As Timyo gets ready to launch, one question that has come up a few times is why our founders chose Los Angeles as our headquarters. Unsurprisingly, this question is mostly asked by people who don’t live in LA 🙂 And so, to preach to the uninitiated, I’ve gone ahead and compiled a short list of why LA is a great place for Timyo and a great place for tech in general.
1. Tech isn’t the only game in town…
I used to live in a small city that was popular with study abroad students and travelers, so I met a lot of new arrivals who would ask about the best neighborhood to stay in. The obvious choice was the action-packed bar district with a ton of great restaurants and a fantastic night life. I soon found, though, that something even better than living right in the middle of the party was living right next to the party, in a slightly quieter neighborhood a few minutes’ walk away. That way, the party was always easily accessible, there whenever you wanted it, but you could also—from time to time—leave it.
The obvious choice for a tech company, especially for one based in California, is to set up shop in Silicon Valley. And obviously, being up there makes a lot of sense for a lot of people. But for Timyo, we love living where everyday life isn’t absolutely dominated by tech. In short, we love being able to “leave the party” every once in awhile…to have conversations with people who don’t even know what VC means and think of Google as just something you do to your name.
2. …But it is still a major player.
On the other hand, you do want to be where there is a robust-enough tech presence that hiring, funding, and networking for your company do not become unworkable chores. As this great TechCrunch article points out, Los Angeles is the fastest growing start-up region (as measured by number of companies started) and also graduates the most engineers than anywhere else in the country, from some of the best engineering programs worldwide. All of that talent has attracted investment, as have LA-born success stories like Snapchat, Tinder, and SpaceX, and our experience at Timyo has been entirely positive when it comes to finding people we are excited to work with, and who are excited to work with us. And speaking of people…
3. LA is a natural home for entrepreneurs.
To quote the TechCrunch article mentioned above:
It’s probably worth pointing out that LA is a town built upon entrepreneurship even if not always underpinned by technology. We’re a land for people who left their stable East Coast homes in search of opportunity and a chance to start fresh. LA has more entrepreneurs as a percentage of its population than anywhere else in the country.”
This mindset is crucial to the great experience that Timyo has found in LA. Whenever you gather a bunch of creative, driven people together in the same place, you are setting ideal circumstances for cool things to get done well.
4. When it comes to “work-life balance”, LA was an early adopter.
It’s no accident that LA has long been a hot bed of challenging the status quo…from natural foods to yoga practice to communal living, Angelenos have long been willing to try new ways to live a better life (not that all of them work out that well…I’m looking at you, communal living). Today, we live in a world where even the most staid corporations are offering their employees’ probiotic yogurt and guided meditation, because the benefits of living a more balanced life have become increasingly hard to ignore. This sort of balance is central to Timyo’s mission, and so we love being in a place where you are just as likely to find a CEO surfing off County Line as you are to see him power lunching at Bouchon.
5. The weather.
Sweet Lord, the weather. (Hey, the title is “More than just great weather,” not “Not going to mention the great weather at all.”) As I type this, it is 72Âş and sunny. That’s not weird. In Los Angeles, it’s weird when it is not 72Âş and sunny (and we freak out about it). We find it’s a lot easier to strike a nice balance between work and the rest when you live in a city where being outdoors isn’t pretty much off-limits for six months of the year.
And speaking of the weather…I’m going to wrap up here, because I haven’t been outside for like an entire half-an-hour. So in conclusion:
Come to LA, Tech People! The Water’s Fine!*
*So long as the water lasts, that is. Actually, tech people, you wanna come down here and get on that, please? Thanks, you’re the coolest!
