The Valley advantage

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: technologists and engineers are people like lawyers, accountants, operations, sales and others. As Brij pointed out, finding a lawyer to work on equity basis in Bangalore is not an easy task. And for that matter I would guess finding an accountant or operations guys for a small team of unproven entrepreneurs in Bangalore might be a big challenge. But, here in Silicon Valley you will find people who are willing to work on sweat equity with unproven teams.

Finding money in Silicon Valley has gotten relatively easy over the years. There is Sand Hill Road, the Mecca of the Venture Capital world, angel investors, high net worth individuals and banks, who are easily accessible to pitch and get funding for your startup. You will find investors that are willing to fund you at various stages of the company.

And then there is the final piece knowledge or education in the form of Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley. Stanford has a vibrant environment where entrepreneurship is encouraged and nurtured. There are plenty of mentors available to provide the necessary hand-holding and to act as sounding board for your ideas. For instance, take Rahul Thathoo, who just graduated from Stanford and while there managed to rake in quite a few greenbacks developing Facebook applications along with Suchit Agarwal, a former classmate from India.

A few days ago Rahul and Suchit launched their next startup: Internwaala, which they describe is like Naukri for interns. Think of the duo as serial entrepreneurs. Last year these two former classmates started a Facebook application that got them millions of visitors and enough revenue to fund their education and their next startup. “Anything new (well most of the times, at least) that is being brought to the industry starts here at the Valley. Riding the facebook apps wave was one of the most fun and challenging experiences ever, and this would definitely not have been possible anywhere else in the world,” says Suchit.