Does location matter?

Benefits of living in a tech hub

You'll have access to a ton of mentors and employees. It'll be easier to network. Your local accountants, lawyers, etc. will have an easier time understanding your business. And it will be easier to work on a startup when everyone else is, too. (Motivating yourself to work on a startup when everyone else is at happy hour after their 9-5 can be a little demoralizing.)

Benefits of leaving a tech hub

Living somewhere else can be much cheaper, so you need much less to achieve ramen profitability and work on your company full-time. Entrepreneurs and mentors in these locations are few, so they stick together and help each other out.

I don't live in a tech hub, and my location isn't a particularly big obstacle. If you plan on moving out of a tech hub, I'd just recommend building an audience (via a blog, email list, social media, etc.) to counteract the loss of in-person contacts.

Location matters because of the language.
If you are a native English speaker your online life is a lot easier!

For all my friends born in the US/UK/AU: try working/launching a product in another language. I can assure you it’s very challenging! 😅

For b2b sales and hiring it's good to have strong local network. The more your business is b2c and the more it relies on online sales, the less you depend on location. There are big companies, like Gitlab for example, which do not have a HQ at all.

However, trust matters even in online sales, so if you are selling in the US market, it's the best to have a US entity, address and Stripe/Paypal/Braintree merchant. You can even do it if you've never been to the U.S., check this out (my side project): www.saaspilot.co

Use VPN and browse from your location of interest - The internet is a silo if you don't use it. I felt that when I went back to my home country recently.

I really enjoy living in a small-ish city (I'm in Charleston, SC) with an active startup/entrepreneurship community. I have a half-dozen or so other founders that I try to meet up with for lunch every so-often.

Great to get perspective & face-to-face time in with other founders. Not something that can be replicated online.

As usual the answer is "it depends".

If your product has potential users that are limited to a certain group of people where you can meet your users in person. Then yes, it will be beneficial for you to be able to meet and mingle and discuss particular opinions and features or solutions

OTOH, if the chances to meet your users are just as big in the location where you are now as in any other location then it most likely will not matter much.

If you can do your work at the location where you are then you already might be at the correct location.

I genuinely believe time-zone can make a difference. There are so many distractions from work such as support notifications all the way through to world news.

Some places in the world can give you a solid few hours of uninterrupted focus, just by being in the rigt time zone.

Not in the slightest.

I'd argue that language matters (per location). But if you're an English speaking/writing person, you're welcomed most places in the Western hemisphere (online).

The only benefit of living in a certain location is if your product is targeted at that specific location. That, and proximity to other people doing similar things to you can help you grow (personally) and learn.

I live in a small town with 10000 people.

I'm based in a small city in Ireland, with very little to no tech scene. Location matters on some level I'd argue. There aren't any meetups or events in the startup scene here - and haven't been for some time. Networking therefore is incredibly difficult and has to be done almost exclusively online, which is most definitely not as effective.

I work full time while bootstrapping Survais, and have a decent wage for my age/location. Benefits are that rent is incredibly cheap. Not sure if it is worth it though. The lack of a network/buzz in the area is definitely disheartening.

Not in a major city either. It's nice to work in a familiar place with friends and family but it also provides lots of opportunities for distraction unfortunately. If you want to focus more on the product you should move to a new place.

Side note - I'm not currently located in one of the major tech hubs of the world, and will be looking forward to hearing the perspectives of those located both in and out of these cities.