Why DTLA Is The Best Location For Your Startup
It’s no secret Los Angeles’ tech boom is spreading through the city like wild fire. While San Francisco and the Bay Area fill to the brim with startups that drive up office space and living costs, tech companies are choosing Los Angeles for more options, a wealth of tech talent, exposure and access to the entertainment community.
One look at represent.la, an interface dedicated to mapping the gamut of Los Angeles’ tech startups, proves the growing density is real. In fact, according to built in los angeles’ startup report, 2014 showed the greatest total funding in Los Angeles startups with a 188% increase and over $3B raised in overall funding. While Venice and Santa Monica’s Silicon Beach, and Culver City currently run the show for housing the incoming tech startups, Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is a burgeoning location with many attributes that make it the best for your startup.
Cost
Unlike most larger cities, downtown LA is actually a more budget-friendly option compared to our outskirted neighbourhoods. Hosting tech meccas Google, Facebook and Snapchat, Silicon Beach is a hot commodity, however, not the friendliest to startups that have yet to grow their audience and funds. At nearly half the cost per square foot, DTLA’s average rent runs a mere $2–3, compared to the $3–4 rents in Playa Vista, $5–6 in Santa Monica, and $7–8 in Venice.
This isn’t only about money going out, but money coming in. Being downtown means you’re closer to the banking sectors. Making connections and raising funds won’t be too far out of reach.
Transportation/walkability
Traffic. Nobody likes it. There’s so many other things you can be doing in your two hour commute than jailed behind the wheel in a freeway parking lot, succumb to whatever road aversions are up ahead. That’s not to say you’ll somehow be hovering above the traffic mayhem by locating downtown, but the easy accessibility by metro and bus could make those 1–2 hours your most productive commute yet. Most people skip the 3–4 transfers you would have to make from a commute to, let’s say, Pasadena to Santa Monica, by driving. Being the centralized hub of metro lines and bus stops, all lines lead to downtown. It’s quick, easy, and most often a straight-shot.
Central
It complements the point on transportation, but is its own attractive quality — Downtown’s central location makes it accessible to all within the vast landscape of Los Angeles residents. When going through the hiring process, it’s likely that your prospective talents will check a box on their search engines that limits the locations to where they’re willing to travel. Building your startup in a central location will cast a wider net for potential employees, giving your pool greater and potentially better talents to choose from. Especially when that talent is more likely to come from the surrounding campuses such as USC, Irvine and Caltech.
With finance, manufacturing, professional services, architecture and construction, and fashion companies around every corner you’re at the doorstep to every business currently being disrupted by technology. You have more opportunity to be that person disrupting their field and solving the problems they face daily. Because DTLA is so condensed, it’s easier to create these communities not only within tech, but outside it as well.
This extends to the proximity you will be to town hall. Downtown Center Business Improvement District and the Innovation Delivery Team are working to support the revitalization of the downtown district. If government is supporting you, your startup has half the backing it needs to become successful.
Growing creative urban environment
In the recent years, DTLA is attracting more of a buzz as its streets are re-energized with fresh landscapes to build new businesses . An Uber driver recently informed me that just in the past two years he’s been making more and more stops in DTLA than ever before. More restaurants, shops, bars (because we all need that afterwork happy hour), and industrial-like loft spaces target the millennials and young entrepreneurs that frequent the startup workplace and the urban environment is creatively expanding to mimic the likes of downtown San Francisco or Portland. Slowly, but surely, attention is shifting to the creative community growing downtown like it never has before. Your startup will not only be among the fresh faces but will attract a slew of millennial talent not only inspired by the creative spaces within, but around them as well.
Open floor plans
It seems silly to mention, but completes the recipe for making an ideal location for your startup. The desire to move to more historical, SOHO/Meatpacking district-like digs fits the vibe most tech startups seek. The aim to go less-cubicle, more open-floor plan creates a flow for creative thinking and allows a more cohesive culture within your company. Your co-workers are your friends, not someone whose forehead casually peers over your walled-cube to share a random thought. Downtown is peppered with these kinds of creative open spaces that brings added character to your startup. Plus, most of these high rises are equipped with some of the most high-speed fiber-internet connection, which means more output, less lag. Whether it’s the fiber-connected tower or downtown’s brick-walled loft, you want the environment in which you house your startup to feel fresh and efficient for a proper workflow and culture.
In tech, it’s all about being ahead of the wave. Think of the location where you house your startup as the foundation that sets the mindset for the people you bring into it. After all, we are all affected by our surroundings and the environments we create. As the shore seems to be creeping farther inland, the next wave is crashing on Downtown Los Angeles.
Kelsey Coppetti, rhubarbarian and contributing writer
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Originally published at www.rhubarbstudios.co.
