New York's startup scene has grown over the past few years, but it's still a much different experience building a company in NYC than in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Movable Ink CEO Vivek Sharma describes it like this:
"If the Bay Area is the PhD program, New York is still in high school. We have a lot to learn. And there are things that that make New York different. Things you start to feel as a company scales."
Sharma built his "dynamic email" startup in New York, turning it into a profitable company in just 5 years (now with an office in the Bay Area).
And while the challenges of creating a company away from the center of tech power are fairly obvious, there are also benefits that might surprise you, he says.
Sharma points to one main factor, in particular, where New York can be much better for startups: employee loyalty. "When I worked in the Bay Area, everyone was mercenary. Some people come in there and didn't care about software, they just wanted to strike it rich."
And Sharma says the same thing is happening today.
"If you are constantly thinking about needing foosball tables and a private mixologist, it can be very detrimental to that ecosystem," he says. "Google, Facebook, Airbnb - they pay small fortunes to people." Sharma says it can be hard to keep people.
New York is different.
Sharma says he finds that the really talented people in New York are often more committed. They've already made the choice to stay in New York, to try and build something meaningful in a particular ecosystem. Perhaps this is what makes them more likely to make the same commitment to a specific company.