z on life

Very recently I moved from Pittsburgh, PA to sunny San Francisco, CA. I’ve only been here a few weeks for real now, but the differences in the city are pretty obvious. I wanted to share my thoughts on how you would make Pittsburgh into San Francisco:

1. Increase property values by 500% 
2. Add slides and hot tubs to the nightclubs 
3. Stop everyone from caring about their NFL team
4. Turn 1 in every 4 people into Facebook app developers

It’s pretty unlikely this will happen any time soon, and obviously this is somewhat less than serious. But in reality, from the perspective of an entrepreneur, what does Pittsburgh need that San Francisco already has? The following are four items that are for real.

•  A wealth of capital (financial + social)

This is completely straightforward. There’s more money in a top tech fund here than all of Pittsburgh combined, and the concentration of talent and knowledge is simply astounding. Of course, the venture community in Pittsburgh has likely hit a carrying capacity for the amount of deal flow, so it’s not like simply adding more money fixes the problem (imagine a logistic growth curve math problem where you add more wolves but keep the number of sheep fixed). This is a standard chicken and the egg problem that has to be attacked from both angles.

•  Open, cutting-edge idea flow

Entrepreneurs in the bay don’t see success as a zero sum game and are willing to share strategies for success. Especially in the space of viral and user acquisition plays, we’ve seen a number of big wins in the recent years building and manipulating a core of techniques shared by a number of great entrepreneurs. Successes can coexist, and by being open and accepting this, the bay area has created a self-fulfilling loop of staying ahead of the rest of the world with some of the best information flow I have ever seen. Too much secrecy is dangerous.

• Building for the long-run

We’re going through a process of hiring right now, and it is interesting to think of things not just in terms of skills, but much more so in terms of trust and long-term relationships. When you’re in a small pond, you’re willing to bet on skills because you need to get the job done. When you’re in a big pond, you need to be on trust and long-term value because the payback of these seemingly softer things greatly outweighs any feature or any component of a product that a hire will get you in the next 6-12 months. At the end of the day you’re betting on the people more so than the tangible thing they can immediately provide you. A good question to ask yourself is ‘would you unconditionally work with any and/or all members of your core team again?’ Entrepreneurs should bet on themselves and their teammates to succeed in whatever, even if the current venture fails miserably.

•  Stars that have serious gravity

Pittsburgh needs to make very visible a set top-notch entrepreneurs who others badly want to work for. Simple jobs are great, but at the end of the day a job boils down to a corporate position P with skill needs A, B, C that provides salary X and Y stock options. Long-term career growth is much more than money today and a resume line item tomorrow. Would you rather work at Microsoft, or be Bill Gates’s right-hand-man? What if the latter meant half the pay? I would argue that in many startups, you can work with truly awesome people and not even sacrifice those other elements. The question is, are these people visible? And does the common person know what that relationship will do for their career? Better yet, does the diamond in the rough fledgling entrepreneur know who these people are that can jump start his or her career? Just some thoughts…more to come…