Real Estate Broker · Austin, TX · Member since 2015 · 715 posts · 527 votes
Austin continues to outshine the San Francisco Bay Area. For the second year in a row, Austin tops a list of the best tech towns in the U.S., with both Silicon Valley and San Francisco slipping in the third annual ranking.
Based on job-posting data from August 2019 to July 2020, the CompTIA trade group looked at 20 metro areas with populations over 250,000 and where demand for tech workers is greatest. CompTIA then ranked the metros on cost of living, number of postings for IT jobs, and projected IT job growth over the next year as well as the next five years. The analysis placed Austin in first place.
Investor · Round Rock, TX · Member since 2010 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
5y
Austin does a great job starting things, but the capital formation process here is still much tougher than it is in the major tech markets. That will likely change because the money will follow to the good deal flow, but Austin still has a long way to go to rival Boston, SV, or other major tech centers for the whole ecosystem. As more exits occur and reseed new investment things will change, but we're still lagging other areas viewed holistically.
Investor · Round Rock, TX · Member since 2010 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
5y
Austin does a great job starting things, but the capital formation process here is still much tougher than it is in the major tech markets. That will likely change because the money will follow to the good deal flow, but Austin still has a long way to go to rival Boston, SV, or other major tech centers for the whole ecosystem. As more exits occur and reseed new investment things will change, but we're still lagging other areas viewed holistically.
Austin does a great job starting things, but the capital formation process here is still much tougher than it is in the major tech markets. That will likely change because the money will follow to the good deal flow, but Austin still has a long way to go to rival Boston, SV, or other major tech centers for the whole ecosystem. As more exits occur and reseed new investment things will change, but we're still lagging other areas viewed holistically.
Great insight here and nice to see some dissonance. Bryan- do you think access to VC is still primarily done "belly to belly" in the major tech markets? Has 2020 made capital more comfortable committing to projects/ teams/ initiatives based outside their (the VCs') backyard?
Investor · Round Rock, TX · Member since 2010 · 8k+ posts · 4k+ votes
5y
VC is largely done the same way from what I have seen, but admittedly my experience there is limited. I really dislike the typical VC construct and feel like it is optimized for the benefit of the VC's entity sponsors and not for either their LPs or company founders. Changes from new rulings on The JOBS Act under Title III are likely to materially alter the financing landscape at least through Series A rounds. There is still a large stigma from unclean cap tables and how it impacts later-stage financing so the amount of capital required for any particular business model matters a lot too.
Austin's culture and climate are really biased toward growing more out of profits and conservatism, which I would also argue are more founder friendly for slicing the pie. They're also arguably more lifestyle friendly for founders, which is often a pejorative in angel circles. This has always amused me.
2020 has forced people to operate in different ways and has accelerated the learning curve for new methods of communication, but financing is still driven largely by perception for those writing larger checks for the companies that will end up on Tech Crunch and the rainbow chasers. Some of the best deals are small M&A deals though and those outnumber the headline-grabbing IPO deals by many multiples. I'm very fond of sponsor-centric projects and alignment around solving actual problems instead of optimizing for early exits, but I recognize those who have amassed a lot of wealth thinking about the world in a different fashion and demanding that founders move to their back yard. Keep in mind that capital is fungible though so the demand from founders will attract the capital to the Austin MSA at some point. We're just not on the same par as the other larger submarkets right now. This will certainly change though with the population expected to double here in short order.
Real Estate Broker · Austin, TX · Member since 2012 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
5y
@Neil Narayan I have a problem with their analysis. I don't see how cost of living has anything with best tech cities. VC is still in the Bay Area doing big deals. As long as companies like AirBnb does an ipo and cash out large then the vast majority of huge tech will be there. Airbnb is expected to raise $3 billion from their ipo. We had BigCommerce going public recently raising 130 mil. Both are huge numbers, don't get me wrong but the Bay area attracts big VC and thus big tech.
Boston, MA · Member since 2017 · 209 posts · 126 votes
5y
This seems an odd way to rank cities. And considering Boston is barely in the top 20 it looks like things such as cost of living are a big factor. Slowly though lists like this are becoming outdated because eventually all towns can be their own "tecch town" as more and more go remote. That being said, if you want to be around other talent and especially if you want to be near VC money and other startups, it will be awhile before the silicon valley and Boston/Cambridge markets are overtaken.