Ryan Rutan: Welcome back to the episode of the Startup Therapy podcast. This is Ryan Ran joined as always by Will Schroeder, my friend, the founder and CEO of Startups.com. Will, we've podcast about this before in the past, and, and historically, you know, the, the mantra in, in startups was very much like that of real estate, which was location, location, location, right? It used to, used to seem to matter a lot, particularly if you wanted to get funded. And what was it now, almost 10 years ago you packed up the family and moved across country, um, in order to be at the epicenter of the startup world in in California. And how'd that work out? and like, what would you do differently this time? Would you still do it now, like 10 years later?
Wil Schroter: You know it's awesome? I wouldn't have to. I, you know, I was, I was having a conversation with uh with the founder last week, and she was talking about she wanted to move to California, San Francisco specifically, you know, she said, hey, you know, that's where the capital is and uh and I said, well, you know, I've done that myself. I've, I, I moved my family specifically out to San Francisco, uh, to be closer to everything, you know, etc. This is, but. As I was explaining it to her, I was starting to think, you know, some of this stuff actually doesn't apply as much because when I moved out there, I moved out to get my dates right, I moved out to to uh Los Angeles to Santa Monica in 2006, and then, uh, later on, I'm making up my days like 2009, I guess, 2010, went to San Francisco and then then back to LA doesn't matter. Point is, I was there a long time and it was a very expensive move and I just mean financially. I mean, just like lifestyle-wise, you know, my, my family, all my friends, you, everybody else was in Columbus at the time, and moving was, was a huge commitment. But at the time, all the things you needed were there specifically the talent, the money, the, you know, uh, the infrastructure, everything else was there. And so you kind of had to make the pilgrimage. But as I'm explaining it to her, I keep saying to myself, uh, you know, that actually doesn't apply anymore. Wait, no, that actually doesn't apply anymore either. And after a while, I was like, I don't think you really need to move.
Ryan Rutan: It's, it's crazy. I mean, think about all the things that have happened since then from a global pandemic that that made the already uh fairly strong push towards remote work just become a thing for, for everybody. The fact that we're all essentially now Zoom natives, like we're, you know, we're we're doing stuff like this on a, on a, you know, daily basis multiple times a day, where it no longer feels weird. We're more socially connected via the networks that we use online than we ever were before. And so the, I mean, even, even just since the time that you and I did this another version of this. Podcast previously, things have changed again, like significantly, unbelievable.
Wil Schroter: And so I thought it was worth revisiting because I, you know, incidentally wound up revisiting it without even realizing it. And it was really interesting because I wasn't even trying to make the case for not moving. I was making the opposite case. I was trying to state it. I just like kept correcting myself going, you know, what I used to, yeah, yeah, but actually, so I think we look at 3 reasons, 33 categories, OK, that startups move. They. Move for because they want to be where the talent is, right, which, you know, was always valid. They move because if they're raising because they want to be where the investors are and that's pretty specific. And then the third is they want to network. They, they want to be around other people and, you know, and grow their networks
Ryan Rutan: in
Wil Schroter: the
Ryan Rutan: zeitgeist, yeah,
Wil Schroter: yeah, and it's just what was really interesting is as I looked at those 3 like seminal reasons you pack your shit and go, I was like, damn, there's no way I would do that now. And it was a great experience, so I'm not looking at it like, oh my God. It was terrible. It's amazing. I, you know, I got, I raised money from investors. I hired tons of people. I built a huge network like, uh, I did all the things. But if I had to do it over again right now, probably wouldn't. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: I think there's a difference between being a good experience and it being a necessary thing. I think we talked to so many founders who were like, I have to go do this. I don't want to, but I have to. And I think that that's just, that's that's something that we will probably end up dispelling in the next 30 to 45 minutes. Yeah, you know,
Wil Schroter: and I posted this, uh, after I had that conversation, posted this on Reddit. Right, and Reddit always fascinates me because nobody's happy on Reddit. So if, if I want to make sure everybody, like I can get a complaint from everybody, I post it on Reddit. And so I posted on Reddit and I, I think I was a little more specific. I said, is it still worth moving to San Francisco? And I wanted to make it specific to San Francisco so I didn't get everybody defending their, their city, right? And, uh, mixed results, you know, some people were still adamant like if you're going to build a big company, it has to be in San Francisco and other
Ryan Rutan: folks saw some of that conversation though and like at least one. One or two of the people were like, yes, you have to move to San Francisco. And then when you look at their location, like, that's not where they were though. So like they're telling you you have to go do this, but they haven't done this. They're not doing this like, come on.
Wil Schroter: I love Reddit because it's a mixed bag, you know, it's just a different version of social media and, uh, I posted it there again because I knew people would have strong opinions, right? And like if you're on Twitter or if you're on LinkedIn, you tend to follow people's opinions that you like, you know, if you're a Democrat, you follow Democrats, you're Republican, you follow Republicans. But on Reddit, they just tend to throw everybody in the same room and you kind of get. and everything. So to your point, what was interesting about the conversation, it was a pretty lively one. There are still people that genuinely believe that like, again, this is San Francisco, but I'm using that as a proxy, that believe if if you're gonna build a meaningful company, it's still in San Francisco. And there's data to support that. I, I, I, I think it's a little bit, I don't know how causal it is. It's, you know, the biggest companies are in San Francisco. Oh, maybe, maybe the, the best entrepreneurs end up moving there and build them there. It doesn't mean that they couldn't have built them elsewhere, just means they didn't.
Ryan Rutan: I think it becomes a self-fulfilling. Obviously at some point, if everybody thinks they have to go there to build so that everyone goes there to build, then by nature of everyone building there, that's where it's gonna happen, right?
Wil Schroter: The second part that nobody talks about is, yes, that's also where people go to fail. Like
Ryan Rutan: far more of them fail in San Francisco, yeah.
Wil Schroter: And so, uh, like this isn't a everyone versus San Francisco thing. I just thought that was an interesting, you know, single data point. But what was interesting is I feel like if I had posted that 4 or 5 years ago. The number of folks that said you've got to be an SF would be much stronger. I mean, again, I moved there, so I, I, I clearly like, you know, believed in that thesis. I just don't believe in it the way I used to. Not knocking SF. It's a great city. I'm just saying the world has changed. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about first. I want to get to investors second if you don't mind, uh, because not everybody's racing. But when people are like, hey, like, you know, I need to move because I need access to talent. Forget SF for a second. I need to move because of access to talent. I think you opened it up. I think. Remote work, put a bullet in that because we're not centralized anymore. It
Ryan Rutan: did. Yeah. So I think the idea that you need to be in a place. In fact, it's at this point, like I think 5 or 6 years ago, we could have said like, maybe we're pretty close to that line. 3 or 4 years ago, I think we could have said like, yeah, it probably doesn't matter. Now I think it actually matters, but in the opposite direction, which is to say that if you were to try to go somewhere and say you have to come into an office, look at how that's going for a lot of companies right now. So it can actually work against it. you move somewhere specifically. To gather humans, and it kind of doesn't matter where it is at this point, San Francisco or otherwise, you're gonna struggle, right? It's just not what people want. It's no longer like, there was a point at which it was, it was sort of a benefit or or a a perk. Remember when we, when we start doing this? Well, 2014, 2015? Was it that far back? Work from home Wednesday. Yep.
Wil Schroter: Oh yeah. Well, work from a Wednesday, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was 2014.
Ryan Rutan: 2014, work from home Wednesday, right, which then expanded to work from home Wednesday, Friday, which then expanded to Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So by the time the pandemic hit, we were in the office two days and, and it had already gone, you know, you and I talked about this a lot, but the minute you make something a, a benefit or a perk for, for people, it very quickly becomes the baseline and the expectation. Now it's just an entitlement. And like, that's everybody now. Everybody's in that same boat where it's like, I just remote is what what do you mean in person?
Wil Schroter: Well, I think it's a few things. Number one, like COVID broke the seal, right? Like I mean COVID basically said, look, the whole world literally can work remote, like you can't make an argument that it can't be done. Now you can make an argument and and plenty of my my smart friends have, that said, I just prefer to have everyone in the office. I get that. The argument's valid. I'm not saying there isn't a version where having people in the office is bad, right? I'm, I'm, I'm saying
Ryan Rutan: that, but it's a preference. It's a preference. I prefer to have people in the office. Yeah,
Wil Schroter: before it was table steaks. We had an office like everyone else. Even though we were only going to do it two days a week, we still paid the same amount for the damn office, right? And because of that, there was an expectation that if our office was in Columbus, then our team was in Columbus. And now, like, it doesn't even occur to me to hire someone in Columbus, not being anti-Columbus, I'm just saying, no, it just doesn't matter, right?
Ryan Rutan: Like you don't have to think parochially. That went away. Yeah, I'm
Wil Schroter: not gonna see them either way,
Ryan Rutan: right?
Wil Schroter: They're gonna be wherever they can be. And it doesn't work for every company. I get all that. But, but every company usually, you know, founders making these decisions are usually sub 50 people, if not just the only person. And if we're. Talking about the ability to attract talent. Let's say for the 1st 10 to 20 to 30 people, OK, so we don't get into this like scaling thing. I have a hard time believing you can't build a 30-person distributed team anywhere.
Ryan Rutan: I, I think it's, it's actually even easier. I think that some of the challenges of the distributed team come when you surpass that point, when you're at 50 to 100, 150. There's a point at which now making a consistent company culture becomes a little bit more difficult, but I would. Yeah, at the at the early stages, it's, it's far easier. You know what else is easier from a talent perspective? If you have the money you're not spending on San Francisco rent to hire them. It turns out people like the cash. They wouldn't more than like it'd be cool to hang out in San Francisco office and get paid half of what I could pay if you weren't paying that rent.
Wil Schroter: Or just the other side of it is a lot of people that were in San Francisco didn't want to be there. And again, I'm not picking on San Francisco. Take New York, take any, any big high priced city for a very Long time you had to be in that city in order to to to get those opportunities. And COVID really just changed all of that. I mean, COVID was awful, but the one positive that came out of it is it made us say, wait a minute, I want to live in Columbus, Ohio, but basically do a New York City job. Now you can't. No surprises there. But what I'm saying is a lot of the talent that before you couldn't get access to because they had expected to stay kind of parochial. To their city, a lot of those people went home, right? A lot of those people went back to where they came from, either to raise families or just to live, you know, uh, without 14 roommates. And I think that goes for miles. You did it. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: we did it. Yeah, we, we've, we've moved quite a bit since the, uh, since the inception of the business, but, um, I think that point is, is extremely valid, which is that before there was sort of a a a fence around some of that talent. And I think at this point that fence is absolutely gone. And it was driven by the talent, right? Like they, they said like, hey, we don't want to be corralled here any more than anybody else does. We saw it, like I saw actually, so if you remember the, the condo that I owned in Columbus, I sold to a San Franciscan, right? Who wanted to come back to the Midwest after having been out there and and built a startup for a couple of years. sold my uh house in in Florida after we left to somebody leaving uh the Bay Area. It wasn't San Francisco, but the Bay Area, uh, that wanted to get out of there. And and and buy some somewhere else. Like we saw a massive amount of diaspora after it became possible. Like the minute it became possible, people started moving around.
Wil Schroter: You know, it's, it's so funny because everyone plays the same Zillow game. Like we were living in San Francisco and we were, we were looking, we, we're in an apartment at the time and we were looking for a home somewhere like in Palo Alto, and you know, the home price of bananas. And then you take what you were going to spend in Atherton or where the hell. You were gonna go and then you plug it into any other city you could live in, right? And it's, it's like you have man by comparison, and we did the same when we moved to Los Angeles, you know, we ended up finding a home in Beverly Hills, which wasn't our first choice, but that's just kind of where we landed. And then we started looking at, because, uh, you know, uh, Will, my son was born, we had to find more room and we started looking at other homes, more expensive. Then we took that same price and we looked at, well.
Ryan Rutan: get anywhere else, somewhere else, yeah, anywhere
Wil Schroter: else probably when you're there, you feel so poor, right? No matter how well you've done, you feel so poor, right? And it doesn't occur to you like um you forget after a while, like what that money could buy anywhere else or more importantly, you don't need that much money to live like like that life doesn't cost that much, it only costs so much right here, and I think people figure that out quickly.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, and so I think that that's, it's been nice for people to be able to decouple themselves from kind of like the life they want and and the job they want and and then not having to have those two things magically line up because they often don't, um, or they don't as life circumstances change, right? Like when it was just you and Sarah, you know, being, uh, you know, being in in California was fantastic. Like the minute you add 2 more humans, you need to add at least 1 more, if not 2 more bedrooms, all of a sudden it's like, OK. Big difference where we want to be based on what it would actually cost us to do this. And unfortunately, like when that used to be hard coded, hardwired to the type of work you wanted to do, you didn't really have much of a choice. So you had to then choose between life and work, which look, you know, I, you and I both love what we do. And so like life is kind of work for us, but also like work is supposed to serve life, right? And so at the minute when you have to start making trade-offs between the two. The calculus gets really ugly. Yeah, it does.
Wil Schroter: And and, you know, the other side of it though is, again, moving to a city for talent, we happen to be entering into an era where a lot of us don't need as much talent, you know, with the advent of AI, etc. So the idea of scaling up the way it used to mean I raised lots of money and hire lots of bodies, that that's how you build companies. And now it's like, is it? I
Ryan Rutan: mean, does it have to be AI fractional hire on demand service, right? There's so many. Other ways to solve those problems.
Wil Schroter: Yeah, yeah, and then then, you know, I, I, I heard a quip that I've heard a million times on that Reddit and subreddit, which was, look, if you want to build a big company, you, you have to go to a big city, right? Cause you know, all the big companies are in big cities, and it's like, look, I get that, but do you want to build a big company? Yeah, I mean, like, if you look at it in today's terms, one, if you have 1000 people, what the fuck are they doing all day, right? Like I mean, this is a dumb. Example, and it's probably works against me, but I thought it was hilarious like the, the, the, the event, not the outcome when Elon Musk went into Twitter and he fired 90% of the staff, and that was years ago and Twitter is still is around. And again, I, I don't want anybody to lose their jobs, so this isn't like it's not that. It's just like, hold on a sec, he did get rid of 90% of the staff in the company's still around. Like, seriously, what were they doing all day?
Ryan Rutan: Part of it is predicated on the fact that like people. Also set their, their sights on these really wild and crazy outcomes, which you and I have talked about. Like, like, you don't have to sell a company for a billion dollars to have a really good lifestyle. And as you reduce things like staff counts and costs, you also don't have to build nearly as big of a business to just cash flow really well and, and build a stable business and really enjoy the hell out of it. That's OK, right, right? And if you do have all those costs baked in, then you kind of have to build a big business to get to the point where you can extract as much money from it. But if you don't need to do those two things, then just don't. Right, right, build a good business that puts cash in your pocket, pay your teams well, and then subscribe to the AI services you need to get it all done.
Wil Schroter: Well, so which, which brings us to the next category, which is investors. I want to be clear, I have not seen the same stratification or diversification of investors by location that I've seen by talent, etc. OK? Now let me unpack that a little bit. Part of it is since the start of COVID, like 2021 was a boom year, you know, one of the greatest like vents. years of all time IPOs and everything else like that, and it went nuclear winter after that. So part of the reason I'm not seeing like a mass proliferation of investors, uh, investing everywhere in every location is they're not investing in any location they're investing at all, right? It's, it's been incredibly dry. So I, I haven't seen that behavior. However, what I'm really fascinated by, and Ryan, we did an episode on this, uh, not, not, not too long ago, is how much capital startups need in this new era. Right? With, with, with everything dramatically changing, particularly talent, that's always the biggest line item, is is the staffing line. You know, something that's really funny about everything we talk about here is that none of it is new. Everything you're dealing with right now has been done 1000 times before you, which means the answer already exists, you may just not know it, but that's OK. That's kind of what we're here to do. We talk about this stuff on the show, but we actually Solve these problems all day long at groups.startups.com. So if any of this sounds familiar, stop guessing about what to do. Let us just give you the answers to the test and be done with it.
Ryan Rutan: I had an interesting discussion a couple weeks ago uh that that mirrored this, which was the idea that people were, there were a group of people complaining about the fact that, you know, investors are only now writing checks for profitable companies with traction and customers and all this stuff and like, yeah, they want to invest. where they think you're gonna get it back. Weird, huh?
Wil Schroter: To be fair, investors have always wanted to invest in profitable. That's
Ryan Rutan: it, right? Like it's just been a limited number of them. My not full counter, but sort of the yes and or yes but, the fact that you can actually get to those points with a lot less capital now, right? It doesn't take nearly as much money, right? It used to take, if you had to go build an entire web platform, right? There's going to be, let's just say, conservatively $250,000 to build that. You can now build something that would commensurate to what you could build for $250 for 25 to 50 now. So magnitudes difference in the cost it takes to get to that point. So that's part of why investors can say we can do that and they're not actually hamstringing the, the startup environment like it might sound like they are.
Wil Schroter: Yeah, and the other side of it is, you know, investors did do those, those huge checks, the billion dollars and 500 engineers kind of move, and it didn't really back out very often, right? So, so they kind of got burned too. But again when
Ryan Rutan: you test your thesis and it doesn't work, you gotta make a new one. Yeah, look,
Wil Schroter: if in today's terms you still need 500 engineers, and I'm using engineers just to be, right, then I, I, I'm really gonna question your efficiency. I'm gonna question what the hell are you building with all those people that you couldn't be doing with
Ryan Rutan: a sports league that only has players who are engineers, right? Can't imagine what else would take 500 engineers at this point.
Wil Schroter: A tiny fraction of our listening audiences is out there looking for tons of engineers. So I want to be clear, like, you know, we got plenty of folks who are doing CPG who are doing services business who are doing like whatever. So, you know, they hear us say things like that and like do that like that doesn't even remotely apply to me. And what I'm saying is I get it. But if, if you were packing your stuff and going, going to big city, whether it was Boston, whether it was SF, whether it was New York, you know, whatever, in search of capital, to be honest, you generally had to, and I don't know if that's changed dramatically, OK? What has Changed is how much capital you would need to make that trip worth it. You know, like back when you needed $10 million to do anything meaningful, and there was a time you had to go to where there was $10 million and there was like 3 cities you could do it. Now I'm just saying, and you're saying the same thing, like the capital requirements just aren't nearly what they were, if any, in some cases. So the idea of having to, to, to drop everything and, and, you know, disconnect your life to get out to the most expensive city. Just isn't what it used to be. So I, I think the need for investors has gone down. How much, how much they care about location. I don't know how much it's changed yet, to be honest.
Ryan Rutan: I don't know. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. Let me ask you a hypothetical here. I just want to get, get a crystal ball moment here. I'm curious what you think. Over the last 1015 years, we've watched, you know, prece rounds go from 25,000 to 2.5 million. You're the funny rounds have gone. Out of control as we start to see less capital required to, to launch and build and grow, do you think that we'll start to see the round sizes come back down? Will there be a correction around that, or will it just be more money funneled into less companies with the same size rounds?
Wil Schroter: The venture guys have a strong incentive to put more capital to work, right? Because it ain't their money. Yeah, exactly, right. So, so they have a strong incentive for there to be 500 person engineering teams. OK. So I, I want to be clear. Like, from their standpoint, being more capital efficient doesn't entirely, you know, jive with them. And now, again, these are super smart people. I'm not saying like they, they're trying to waste money. I'm just saying be clear, when they need bigger funds and they can justify bigger funds that they get massive takes from, that works really well for them. If you were to say, hey, VCs, from this point on, no startup will ever need more than $5 or $10 million they'd all go out of business, right? So, so again, they still like the idea of being. able to put, put money to work, of course they want startups to be efficient. They don't like the idea of burning money, right? And, and look, staff was the big burn, right? It it because it cost a fortune to find all those people, you know, think the recruiter fees, etc. bonuses, whatever. Then you were always pulling people from their last job to a new job, which meant you're paying the most they've ever made, right? So you had
Ryan Rutan: to be somebody else was gonna do that to you and pull them to their job and you got somebody else yeah, it just becomes a cycle like that
Wil Schroter: so. startups needed more talent because that money was all, you know, getting, uh, foisted on all these companies to hire more talent. Market rates were going up and demand was going up, recruiter fees were going crazy, right? Like it kind of fed itself, right? You know, inflation of talent and, and, and cost. Now all of a sudden, particularly for things like engineering where good engineers and smart people are always valuable, just they can do more than they could do as a single unit. So you just don't need as many of them. That's a big change,
Ryan Rutan: dramatically changes the capital requirements to get to the same point within the startup company.
Wil Schroter: You bet, you bet. There was also, again, all these things kind of have a ripple effect. There was also a notion, let's say in 2021 in like that the height of the go go, that was our 1999 of, of recency. There was a notion that in order to look like you needed more capital and to be valuable, you had to hire a lot of people. If I go out and I say I, I need a $300 million round because they need to hire so many people because we're growing so fast, that was a strong signal. That's exactly what. Investors look for to say yes, company with with those ambitions and that momentum, that's where I want to park cash and there's all kinds of good reasons to believe that. But now, but since so many companies, VCs got burned by doing that, and, and not just VCs, you know, it goes down the line to angel investors, etc. where all it starts. Now there's a version where at least they're like, you know, that didn't work out so well. Like we kind of got crushed across the portfolio. So how about we not do that again and kind of look look at how, how can we be more efficient.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, how much do you think technology has played a role in this too? I mean, like, yeah, they may still prefer. To invest somewhat parochially, like I, I don't, I don't have a strong thesis around that, but certainly like everybody's comfort level, like, well, you know, 2015, you packed your bags and you went and found investors. In 2025, we hop on a Zoom and we do the pitch, right? In fact, I know a lot of people that just prefer that, right? I don't want somebody walks into your office with a really bad pitch, like you're stuck with them, right? Like how many, how many, how many investor offices had to tolerate you and Elliot sitting in the in the in the waiting room. Uh, eating pizza, waiting for your, your partner pitches, right? So, like, at some point, it's way more efficient for them too. It
Wil Schroter: is, and again, investment's been slow, so I don't think we're really gonna see what the appetite is for going outside your parochial bubble, so to speak, uh, until we see the, the next big like, you know, kind of go go moment of investing. But by the time that happens, let's say it's a few years off, you know, where things kind of really do cycle up, by the time that happens again, again with the advent of a. of fractional of remote, etc. you're just gonna have a very different climate for what people need than they did now because before we were all raising money to hire people. Yes, there was, there were marketing budgets, but those scale with the growth of our product. It was hire this massive staff and hope it works out, which, so let's go to the third category though, where I want to go to a big city because I, I want the networking opportunities. And Ryan, I, I want to split this. There's no question that going to a big city, again, we're talking about location, that going. A big city is going to open you up to more opportunities. You're about to move to a big city for exactly this reason for your whole family, right? How do you justify it because it's, it's going to cost way more where you're going than where you are now.
Ryan Rutan: Well, we did, we did the calculus on it, right? Like there are specific things that are missing in our current geography, right, from a family perspective. I don't
Wil Schroter: think everybody knows where you are.
Ryan Rutan: Uh, so we're, we're currently in Antigua, Guatemala, right, and we're getting ready to head to Madrid, Spain, which are about, you know, polar opposites, right? We've got. 30,000 people here. There were 30,000 people in the in the block that we stayed in over the summer uh in in Madrid, right? So complete different access to things like culture and arts and and organized sports in schools and just all kinds of other stuff and then all the access to all of Europe. So in our case, this is very much a taking advantage of the fact that work is decoupled from life and that life can happen where it needs to happen in order to deliver what we what we want. So as we do the plus minus, yeah, there are lots of costs involved in the move, but according to the calculus, we performed the benefits far outweigh. That right? we're moving because we want to, not because we feel like we need to. So we're running towards something not away from something where the, I guess we are still, we're running away from the lack of resources here. So for us, we're looking at this going, this is 2015 in a lot of ways, like we cannot get, we can't replace some of the stuff that that we can get digitally now that we want, right? So we're in a position where it does make sense to pack up and go. You know,
Wil Schroter: it's it's interesting to me is that when I moved to uh to Los Angeles. And to San Francisco. As you remember, I was like Johnny networker, like, like I, I was, you know, in, in 5 to 7 meetings a day when I first moved to Los Angeles to um Santa Monica, I hosted over 1000 people at my place, right? Uh, I mean, unbelievable numbers of people as far as networking and meeting people, right? So clearly I was a very strong believer in the networking opportunities and it was awesome. Now, a few things that, you know, that that I I wanna put together. Number one, if you go to a bigger city, and that's most of what we're talking about here, if you go to a bigger city, just like you said with Madrid, you are going to be exposed to more stuff, 100%. You're going to meet more people. I said like the folks in LA or the folks in San Francisco as an example, paid a fortune to live there. So by definition, they were all like nobody was complacent. Like everybody was there because to work their asses off to be there, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I like that vibe, right. Right. Now, once you got past that though, like, let's say you live in New York, you live in San Francisco, you're also like, this is a really small apartment. I mean, LA is the same thing. This is a really small apartment and my quality of life sucks depending on what you want your quality of life to be. Now all that said, what it was really about is you didn't have a way to find or meet any of these people unless you went to those cities that just you couldn't do it otherwise. Like the other version, people like, oh, I meet people at conferences. I've been to a million. conferences. I'm the most outgoing person I know. I've never been to a conference that I thought was worthwhile, like ever, ever in 30 years,
Ryan Rutan: right? There's always the thing, right? Like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna make it, you know, everybody that I need to know is going to be there. Cool. Are you actually going to talk to them? Are you gonna make meaningful connection with them ships passing in the night, right? Yeah, I think that's there's something else that's interesting there. And I think we can talk about like how much that's changed now, and the other ways that it's changed, but like one of the things that that always struck me was and then. Sure, there are lots of people there, but one of the things that ended up happening anytime I've been in a bigger city, was that it felt like less of it was in my control, and there was just a lot of osmotic impact, some of which ended up being good, some of it wasn't, right? Some of it was just, it ends up just being time draining, time wasting, right, because everybody, because at some point like. That you have marketable things that people want to talk about to you too. It's not just about what you're gonna take from the network, it's about what you're gonna give. Um, and I found that there was often an imbalance in that for me, and, and that it made me a little less deliberate. Like, at some point when you're when you're in the fish or in the barrel with the fish, you're you become a little less picky around like who you're interacting with. Whereas now 2025, like, We've got LinkedIn, right? We've got plenty of other social media. We've got X, we've got all of it. It's I want to, anytime I want to.
Wil Schroter: Because that's become such a thing, I think two things have happened for me. One, I meet 10 more people now than I ever met before, and again, and I was doing like 5 to 7 in-person meetings where I would reach out to people to get to sit down with them for no purpose, by the way, just. To get to know them and it was exhausting, right? Probably so for them, uh, but, but my point is, it's exactly what you said. I could only meet with the people that happened to be in my geography or that I would bump into, OK? And I tried to, you know, create as many opportunities for that to happen. I met great people. However, when it comes to who do I need to meet like professionally, I can DM anybody right now. Like, it blows my mind and it also happens that like when I DM somebody that I really need to meet, the probability anymore that they're in LA or San Francisco or where I would have otherwise been is damn near 0, right? It's not 0 because again, there's still, you know, more people there. But like, for some reason, the first person that comes to mind, not that I'm trying to meet, but I was DMing with recently, is Dan Martell. All right. And Dan, I'm not knocking his location, but is in BFE Canada if I recall,
Ryan Rutan: right?
Wil Schroter: Moncton,
Ryan Rutan: I think it's what it's
Wil Schroter: called. And I love that. I love that because like Dan just hit a million YouTube subscribers, right? You know, he's Johnny So now, but he's in Moncton, Canada, dude, right? Like Dan wouldn't have been able to meet anyone 15 years ago in Moncton, Canada.
Ryan Rutan: Well, to be fair, Moncton is known as the San Francisco of absolutely nowhere. That's not.
Wil Schroter: This is me giving Dan a shout out, by the way, um, I'll make sure it comes out the right way because Dan and Moncton can be the most popular person, uh, in business anywhere he wants he wants. Now again, I had to do that same thing with an ungodly amount of physical effort with in-person events, etc. and Dan's doing it without even leaving his hometown. What I'm saying is that level of connectivity just didn't. Exist at the level it does now, even remotely.
Ryan Rutan: Something else is funny about that, right? Like the fact that we, we have this digital, like on one hand, it's a lot easier to just reach out digitally. I don't know how it was for you, but, and, and maybe this is even I'm I'm now I'm trying to figure out this is like more like a post pandemic kind of thing. When I do get in-person introductions, not in-person introduction, but maybe like somebody local, like, hey, somebody here that wants to sit down with you. I almost always say yes, part of that might just be the rarity, but part of it's kind of like, it feels rude to say no. Yep. Whereas with digital outreach, I think it forces people to be a little bit more deliberate, a little bit more polished in the outreach, a little more purposeful. Whereas like, before, people would just reach out and be like, hey, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be in town. Would you like to get together? Like, yeah, OK, right? Whereas if somebody reaches out to me on LinkedIn, they're like, hey, do you need offshore web development services for an app that you're not building? No, I don't, right? I don't have to spend time on that. And so like, I think it's somehow by being digital, despite the fact that we have this ability to reach. Anybody, it's raised the bar a little bit for what that communication looks like. I actually appreciate it a lot.
Wil Schroter: Pointing to Dan for a second, what I'm saying is Dan has a massive profile in Moncton, uh, you know, sitting in Moncton, Canada, right? I'm just saying that's possible, right? Whereas it wasn't before. Again, this isn't the same as like if I was 27 years old and someone was like, hey, you should move to New York or, you know, San Francisco or something, I would do it, right? Because it would cost me nothing, right? And it buy me a. Ton great big city experience. I did it. It was awesome. What I'm saying is, now I just wouldn't have to before I had to. I didn't have a choice, right? Now I just don't have to, and that's a big deal. You don't have to move to San Francisco to to to find work, right? Like you can go anywhere.
Ryan Rutan: When, yeah, I think the minute it went from being a prerequisite to a nice to have, if I want to have it, maybe not even a nice to have. It's uh if you want it, right, it became completely discretion. that was super powerful in so many ways, right? Look, like we've talked about a lot of stuff like there are still some advantages, of course, there are, right? There are advantages, like things like you mentioned, these serendipitous meetings and cultural immersion, some of the stuff that I'm moving for, right? But the, but the cost benefit has certainly shifted. And I think it's no longer a case of, of necessity and more, more like one of desire. But
Wil Schroter: the other side of it is you, you're not moving for work,
Ryan Rutan: that.
Wil Schroter: Yeah, I mean that that's dramatically different. You're saying I want to go have these experiences in this other place. Now, if, if you guys were, you know, super into skiing, you might be going to Provo, Utah, right? Like, right, like there might be a totally different outcome. You guys have an amazing, uh, uh, ability as a family to ingratiate yourself in the local culture and, and pull so much from that. But it has nothing to do with your job.
Ryan Rutan: No, nothing, right? Nothing whatsoever. Now, there will be benefits. In fact, we've gone, we've gone through some of that recently because there was then this, this. Kind of toss up between Madrid and possibly Valencia, which gets us on a coast and there were some other, it's a little bit smaller, a little bit maybe easier to to end up in. And then we went back to it like, but why are we actually doing this right? And a big part of it is for some of that bigger city stuff. And for me, from a work perspective, there are some, there are some pluses to Madrid. It's a much bigger commercial center. There are way more startups there than they were going to be in Valencia. Are there as many as there are in San Francisco or New York? No, but it's still from where I am now, it's going to be a massive increase. And so there will be benefits. But it is again, but it's not, we don't have to make the choice based on that. Again, it's, it's not, it isn't relevant, right? It's just a lot less relevant than it was.
Wil Schroter: It's changed from a you have to do it. It could benefit in certain ways. Like when Sarah and I moved to San Francisco, you know, I'd certainly had a a single unified goal which was at the time we were buying companies. And most of the companies we were looking to buy were there, right? And it worked out great, you know, it, it, it really worked out. But from Sarah's perspective, you know, uh, my daughter Summer had just been born, I think she was 5 or so at the time. She just wanted an adventure. She was like, hey, cool, this is just something new, right? I don't
Ryan Rutan: fun, something different.
Wil Schroter: Yeah, the commercial aspect doesn't matter to me, and she got to explore it, etc. And after a while she was like, guess what, this city is terrifying. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: I've seen it all. it can cross it in an hour and I've seen it all. I'm good. It's
Wil Schroter: the part they don't put in the brochure, but you know, Sarah would, would, would leave our building with a 5 year old and a stroller. It would not go well. Like it, it was, it was a very dangerous place for a woman and her little tiny daughter to be walking around. There there's a reason you don't see any kids in San Francisco. They're all adults. Anyway, um, this wasn't a knock out in San Francisco. I'm just saying like if she was going for her own reasons, she would have been out very quickly. I would go there and I would put up with whatever because I needed to be there, but now I wouldn't even consider it. I was like, yeah, I would never do that, not knocking San Francisco. I'd go there for fun, right? But it it we're like, oh, our business has to be there. I'm like, no, no, it does not,
Ryan Rutan: does not, does not need to be there. Yeah, I, I think it's so interesting too that like at this point. Because of this, this shift in, in like the, the value of the sort of the the perks of being in the traditional hubs, right? That the value of the flexibility has actually gone up so much right now that you really kind of can, I think there were so many things that people didn't even consider before. It just didn't, it didn't occur to people they could just be wherever they wanted and still do the thing that they wanted to do. And I think that is in as much as The value of the traditional hub and what you get from it has gone down to some degree. I think that the, the bigger imbalance has actually been created by the value of being able to do what you want can anywhere you want, has actually gone up so significantly. And I think that for me, is what has absolutely made it really hard to say that like, there's a huge benefit in being or that a the success. of a startup is predicated on being in some some very specific. I'd say the flexibility to be anywhere for me at least, a lot of people that we know, uh, would far outweigh the the perks of the traditional hub. Yeah,
Wil Schroter: so look, I, I think what what we're saying isn't that cities don't have their values. Cities have value. We love cities, right? We lived in them. What we're saying is, in this day and age, you would be hard pressed to make an argument. That says you have to relocate to a major city or a specific location in order for your startup to be successful. The truth is there are so many things that have changed so dramatically that you can take advantage of that you just don't need to do it. So I would say at this point, when somebody asked you that question to say, hey, where's your startup based? Your answer is, wherever the hell we want it to be, and I'm damn OK with that.
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