How I made the leap to New York – and what I found when I got there

Over the past few months, Tech City News has produced a documentary exploring New York’s tech scene and the challenges of expansion. In August, the team spent a week interviewing members of the Big Apple’s tech community about why it has become a strong contender as a base for US expansion.

As part of the project, Tech City News will be publishing a series of articles exploring New York’s tech ecosystem and what it takes to expand there. Watch the documentary now.

I always wanted to have a job where I worked between London and New York. But I never thought it could happen.

I’d put it in the pipe dream category alongside my business plans to start a pig farm, a vineyard on the south coast and a London-based tuk-tuk taxi company.

Now I’m in a position where that is a reality and, even better, I have the ability to relocate to NYC. So, first up: why the US and why NYC? I believe that success for Glow, a social/native/mobile ad tech platform, is linked to success in the US.

Why NYC is working for me

Firstly, there’s the simple economic perspective that the US market is much bigger than any other single market for social ad spend right now. When a customer scales in the US, they grow 6-10x the equivalent of what we’re used to in Europe.

Yes it’s much more competitive, but I believe our ability to do more with less, to be focused on delivering value with tight margins, and our understanding of how to run and scale a business with a sixth of the revenue that our US competitors have, will give us an unfair advantage in the US market.

Secondly, I need to build stronger relationships with our existing partners Facebook and Twitter, and get us on the radar of future partners such as Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat and YouTube. The majority of prominent native ad players (social networks) are HQ’d in the US.

Thirdly, it’s likely that we’ll raise more money. The chances are that this will be led by a US investor. Building lines not dots with those guys is one of my objectives now I’m here.

Making the transition

Moving to America is not without it’s bureaucracy. I had one look at the number of forms we had to fill out before deciding to engage a visa lawyer to help.

The process was pretty painless, aside from supplying reams of supplementary background information and queueing for 2 hours for an interview at the embassy.

We got an L1 visa which allows me to stick around for a year to set things up, and potentially longer if we demonstrate we’re employing people and paying taxes.

One thing we did was set up the US company before we moved (a C-Corp registered in Delaware). We’d had various attempts at recruiting the team and definitely made some mistakes. But in September we found our first NYC employee, Monty.

In hindsight it’s vital to have a trusted person in place to build the team and clients around. We won our first few clients and sent over 2 of the UK team for a short period of time to provide the continuity and service level we’d need (definitely no shortage of volunteers).

Then we started scaling the team around these guys so they could learn the knowledge and absorb the values. The final part is having them over to our HQ in London for the final immersion in the culture, which happened recently. We’re now cash-flow positive in the US and about to scale up to the next level.

Setting up

It’s super easy to recruit people in the US. There’s not a shortage of good people who want to work in startups and if you’re not careful you can easily recruit way ahead of where the revenue is.

If they don’t work out, that’s ok. In most states people are employed ‘at will’, so you can easily get rid of them – it’s helpful, but we didn’t want to operate like that. Maybe it’s our traditional English employment values coming out, we made sure we’re just ahead of the revenue demand – opting for lean growth, rather than throwing in too many people too far ahead of revenue.

Offices are easy too. Much like London there’s a ton of co-working spaces to get you started that appeal to all budgets. Techspace, WeWork, NeueHouse are some of the best.

We opted for WeWork, near Union Square. A great location and a great space, made even more appealing by the free beer pump in the kitchen. (I am not joking).

What sets NYC apart

So I’ve been here for two months now and what have I learned? Things are just different in NYC.

On the surface there are a bunch of similarities – we’re both centres of international finance, business and culture. We’re big, anonymous and beautiful. We’re ambitious and energetic. And that’s all true.

But peel back the layers and you’ll find some differences that are good to know ahead of time. The most striking is the pace. Its much faster here. Access to people, deal agility and the overall speed in which people want things is much faster – this is a New York thing. People want what they want, they want it now and they’re not afraid to tell you. Whether it’s a coffee, contract or convertible loan, things just move faster.

Second, it’s more expensive. The cost of living is higher and therefore the salaries are higher. Employees understandably want to make money, so don’t be surprised when your sales guys ask for 100% commission plans. As a general rule, budget for 30% on top of the UK market rate if you want to find the best people.

Third, ambition and expectation is higher, failure has less of a stigma. British reserve seems to be misunderstood here.

Fourth, you can meet whoever you want. Access is easy – last night I had a beer with one of Spotify’s board members. I’m being introduced to people who can help Glow just because I have asked.

This seems like the centre of the world. That’s what people here believe. And if you believe it, that’s all that matters.

One of the greatest opportunities I had in my career was the ability to work internationally and experience different business cultures. The coolest thing about Glow now is that I can give this opportunity to others.

We have a truly international workforce and the value of being able to comfortably operate all over the world is incredibly fulfilling to those who grasp it, and continues to be fulfilling to me.

In short, I NYC.