How to build another Silicon Valley

I have been asked thousands of times by government organizations, investors and entrepreneurs what I think it would take to create a Silicon Valley in Europe, Germany, Australia, Spain …. fill in the blanks. My spontaneous reaction has always been “You can’t“. But living in Silicon Valley I just put my business thinking on and looked at it as a need in almost every country, a lack of understanding what Silicon Valley really is and a massive problems that should be solved in the interest of global prosperity and even within the US. I found it interesting to see that neither New York, nor Austin, Florida or Chicago who are trying hard to emulate Silicon Valley for decades have not been able to build another Silicon Valley.

Understanding Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is not a geography, but a very unique culture that embraces a unique mind set where everything is possible. “If you can think it you can build it“. Silicon Valley has absolutely nothing to do with engineering, innovation or technology. It’s all about creativity and developing and following visions that are greater than live. The 70+% of Silicon Valley companies that fail are typically the engineering driven businesses, lacking of a strong business case, lacking of a bold vision, lacking of market connection and lacking of communication skills. Another interesting fact is that you will quickly realize that the typical Silicon Valley entrepreneur is NOT somebody who is born here, went to Stanford and started their company. The reality is that approximately 80% of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs come from anywhere but California. Being open to people from other nations is an essential part of Silicon Valley. Coming to Silicon Valley you learn to think like everybody else here within a few month. That said: The hundreds of delegations coming from all over the world to visit and want to see what it is like will not even get a glimpse about the Silicon Valley spirit. Yet the vibe is so strong that everybody comes home, fully energized, thinking we have to have that too. Unfortunately every single one trying failed so far.

Silicon Valley is not one of a kind

Silicon Valley was never created, it created itself. But it was built on a foundation that was ideal to bring it to life. The proof can be seen right now. The old Silicon Valley was the area between Palo Alto and San Jose. Today that area is actually old economy and Silicon Valley is now in San Francisco, approximately 40 Miles north of the old Silicon Valley. So it can be moved, relocated, displaced. And if it works within 40 miles it could work within 400 or 4,000 miles. Also interesting to learn: Silicon Valley is not the first if its kind. It was actually the ancient city of Alexandria. By building the great library people from all over the known world came to gather and discuss all kinds of earthly and heavenly topics. It was exactly that cultural melting pot and spirit of creativity we see in Silicon Valley today.

Think like a Silicon Valley guy and you will find the solution to your challenge

To make it short, here is model that is 100% successful for creating an environment that attracts the people you want to attract and per hops another Silicon Valley:

1. Develop a clear and bold vision about how it will look like in 20 years from now
2. Make sure you are solving a massive and real problem in your society
3. Don’t waste a millisecond with people who believe it is not possible
4. Surround yourself with the smartest people you can find and collaborate
5. Make sure you have a huge market which needs what you offer *
6. Look for a geography and political environment where everything is possible **
7. Verify your vision with at least 50 people who should benefit from your plan
8. Practice openness, transparency and an attitude of learning from others in everything you do
9. Share your plan and your ideas with at least 1,000 people before you even start
10. Create a new spirit with about half of those 1,000 supporters
11. Become a communication genius (Listen, learn, explain) and do it exclusively in English
12. Develop a model that completely disrupts what exists — in this case Silicon Valley (yes you have to) ***
13. Ignore everything that exists, build your plan from scratch
14. Be rigorous and do not allow any compromise what so ever
15. Create a detailed plan and list all the resources you need i.e. supporter, team, activities, capital (never develop a plan B)
16. Find 42 teams (entrepreneurs, investors, supporter, politicians) that have the power to make it happen
17. Be ready for relentless and obsessive execution

* Top 5: If the population of a country does not understand the importance of your project and you don’t have the resources to educate them, move on to another country or to Silicon Valley — like all the others :)

** Top 6: You find this today in San Francisco, Austin, Seoul, Berlin, Shanghai and many other places. To the contrary many cities try hard to build such an environment like Munich, New York, Paris, Milan, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and thousands of others, but just can’t get over their own built up limitations and restrictions, interdependent obligations or sometimes even corrupt leaders.

** Top 12: If you don’t disrupt what exists it is not even worth mentioning what you do.

If any single one item on the above list is ignored you will fail with 100% certainty. And thousands have failed already. ‘Let’s try’ is not working, trying is not an option. ‘We will do this, but carefully and step by step’ (this is so funny) and it’s not working either. ‘Maybe we start trying to build a small version of it’ — just think: Silicon Valley is about bigger than life, small is not the Valley at all. ‘OK let’s do everything they do’ — also bad idea as SV is about leadership — not followership. ‘All we need are more investors’ oh what a BS investment flows always wherever opportunities are — no matter where in the world.

Make it happen

Now go build it. Maybe in Seoul, Berlin, Sydney, Lucerne, Singapore, Amsterdam, San Remo, Santiago… you name it. It can happen anywhere in the world where the situation is great for entrepreneurs to start their business. Give them a space, access to the internet, some laboratories, total freedom, experienced mentors, capital and they will come. Obviously any country with corrupt or dictator leadership will not have a chance to participate. So funny — despite the the fact that China is on a huge rise, it would not (yet) fit the list for a Silicon Valley style environment, it’s just too restrictive.

Oh — one more thing, very important: Make sure it is near a beach, mostly sunny year round, has a lot of parties going on or at least nobody who prevents them and has an international airport nearby :)

If you need help doing this in your country, feel free to contact me @AxelS