You're reading: Pluses, minuses of moving to California’s Silicon Valley

California’s Silicon Valley attracts many Ukrainian startups looking for investment.  It’s where the money is – home to some 8,000 venture funds and 20,000 startups. But how to get this money? And is visiting enough, or should one move there?

For starters, one has to be introduced by somebody respected in the tech community, says Denis Dovgopoliy, president of the GrowthUP Accelerator who visits the Silicon Valley up to five times a year.

Some travel regularly to the valley while others move permanently in hopes of greater fortunes. Dovgopoliy cites Vlad Voskresensky, an incumbent member of parliament who headed InvisibleCRM, a business solutions developer, as someone who travels regularly.

It takes at least $70,000 for two people to move to the Silicon Valley at least for a year, Dovgopoliy estimates. A car is a must.

“I usually have five different meetings throughout the day,” Dovgopoliy says. “Often they are located in different parts of the Bay Area. So I drive no less than 250 kilometers per day. It is impossible to handle this distance on foot. Public transport is a lousy option.”

Oleksandr Krakovetsky, a chief executive officer at DevRain Solutions, Ukrainian cloud services developer, has recently returned from California. He says visiting tech conferences there is the best option for startups.

People also meet at bars, in malls and while watching football.

“They just approach you, introduce themselves shortly and you have to do the same,” Krakovetsky says. “It takes several minutes to understand how the person standing next to you can be useful for your project. Everybody in the Valley is constantly looking for a chance to earn.”

Better pay in Silicon Valley is not always a reason to move, he adds.

While Ukraine provides lower salaries to IT specialists – around $2,000 monthly – the $8,000 monthly in California doesn’t go too far. “We have much lower living expenditures than those in the U.S.,” Krakovetsky says.

Heavy taxes – up to 40 percent of income – make even an annual salary of $100,000 not so attractive. Krakovetsky believes $150,000 is the minimum necessary to live comfortably in a place home to the globe’s largest tech corporations like Apple or Facebook.

This may make visiting, rather than living, in Silicon Valley a better option, he says.

Ivan Kavalerov, chief technology officer at Odesa-based startup Poem, says he met an investor in the Apple Store in San Francisco in September, while standing in a line to get an iPhone 6 Plus.

“The guy was right in front of me,” he tells. “I had to leave for just a couple of minutes, so I asked him to watch my spot. Later, after a quick chat, we understood how useful both of us can be to each other in the future and exchanged business cards.”

Oleksandr Nesterenko, founder of the Ukrainian hardware accelerator Carrot, says getting better access to bigger investments is a serious reason to consider moving to California.

“You need to make Silicon Valley your home, so that the project becomes American.”

“Only then investors will have full trust and confidence in you, which will provide a chance to get their attention and the millions that you’ve been dreaming of,” Nesterenko says.

Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures CapitalCiklumFISON and SoftServe.