Sergey Brin: “Don’t come to Silicon Valley to start a business”, and I moved from San Francisco to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

“During the boom cycles, the expectations around the costs — real estate, salaries — the expectations people and employees have … it can be hard to make a scrappy initial business that’s self-sustaining”, Sergey Brin(Co-Founder of Google) said.

Sergey Brin, Co-Founder of Google

This is one of the reasons why I moved out to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our startup, Construct Studio, is now making a proof of concept of interactive storytelling in virtual reality, in order to show to investors.

A few months ago, I discussed with my co-founder Joel about moving to the Bay Area to start this company. I told him that:

• there are hundreds of VR startups creating their VR experience at accelerators like Rothenburg Ventures, BoostVC and Orange Fab, or at co-working spaces like UploadVR Collective and GSV Labs;
• every night, there is at least one virtual reality/augmented reality meetup or conference happening in San Francisco Bay Area;
• I could meet at least one VC who is looking to pour money into potential VR companies at every event;
• there will be at least one Demo Day every three months about virtual reality or augmented reality and it always full with investors.

However, I couldn’t convince him; his argument: everything is too expensive in Silicon Valley. I had no strong point to convince him, because all we need right now is just to complete the proof of concept. However, I didn’t like Pittsburgh, due to its freezing winter (something Joel could live with, being from Buffalo). So I decided, I’m going to go back to convince him to come to Bay as soon as possible.

2015.02.13 The night I almost died on a snowing night in Pittsburgh

Turns out, Joel doesn’t like the cold winter either. But he was right, we don’t need to be in Valley to start this company. Once there, I found that Pittsburgh is actually a really nice place to start a business. The most obvious advantage is the cheaper rent. But what about the lack of networking opportunities? I found there were other advantages to counter this. Since we both graduated from Carnegie Mellon University, we knew the area pretty well:

• We knew how to find technical support;

Faculty members are still very supportive after, even we graduated.

• we knew how to find cheap but good food;

Local sushi place Sushi Fuku. My favorite 10-piece raw salmon sushi roll only costs $7.20 with tax included.

• we knew there is no tax for clothing (even though that has nothing to do with starting a company…well maybe it does, we can’t be naked while working with teammates);

• but most importantly, we knew where to find the best talents — Carnegie Mellon University.

Facebook’s Oculus has located a virtual reality research division here in Pittsburgh because of Carnegie Mellon University’s talents, the same reason Google and Uber are here.

It has just been 3 weeks, but we already have 6 fantastic and passionate teammates in Construct Studio. Five out of the six were from Carnegie Mellon’s Master program Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), the same program Joel and I graduated from. We all learned the same way to work on projects, so we are having a great time working together and creating things efficiently.

We haven’t started seeking any funding. Joel and I pay for everything out of own pockets. But we don’t have too much pressure on the living expense, since it’s just at most $400 a month here. Our studio is currently located in my friend’s living room, just like Silicon Valley on HBO. We sleep, we play and we work, in the same space, paying $300 for three months straight.

With a table, a projector and a few chairs, we can have our sprint planning meetings.

A big space for HTC Vive VR headset is never an issue in Pittsburgh. $300 for three months straight.

I hated Pittsburgh once, but I want to take it back now. To build a proof of concept, Pittsburgh is a better place than Silicon Valley. Thanks to all of my friends and connections in Pittsburgh, I’m grateful to have you all. We’ll come to you Silicon Valley, but in the meantime, we will concentrate on making our proof of concept the best it can be. Thanks to Pittsburgh.

Inspired by Business Insider’s Tech News “Sergey Brin: Don’t come to Silicon Valley to start a business”