As a software developer, I’m constantly hearing people talk about California. Silicon Valley and San Francisco are the places to be. And increasingly people are talking about New York as a tech city as well. These are wonderful cities for technology. There are tons of startups, established companies, venture capitalists, like minded people, and constant tech events. Add that to the beautiful weather in California or the massiveness of New York, and what’s not to love?
A few years ago when we started FadingRed, Brittany and I were living in Chicago. Neither of us had anything that was really keeping us rooted in Chicago, so we discussed moving to San Francisco and starting our company there.
At the time, I’d never been to California, but I’d always heard good things. Throughout college, people talked about moving out west like it was the promised land. No more cold weather, beaches, job opportunities, relaxation, etc. It seemed like there was a never ending list of reasons why California was the place to be. So when we talked about starting our company there, it was a really exciting possibility. Ultimately we chose to stay in Chicago, though, and I wouldn’t go back on that decision.
Chicago is not a city that people think of when they think tech, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no tech here — there certainly is! There are developer meetups for people in various tech scenes, great conferences are held here, we’ve even got some big named companies here as well. And as for the weather, well I enjoy the seasons — we go from grilling to ice skating, and the winter really isn’t that bad. So what makes Chicago better than San Francisco? Technology isn’t all around you all the time.
I’ve been out to San Francisco a few times now, and it doesn’t take long for the pervasive presence of technology to wear on me. You just can’t escape it. In coffee shops people are talking about their next product idea. On the way to lunch, you hear people discussing nitty gritty implementation problems. You could, of course, explore the cultural side of the city and enjoy restaurants, museums, music, etc, but you’re still pretty likely to happen upon a bit of technology during your journey.
When I leave the office, I want to leave work behind. Now, it’s not that I don’t enjoy what I do. I do. But I also enjoy so many other parts of life. I want to have a break from tech so that it’s refreshing to come back to it the next day. Even when I hang out with coworkers or other people who write software, it’s nice to take a break and talk about life rather than just what’s new in the tech world. Here in Chicago, I feel like I can have that break when I need it. When I grab a cup of tea, I can sit and just enjoy the peaceful murmur of the conversations around me without my brain firing on all cylinders. And as mentioned previously, when I’m in the mood for a good tech meetup, we have those too. There’s really nothing not to love about this city. It’s the perfect place for me at this point in my life.
In the end, this is not a why my city is better than your city article. The takeaway is this: consider your city or town as a good alternative to one of the big tech cities, because it is. There’s no reason you can’t have the best of both worlds, and chances are it’s already in your backyard. Go enjoy!
It’s been a year and a half now since FadingRed became a registered LLC. A year and a half — that’s not very long — you must be a startup, right? No.
The term startup is usually used to describe young companies in technology. In general, startups have relatively small teams and a reputation for being fun, hip companies where people love to work. This is exactly the kind of environment that we’re working to create, so why is this not a startup?
There’s a couple of commonalities that you’ll find with startups. First, they are seeking or have already found someone to invest in their company. Many startups even receive funding before anything has been built; they have an idea that an investor believes in. When more money is needed, an additional percentage of the company can be sold. Because investors are involved, return-on-investment becomes a key part of the business. Investors are hoping for high returns because the company is growing rapidly.
Growth is intriguing because the real goal is for revenue growth. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught watching the number of employees grow and anticipate that revenue will follow. Regardless, once hiring begins, startups add many new team members quickly. I’m not talking hundreds of people, but it’s likely that they may grow from five people to fifty in less than a year. Such fast paced hiring often leads to startups bringing in an executive with experience to help manage.
The first employees who work for a startup are compensated with stock (in addition to their base salary). These employees clock crazy hours because they love what they’re doing. What’s more exciting than working on or having just completed a 1.0 product? Working a little extra at the end of the day or on the weekend is no big deal because it’s so much fun. There’s a culture of energy and excitement!
Everything could change — for better or for worse — in a split second. So much is happening so quickly that it’s hard to control and mold your company into what you really want it to be.
While much of the what’s written above are generalizations, it fits with what comes to mind when a company is described as a startup. There’s too much, though, that just doesn’t fit with what we want our company to be.
For as long as I’ve been developing software for the Mac, developers who either work for themselves or small companies have been referring to themselves as indie developers. This, of course, is short for independent developers. Independent is a great way to describe our company — we think independently about how our company should operate.
We don’t have investors. We don’t work late or on the weekends. We don’t focus our energy on growing rapidly just for the sake of growing. We think outside the box.
When we started, our company didn’t have anything in the bank; we didn’t even have a bank account. A small operational overhead has allowed us to get off the ground without outside funding. For us, this was an ideal starting point. Starting from zero allows you to really understand how much revenue you need to support your business. Our revenues have been good, and we’ve built up to the point of being able expand our team. Expanding makes sense for us now because we have more work than our team can handle. We are growing because we need to grow not because we can.
We don’t work on the weekend because we don’t want to. That’s personal time. No one wants to feel like their entire life was spent working. We plan things out so that nothing critical happens at the end of the week, so there’s nothing to worry about during the weekend. Everyone should relax and enjoy life outside of work, and the weekend is your time.
What we’re building is a place where we love what we do, where everyone who works for our company loves what they do. Decisions are made based on what is best for business and our happiness. We don’t report numbers to investors to determine our success. Our success is based on the quality of what we create.
