Roman asks Whether he should move to start a company. So where do you start a company? Where the people are, of course.

You need enough people who are willing to take a risk on a startup. Roman's in the Atlanta area--I bet there are plenty of people there. I don't think he needs to move to Silicon Valley or Boston if he wants just a handful if people to start. But if he needs 200-300 people, it's possible he might need to move to Silicon Valley, where more people expect to work for a startup.

When you're starting a company, you need enough depth in the candidate base--or a sufficiently attractive startup--to attract candidates. But the startup phase doesn't last all that long (we hope), and at some point, you need enough candidates to keep the hiring proceeding. You can either be in a location that has a large number of potential candidates or be a sufficiently enticing employer to be able to attract candidates.

There is something about the old phrase about real estate: Location, location, location. But any reasonably large city will be attractive enough to potential candidates. It's the companies who are more than an hour from a large city who have real problems.

Labels: candidate, location

posted by Johanna Rothman at at 10:33 AM | link |