Posts Tagged ‘Location’

Colombia is the latest addition to YouTube’s list of locations, bringing YouTube to a total of 37 localized countries around the world, from Algeria to Yemen.

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Pew Internet released summary information from a survey that tells us how adults in the U.S. use mobile and social location based services. The highlighted statistic, however, literally only tells part of the more complex story.
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When planning an online or mobile business, founders and co-founders must begin discussing ‘location’ as soon as possible. By location, I particularly refer to the launch and base location(s) of your online or mobile business.

The following are four pointers I suggest you to consider in your startup location discussion:

Firstly, is where you live the best place to launch and base your internet or mobile startup?

If you live in countries with modest populations, like Sweden or Australia for example, and you’ve come up with a business that could have global appeal, you must seriously consider if launching in your home country will be beneficial to your aspirations.

The United States, with a population of 300 million that mostly use the internet and smartphones, might be a better option. For example, Foursquare, launched in New York, would not have had the same appeal if launched in Beirut.

The fact is that there are not as many examples of non-big population launched startups making it big as the other way around.

Secondly, you must consider if launching in a smaller market will leave you vulnerable to predators?

In this industry, we constantly hear that some multi-billionaire startup founder took his/her “inspiration” from another guy who lives in a small village in some unpronounceable country.

If you launch in a smaller market and register some success, others will hear about it and use their considerable resources to establish your idea in a bigger market before you have had a chance to get there yourself.

Thirdly, you must question whether your online or mobile business’ location is the best choice to attract the talent you will need.

If your startup succeeds, as we expect all will , you are going to need talent. Depending on the nature of your startup, you may require Engineers, Business Development personnel, Project Managers, Designers, etc.

It is fact that there are certain hubs where such talent is more fertile than others. For example, I believe Engineering talent is best in Silicon Valley (USA) or some Asian countries (Singapore, Philippines, India, etc.), while some of the best Business Development personnel I have met have been from more cut-throat cities like New York, Los Angeles (USA) and Sydney (Australia).

Finally, and probably most importantly, do investors have preferred locations?

There is a great chance you are going to need money to grow your business. And it is a definite that you are going to want money when you exit your web or mobile business.

Venture Capitalists, Angel Investors and others with money will very likely judge your capacity to service the greatest-possible market for your business when deciding on whether they should or should not invest.

The above should not mean that everyone should launch their web or mobile business in the most populated, capitalist locations. First and foremost, the location has to be right for your business.

But once you have a list of what the right locations for your business could be, my advice is you make sure your capacity to service the largest locations is front-and-center in your planning.

I usually leave Location Services on my iPhone and iPad turned on. However, I must have turned it off on the iPad for some kind of test and neglected to turn it back on before trying to copy a screenshot to Dropbox for later use. You can see the warning I received from Dropbox that: Dropbox needs location access.