Yesterday, I flew to SF on a one-way ticket. I’m sleeping on a friend’s couch right now (plug: check out HeardAbout!).

At Heyo, we have been evaluating for some time the possibility of moving out of Blacksburg, VA, to a place that is more of a startup hub. In the last few months, we’ve spent time in New York, Austin, and the San Francisco Bay Area. We have decided on California, and a couple days ago, the time and ticket fare were right ($120, non-stop IAD to SFO, thanks HipMunk), so I bought a ticket and flew out. I packed a carry-on with clothes and coffee supplies, and my backpack with my laptop and business stuff.

There are many reasons we decided to move, both personal and professional. Here they are:

Professional

Blacksburg does not have a lack of talent. Hundreds of very talented computer science and computer engineering students graduate from Virginia Tech each year, and there is a solid base of technical professionals there. The handful of major tech companies in Blacksburg that have made recruitment a priority have been quite successful in keeping students and other professionals in the area. However, there are a lack of talented engineers who are familiar with and subscribe to the startup culture. That is, they are generally not interested in (let alone possess the requisite passion for) forgoing a career to live cheap, work hard, and start a company.

The same thing that draws me to the SF Bay Area draws many others like me. We are searching for others like us, with the aptitude and ambition to build awesome companies. Over the last several decades, this has created an eco-system of innovation, investment, and mentorship unmatched in any other geographic area in the world. I understand that there is a massive talent war in the valley right now, and I don’t expect it will be easy to recruit others to join us. However, I know from experience that other developers respond very well to our company and our culture. We solve a very real problem, our market is huge, and we are building a culture that places developers at the center of our business (because, well, we’re developers). I hope this will enable us to find awesome people.

We will also begin seeking investment in the next few months. Our criteria for investors is that they have done what we want to do, which is build an awesome web business. In Blacksburg there are a handful of these people, and many of them are our investors already. Out here there are thousands(?), many who have done it many times over. I want those people invested in our business, mentoring us, and thinking about our product.

Personal

I lived in King George County, VA (pop. 25,000) for 18 years, and Blacksburg (pop. 60,000, half students) for almost 8. When I was looking for what to do after my undergraduate degree, I found excellent faculty members in Blacksburg to work with for a masters degree. When I finished my masters degree and went looking for co-founders and investors to start a company, I again found them in Blacksburg. While I have travelled extensively in the U.S., I have never lived in large city. I’m young, single, and have no financial or social obligation to be anywhere. It’s time for me to leave Blacksburg.

None of this is a knock on Blacksburg, which in the last year has seen the formation of a startup incubator, angel group, two co-working spaces for tech companies, and Virginia Tech E-Club being ranked a top entrepreneur club in the country. I’ll be back often, and a part of me will always be there.