.typepad.com/startupschool/2010/08/startup- chile-helping-founders-to-touch-ground-in-south-america.html)

What about the English skills ? I think you will be fine here, there is no deal if your software is written in a different language. (I'm not sure if I understand your point with the english skills.. you're worried because you have to learn spanish?)

Hope it helps, any doubt, don't hesitate to ask.

<comment><USER74> Thanks a lot for this detailed answer and the additional links. Very interesting arguments for Chile! We will review this information (we plan to relocate our startup next year) and also follow you on twitter.

Again: Thanks for your help!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Bangalore.

Cheap, when you look from the dollar perspective. Lot of startups, lot of socializing, lot of expertise.

</comment><comment><USER76> @lzw where do you live an what kind of software do you develop? We are also a small startup (developing enterprise/e-commerce software in switzerland) who is looking for a good location where we can find an active startup scene and hire developers.

</comment><comment><USER77> Ever thought of Brazil? Cheap as hell, beautiful and happy people, gorgeous beaches, huge huge market, very cheap internet access. I recommend somewhere like Bahia or Florianopolis.

</comment><comment><USER78> In the US the answer is NYC.

Outside the US the answer is London. Lots of startups in Soho. You also have Seedcamp and active a-list investors like Index (esp. Danny Rimer) and the Skype guys.

</comment><comment><USER79> Perth, Australia if your startup involves digging stuff out of the ground and selling it to China. Otherwise not. We do have nice beaches though.

</comment><comment><USER76> What about South America -> Chile, Argentina, Brazil? Does someone has experience / anyone familiar with a startup scene in these countries?

<comment><AUTHOR> I bet Santiago Chile, Buenos Ares Argentina, and Panama City, Panama are probably the better cities. Maybe there's a good city in Brazil. Not sure how they compare to europe, canada, etc, but I would be surprised if there weren't tech startups in all these cities. But I'm guessing they are a different culture and that not as many of the people on hacker news are located in central or south america.

I would love to hear from someone who is who can give their experiences.

I really don't care if there's no VC or angels there, but if there's good broadband, low cost of living, and a couple thousand people who know python in the city then that might be good enough.

<comment><USER80> I'm Brazilian, and I was born and live in São Paulo, I have visited Brazil (where I live), Argentina and Chile, so I think I can give an opinion.

Well, São Paulo (the Brazilian state) is a good place to start a company, it does have a large talent pool if you're willing to pay for the best (there are a lot of mediocre people working here), the majority of the best universities in the country are in the state, and it does have a decent infrastructure, though the government regulations are a mess for new business and not much people understands English as they should, São Paulo (the city) is expensive to live compared to other tech centres in the State (São Carlos and Campinas).

There are also other Brazilian states with a vibrant tech sector, the three Southern states, Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco, but São Paulo alone probably have much more tech companies than they all combined.

Buenos Aires is a better city than São Paulo for me, the infrastructure is relatively better, but I think that the Argentinian State is even worse to business than the Brazilian, some of the same problems that you find in Brazil you'll also face in Argentina.

Santiago is like Buenos Aires and São Paulo, although a bit smaller, the Chilean State is much more business friendly than other South American governments and the living is cheaper than São Paulo or Buenos Aires, but I do not know much about the working conditions for tech companies there. But I do know that it's easier to get foreigners to work in Chile than in other South American countries, and their taxes are much smaller compared to Brazil or Argentina.

EDIT: In addition, there's a growing start up scene in São Paulo and Buenos Aires, once again I'm not sure about Santiago, it does not have a tech sector so developed like São Paulo or Buenos Aires, but I think the government there is probably trying to change that.

<comment><USER60> very interesting, indeed. Is there a startup scene in Buenos Aires? Can they speak english?

<comment><USER80> As far as I know the scene is becoming stronger, although the target for the majority of new business is the Argentinian market and the majority do not have plans of international expansion initialy, this is slowly changing. I'm not sure about the language but I suspect that it falls in the same situation of São Paulo.

EDIT: This article introduces something more useful about Argentina than I'm able to provide: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/business/worldbusiness/26p...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/business/worldbusiness/26peso.html)

<comment><USER76> cool, thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Last suggestion (and I'm not kidding): What about Cuba (<http://bit.ly/a9qVqN> ) OR Suriname ?

<comment><USER76> Cuba maybe in 10 years, Suriname is beautiful country, but there are no programers

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Auckland, NZ ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland,_NZ> )

<comment><AUTHOR> I've spent time in New Zealand and quite like the country. Just looked at the immigration policies again and they seem pretty reasonable.

How have the politics of New Zealand at the national level changed over the last decade? More or less business friendly?

At the time of my visit it seemed taxes were high but government was less corrupt than in most countries.

<comment><USER83> We have a "conservative" government since 2008. Before that we were lead by a left-wing, worker friendly (with a little neoliberalisim thrown in) Labour government for 9 years.

Despite that, we fairly consistently came out tops as a great place for small businesses ([http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2007/06/01/10...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2007/06/01/100049637/index.htm)).

And also, our tax rates may seem high but overall taxation is quite low, especially compared to other countries ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income_Taxes_By_Country.sv...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg)). Note that our corperate tax rate has dropped quite a bit since 2005.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> I wouldn't recommend India to foreigners. You'll be exploited. Hire some good local managers, if you really prefer India.

</comment><comment><USER85> @lzw where are you from? Can you give us more information about you company? This is the most interesting thread ever!

<comment><AUTHOR> Deliberately didn't mention where we were from because didn't want to debate the merits of that location, so much as hear people's thoughts about other locations.

Dont' really want to talk about the company either because we're still in what I consider the early stages, and things might change.

Sorry to be mysterious. I really should make a blog and start writing posts.... will definitely have to do that as we travel.

I'm sure we'll be visiting a number of the places mentioned in this thread over the next year.

<comment><USER85> ok, I understand, but please please please keep us informed. It would be great to read you blog. Looking forward to hearing from you. thanks for this thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Toronto does have a pretty active start-up community. You'd probably want to keep close to downtown.

</comment><comment><USER87> Toronto - silicon valley north / Markham (high tech capital!)

</comment><comment><USER88> Consider,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Cyberjaya, Malaysia.

Top developers are many there.

<comment><AUTHOR> What would a nice 2BR 2BA apartment go for in downtown Kuala Lumpur? Or if expensive there, how about outskirts near public transportation?

It is hard to get a read on Cyberjaya... but it seems to be a small development focused on multinationals and not really set up for startups. Maybe I'm wrong?

<comment><USER89> I would be interested in this question as well. I got contacted last week by a company in Cyberjaya and while I didn't get to proceed with their interview, it does sound like a cool area. I have studied some Mandarin and am considering moving to a place where I could speak Mandarin daily.

I have lived in China and probably would not go back. Taiwan is another option I am considering but I imagine KL to be cheaper and more fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> What about Russia?

<comment><USER90> Here's a good article and the HN discussion about Russia. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1409194>

Basically, you would probably want to stay away from it. You can find decent engineers there but everything else is terrible for business: corruption, taxes, banks, cost of living, visas, etc.

<comment><USER76> Thanks for your tip, I will read it. I've asked because I recently found a popular .Net webstore software called nopCommerce (I think it's even the most popular open source solution for .Net) from a startup located near Moscow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Vancouver, Ottawa, Shanghai

<comment><USER92> Any notable startups from those cities that you can name?

<comment><USER93> I live in Shanghai right now and the successful startups that are BASED here are all chinese clones of popular US companies, like Youku.com(you tube), baidu.com (google), taobao.com(Ebay/amazon), QQ (social networking) etc. Some cool startups who work here but have offices in other countries are Indochino.com (Custom Made high quality mens wear), Chinese learning companies, etc.

There is also a pretty decent tech scene here with some good meetups (we just had a barcamp, ruby conf and Geeks on a Plane)

Living is inexpensive, you could live for about 250-500 USD fairly easily if you enjoy the local food and drink the $.5 Tsingtao beer.

The issue with Shanghai is it seems pretty tough to bring money in and out if you are focusing on Chinese Customers though and can be expensive to get work visas, offices (the gov makes foreigners get expensive offices), good workers. The labour can be cheap, but like everywhere you get what you pay for.

I am moving back to Vancouver, BC next month where there is also an epic startup culture growing, even with some past hiccups. But if it wasn't for the company I am with right now, I would be staying here and may still come back to start something in the next few months. I do recommend Shanghai for a good startup city for sure.

<comment><USER94> QQ (Tencent) headquarters are actually in Shenzhen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Try Tel Aviv - Israel!

</comment><comment><USER96> London, UK.

Hong Kong, China

Sydney, Australia

<comment><USER97> I have lived in all three.

London, yes; not exactly a cheap place to live but there is a huge local market you can tap into, immediately.

Hong Kong; hard if you're not a native. The place is geared towards old business. The expats are mostly either in finance, import export, or doing teaching. Really hectic and you can't put your guards down (i.e. you can't just leave the house in shorts and sandals to sit at an outdoor cafe.)

Sydney. Great place. But, fuck, it's expensive. My weekly "man money", just for drinks, lunch meetings and coffee, was $500. Rent is cheaper in the Western Suburbs, and still cheaper in far dodgy places like Paramatta, but IME, if you go anywhere west of Central you're entering a technological wasteland (except maybe for Newtown.)

<comment><USER98> London only if you have alot of capital behind you. Everything here is expensive so you better have a nice VC behind you. Finding a cheap place to stay in the city - Good luck mate.

<comment><USER99> You could find a 'cheap' place but it will have to be in Zone 6 of the Underground which is quite a few miles away from the center of London. Additionally if you want to have decent offices you will pay for it - <USER4>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FOLLOWUP:

Thanks for all the responses. A couple clarifying points:

\--- Probably the biggest thing we're looking for is a pro-business, pro- immigrant, pro-technology set of government policies. We want to live in this location for several years and be able to work without the government thinking that we're some sort of threat by doing so (the position the US takes, for instance.)

\--- We're also looking for good infrastructure. This doesn't mean we'd rule out a hut on a beach somewhere. A latrine toilet would be ok if we had good broadband.

\--- I did just ask for "Startup culture" but by that I meant that there were people who were entrepreneurial in the area, and _maybe_ there are enough people who are programmers to have a monthly developers meeting in an area of interest to us. The whole startup culture thing is a bonus, and my asking the question was to get a read on other parts of the world-- but startup culture isn't the number one criteria for our choice, but it will help us narrow down if we have multiple good candidates.

\--- We're not likely to need Venture Capital. We've got the equivalent of an angel round in the bank already. So access to capital is not that important. This is a business that will self fund and if we need capital to accelerate growth, that's not so hard to raise anywhere when you're already profitable.

\-- In looking at these answers and looking at all of the visa requirements, I'm struck by the number of countries that would be happy to have us stay there for 90 days but then would put us thru the ringer if we wanted to stay there 6 months or longer.

I wonder if there is any country that values bringing in great minds who want to build something.

<comment><USER41> Using countries submitted in this discussion:

Top penetration of broadband: 1\. Netherlands 2\. Norway 3\. Germany 4\. Hong Kong 5\. Canada 6\. Israel 7\. UK [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_broadband_Internet_users)

Best countries for small business based on regulatory climate 1\. Singapore 2\. Hong Kong 3\. UK 4\. Canada 5\. Norway [http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/10/smallbusiness/best_countries...](http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/10/smallbusiness/best_countries_for_small_biz.smb/)

Lowest corporate tax rates 1\. Hong Kong 2\. Russia 3\. Chile 4\. Singapore 5\. Poland <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world>

Countries with the least debt (asked by the OP below) 1\. Singapore 2\. Chile 3\. Poland 4\. India 5\. China

Top quality programmers (oDesk) 1\. Hong Kong 2\. Israel 3\. Finland 4\. Poland 5\. France 6\. Chile [http://www.odesk.com/community/oconomy/outsourcing_countries...](http://www.odesk.com/community/oconomy/outsourcing_countries_by_quality)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that. Seems Hong Kong is doing well on those lists, with Singapore close behind and Chile making a (possibly) surprise appearance.

I appreciate the research. I'm still working my way thru the response to the original question.

<comment><USER41> No problem. I am looking to establish a foreign beachhead myself. If you ever pick one, and go through with your decision, I hope you would post your experience here.

EDIT: I found a better link here for ease of business: <http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings/>

as well as tax rates: [http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreTopics/PayingTaxes/Detai...](http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreTopics/PayingTaxes/Details.aspx?economyid=43)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> Why not just use mobile internet and banking? It is possible to contribute to any projects from almost every place in the world.

For example, this comment was written from Leh, Ladakh (3,500m, the two roads open only for 5 month per year. Both roads have parts that located above 5000m.) ^_^

There are good old saying - If you really want something you will find a solution, if you don't you will find an excuse. ^_^

<comment><AUTHOR> Been doing that already for 2.5 years now. Figured there would be some places we hadn't thought of as tech centers and might be one of them is worth the immigration hassles to stick around for a couple years. Turns out there are several good suggestions in this thread that we'd hadn't heard about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> Singapore far and away. Low taxes, big time entrepreneurial community, cheap labor...

but high rent.

</comment><comment><USER102> network london media newyork vcs israel costs living / talrnt pool vienna/bratislavia

<comment><USER103> Not sure I agree with cost of living being good (low) in Vienna. Rent & transport is cheaper than London, but more than Berlin or so. Taxation on income is sky high - social security is ~24% on gross income for the self- employed and only decreases once you hit ~€60k (though the first 2 years are ~16.5% plus a fixed amount instead); lowest tax band of 36.5% starts at €11k yearly income - which I guess is OK as long as you're burning existing capital but really hits you once you've got revenue. The available R&D tax breaks, grants and such are clearly designed for larger corporations, not early-stage startups.

Bratislava should indeed be much, much cheaper, though.

Re: talent pool in Vienna, I can't say from personal experience, but I doubt it's better than London (though admittedly cheaper)

<comment><USER102> you are right about the tax point

i wanted to keep a positive mood about the own home town berlin and london has surely more talent. but also more competiton in getting the talent. eg setting up a shoestring team in vienna should be easier than in london. the state funds help a lot in the first years. i spoke with people in berlin. recruiting there is currently very tough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> Trier, Germany - because I live there.</comment>


Self service car "vending machine" debuts in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201803/27/WS5aba2b7aa3105cdcf6514a4c.html <comment><AUTHOR> Here is a video explaining things in a little more detail: [https://youtu.be/zFDDcTOFkEA](https://youtu.be/zFDDcTOFkEA)</comment>


Coda not so hot? - <AUTHOR> http://db.tidbits.com/article/8969 <comment><USER2> I've been using it for a week and a half, now, and I have exactly the same reaction as this reviewer. It's so great not to have to switch back and forth between different windows (different desktops, for me; I use Desktop Manager), but there are little things that keep bugging me, like the "open in same tab" thing with the terminal.

Another problem I have with it is overeager completion, but I suppose I'll just get used to this -- I was never a fan of Dreamweaver, which also does this.</comment>


no issue - <AUTHOR> https://blowcoin.github.io/digixdao_vulnerable.html <comment><USER2> I'm not following this at 100%, so I have a question ...

Is this about another DAO? (i.e. not the "first" DAO created mainly by Slock.it)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is another dao: [http://coinmarketcap.com/assets/digixdao/](http://coinmarketcap.com/assets/digixdao/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am surprised after all this thing with the dao that they didn't update their code!

</comment><comment><USER4> incorrect. the "withdraw" line is not a function, it's an event. the send happens in the conditional.</comment>