Build here, Launch there
The geographically lean startup.
Three months ago I left my job to start building a new mobile service with my former colleague and roommate Solène, full-time. For a while, the two of us had been discussing where and when we should move next from Paris. At the time, it seemed the city would not offer us enough opportunities or let’s say the right “ecosystem” to start off.
Despite being quite passionate about our product and spending all these extra-hours we lost quite some time thinking about where to move next! So we hope our story below will help you avoid these endless conversations with your team.
When we started we had everything in front of our eyes: excellent engineers from the world’s top schools who were friends of friends of Solène and extra-enthusiastic design interns from my former school, who were just a phone call away. Plus, we had the chance to find enough people to trust us–much more than we anticipated actually–to raise money from angel investors.
At naow we are building a new and playful app to engage with people around in creative ways. We intend to build a new kind of mobile playground for the here and naow (yes, that is where the name came from our awful French accent). You can register to join our beta here.
Our team was quite happy to work in the pleasant le Tank co-working space for 3 months in Paris. We were surrounded by generosity, learning from early users in this space, and our former company, faberNovel. We recruited the most dedicated workforce and alpha testers for our project in the blink of an eye. We proved our commitment to our closest investors (thank you all).
In staying in Paris, we saved on the expenses and hassle of traveling prematurely.
We would have missed out on many things by moving too early to Berlin, London, or even further abroad. All these opportunities did not come from the city. They came from long friendships, professional ties, and a certain amount of acquaintances that actually form what you would call an “ecosystem”.
As a stranger in a new city, you need to take into account how much time you need to get to that certain level of connection and to build the right network of people. It could cost you time and energy if you try to move too early—seduced by the headlines of the tech blogs and magazines. “Paris is the New Berlin”—“London the New Berlin”—“The Alley is the new Valley”…you have all read it.
Then came the time to fear not and finally move abroad. I remember us looking at the different options before booking our flights, trying to ask ourselves the right questions and to anticipate our next challenges. For us it was mainly a scale issue as our first target group—students living on campus—is not well represented in Paris. Come on, if you are in the most beautiful city in the world, who would sign up for the full dorm experience in the suburbs when you can live in a 7 sq. ft shoebox with a view of the Eiffel tower? LOL.
So here are some the questions we have been asking ourselves for the past three months and that you might want to ask yourselves too. Before moving abroad with your big idea and your team.
These questions won’t work for all start-ups but we are confident that they should help you a little bit in finding your professional nid d’amour (dreamed location):
Are you looking for founding members? If so, you should look for people fluent in your own language (believe it or not it’s not always English) and close to you. So it might be too early to move.
How clear of a picture do you have of your product/service? If you are testing a product/service, your beta-testers profile will have to change every two weeks, so you might want to stay a little longer with your friends & family and avoid looking too fickle to everyone else.
Who will fund your company? There is quite a gap between friends’ & family money and Series A investors. If you leave too early, you won’t have enough time to convince your friends & family to bet a few bucks on your idea. And you will arrive in a city where you’ll indeed find VCs, but given that they don’t know you, it isn’t likely that they will invest in your 6-slide pitch deck with absolutely zero knowledge of your team.
Which incubator do you want to join? … I am just kidding on this one! Run awayyyy!
Again, all four of these questions might not apply to you. However, we do hope they will spark a conversation among your team and help you determine whether it is time for your startup to hit the road! Oh and don’t forget your passport.
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