Ask HN: Has anyone here started a software company in a small town?

8 points by vital101 7 years ago | 3 comments

Hello HN,

I am originally from a town of ~6,000 people in northern Michigan. My story mirrors most of the college educated students in my graduating class: moved away for college, got a degree, and then stayed away from home because there are few jobs for college educated people.

I've always wanted to give back to my home community by starting a software company there. The local economy couldn't support a software consultancy, but a SaaS company could work. The obvious problem is attracting and retaining talent [and also having a profitable company ;)].

I suspect that there are software developers out there that would want to have the small-town lifestyle while still working on interesting things and not having to be remote.

So, has anyone here ever started a software company in a small town? How'd it go? What were some of the problems? Successes?

Thanks!

uberman 7 years ago |

I initially wrote a rather long post about the disaster that was my experience. I have not really talked about it in a decade and it felt good to rant about it. If there is interest, I'll post the longer post as well.

I'm sure there are great small towns and not all experiences will be like mine. My caution from personal experience is this: Make sure you actually understand the politics before you invest any resources. Perhaps as a this is your hometown you will be able to succeed where I failed.

Small town politics are insufferable. In this town of 2800, one extended family held every political office and every board membership, and by extension controlled every municipal job. If the town leadership don't support you, you are screwed.

No matter what your intentions are, you should expect that some members of a small community will question them and distrust you if you are an outsider. This prejudiced will extend to any out of area employee you bring on board. Someone actually challenged my efforts to install solar power stating it would cause cancer.

The graduating class typically had one kid moving on any form of higher education. Education and technology were just not priorities for the people of this more agrarian community.

armagon 7 years ago |

Hi.

1) I can't find the really clear article that introduced me to this, but a fellow started a hardware/software company in Nelson, BC (2016 population = 10 664 people). It appears to me that he moved to the small city for the lifestyle, started networking for like-minded people by forming a hacker space, and was able to found a high-tech company. [1] [2] [3]

2) I have a friend who had some success making mobile games, and asked a couple of us, who live in the rural southern Alberta, Canada (my town's population is ~3500) to help co-found a company to do more of this. [I myself am a programmer, not an entrepreneur]. We did contract people (especially programmers, artists) around the world, peaking at around 30 people. The business did really well for about three years but is struggling now.

I wish we could afford to hire local talent. I see so many incredibly talented people, such as a world-class painter, struggling to make ends meet. I also know that the chief limit on people moving to my area is simply the lack of jobs.

Cheers.

[1] https://kootenaybiz.com/40-under-40/article/brad_pommen [2] https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/econo... [3] https://smrt1.ca/about-us

twunde 7 years ago |

I've worked in the NY suburbs. Finding office space with high speed internet and enough parking can be challenging as you grow. Financing will probably be the more traditional bank loans, although it's worth checking to see if Michigan has any special programs for starting a company in a small town or rural area. For engineering talent, expect a number of capable people without CS degrees.