This content was created by Tim Draper. This content was uploaded by Tim Draper. This is a YouTube video titled "Pros and Cons to Starting Zappos in Vegas | Director of Zappos Labs, Will Young" (posted 2015-06-29). The excerpt is an interview-style conversation featuring Will Young (Director of Zappos Labs) and an interviewer (labeled SPEAKER A). Will Young pitches Las Vegas as a startup location, discussing lower cost of living and office costs, talent availability and hiring trade-offs, proximity to San Francisco and LA, downtown Las Vegas community-building, Tony Hsieh’s investments and the Vegas Tech Fund, and the potential for international startups and a startup visa. Draper University and Collision Conference are mentioned as part of the local ecosystem. Content type: YOUTUBE; created_time: 2015-06-29T10:32:31Z.
So obviously you're an advocate for Las Vegas and the Las Vegas tech scene. Give the pitch. Like, you know, they'll be pitching their 2 minutes. Why would I start a startup in Las Vegas?
I think 2 things. If some of your customers are in Vegas, I think if you're doing nightlife, entertainment, hospitality, or if your business really depends on a lot of tourism, I think there's something like 40 million people visit Las Vegas a year, right? So if you're doing something in tourism that's super Second is, any international startups here? I think there's a couple, right? So I think whenever we've talked— if we ever figure out this startup visa stuff, Vegas is going to be really interesting for international startups. Because I think, one, we actually just launched the infographic. I think if you live in San Francisco and you pay maybe $3,000 a month in rent for a 600-square-foot one-bedroom, which is sadly typical these days, you can get a 1,000-square-foot apartment You can go to Vegas and get a 4-bedroom house with a pool for $3,000 a month and put your entire 20-person startup in that house. You can house everyone for $3,000 a month. That's— your runway will be crazy long there. And, you know, it's— people are always like, is there talent there? There is. There's obviously fewer, but it's like, how hard is it to hire developers in San Francisco, right? Just because we're surrounded by developers doesn't mean it's easy. So it's hard anywhere. But if you do find developers in Vegas, they're going to be way cheaper as well. So I think that's one of the value props of Vegas. And then I think if at your core, I think here you're all builders, that's why you're doing a startup. But if you're actually excited about, I want to help build a startup community, like for those people who came out of Boulder 10 years ago, it's like, you know, when we first started being a startup in Boulder, we were like one of 3 startups and now look at it. That's kind of a nice badge to have if you're excited about that.
Still, what— I mean, you're here. 50% of VC funding goes to startups in California. What's the flip side of that? I mean, why stay here?
Yeah, being close, right? I mean, things like Draper University, right? The fact that Tim and the team can bring all these great speakers— and I'm not calling myself a great speaker. Sorry, that sounded super loaded. All these speakers, some who are great, because this is in our backyard, right? It's super easy flow. But I think the interesting thing about Vegas, again, kind of the positive spin, is Tim was just in Vegas last week for Collision Conference.
Oh.
Oh, there's some Collision Conference people there? Great. And so there's a lot of people coming in and out of Vegas, but they're just not next door all day, right? You can't go to Sand Hill Road and do the whole investor tour. So, other thing though, you know, it's like, I was just in Vegas on Monday. I take the 5:45 AM flight out of San Francisco, which is ridiculous, but I can make a 7:30 breakfast meeting. So it's not that bad, right? And again, you always think about Vegas like, let's get fucked up. Oh shit. Sorry, let's get drunk. I forgot, ABC Family, sorry. And there is that—
It's real Silicon Valley talk here.
And there is that image of Vegas, but I think people who visited downtown Vegas, it's this completely different world, right? It's not the Strip. It's like these coffee shops. It's a very communal environment. It's a little bit like this, right? Like, you guys are going to walk out of here, hopefully be successful, but I think you're going to stay in touch with a lot of the people in this class. I think downtown Las Vegas is like— almost like a community as an accelerator cut because it's so small. In downtown Las Vegas, and a lot of people, if you've never been to Vegas, you've probably, or even if you have been to Vegas, you might have never been to downtown Vegas. It's like the old Vegas, and it's how, I'll take one really quick step back. Zappos headquarters has moved there, and I kind of use the analogy of like, if you guys have been to the Twitter office and Square office in San Francisco, it's in like central mid-market, which is not a great neighborhood, right? But I think the city told— I'm imagining the city told those startups, like, you move your 1,000 employees here, we'll clean up the city around you. Tony, our CEO, moved Zappos to downtown Las Vegas, and he took over the old City Hall, and he knew that, well, they didn't clean up the neighborhood for City Hall, they're not going to for us. So he actually put $350 million of his own money to revitalize downtown. $50 million is into our tech fund. So how do we build a tech community there? So what didn't even exist like a couple years ago, there's now free coworkspaces, there's coworkspaces that startups meet, there's all these tech events. So there's a community, but it's still pretty small. Like, out of our 100 investments in Vegas Tech Fund, maybe about 20, 25 of them are based in Vegas. And there's still other startups. Like, every city has startups, right? But now it's like, how do we kind of bring them together? So that exists. What's your biggest selling point right in the middle of our 2 Vegas? I think it's those couple things. There is definitely a lower cost of living. I think it makes it better for your business because you can— I was thinking of Austin, Texas, because that's really low as well. Totally. It's not as low as it used to be, right? You know, it is, right? And stuff changes. It's really close to— if you do do business in San Francisco and LA, it's really close. So I think it's convenient. And if you were excited about helping build a community— what I tell people is, like, I never try and oversell Vegas. I tell people it is not perfect. You're not going to get lunch with Tony every Friday because he's in Vegas. People ask me that all the time. They're like, can Tony be my mentor? I'm like, I work with Tony in 2 different jobs. He's not even my mentor, right? Like, it doesn't mean he doesn't care. It's just he's got— he's so freaking busy, right? And, uh, um, so one of the selling points is there is low cost of living if it's convenient. And if you're just in your heart of hearts, you're excited about building community, I tell people it's like You know, if you're a Wild West trailblazer, like, don't come expecting cabins to be built. We're looking for people to chop down trees and build some cabins with us. And that's exciting to some people. It's interesting, there's been some investors that have told startups that we've invested in, don't take Vegas Tech Fund money. Hmm, wait, why? The first time I heard that, right, I was like, what? Like, don't take money? We want to write you a check, right? Because they're like, Vegas Tech Fund money has strings attached to it. They want you to be a community builder.
