Do You Have to Move to San Francisco to Build a Successful Startup?

The tour is done, and honestly so am I, after travelling to 15 countries for 6 weeks straight.

Every city showed up differently.

Each room had its own energy, from the curious builders in Bucharest to the people of Ukraine, who were my biggest surprise:

• Belgrade showed up relentlessly, even on Easter Monday.

• Zagreb was sharp.

• Warsaw had audacity.

• Budapest lived to compete.

• Prague moved on its own.

Yet, every single room had ONE thing in common.

The talent.

Builders with incredible raw potential, ready to dedicate the next 10 years of their life to building a startup, straight from the most competitive ecosystem in the world.

The question remains though: do you have to move to San Francisco to build a successful startup?

I’ll answer that. But first, last and not least 👇

LVIV: The room full of surprises.

The good kind.

I arrived in Lviv having no idea what I’d be walking into.

The organizers told me: “just show up, we have the students, don’t worry about it”.

Turns out I walked into 50 builders who went straight into building mode the moment I said “let’s get going“.

So let’s clock the most memorable lessons:

There was a guy in the back who became a co-host, without even realizing it.

Every time I said something and left a pause for it to sink in, he responded from the back:

“damn. Oh my god. Can’t believe that.”

He turned the whole session into a stand-up comedy:)

And in doing so, he kept the energy in the room alive for everyone around him.

In one of the brainstorming groups, one participant pushed back on every idea his teammates presented, not to criticize, but to go deeper.

He asked: “Ok, but how?”

The teammate would explain.

“Ok, but again, how? How do you actually do that?”

He wasn’t being difficult, he wanted the mechanism, the detail, the actual plan.

This kind of pushback set the tone in the room: nobody could hide behind vague concepts.

Everyone told each other directly: “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

This is exactly the dynamic that separates teams that build something real from teams that brainstorm forever.

After the event, a girl walked up to me and handed me a gift: a poker chip from Las Vegas, from when she’d been part of Ukraine’s delegation at CES.

That’s a business lesson in itself: being memorable is about doing small gestures that leave a mark.

This is how you get remembered easily.

Now, the most asked question throughout the entire tour:

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Do you have to move to San Francisco to build a successful startup?

No.

But you have to show up there, at least once.

You have to walk into the rooms, shake the hands, sit across from the people who write the checks.

If you’re building B2B and selling contracts above $10,000, nobody wires that money to someone they’ve never met in person.

You need to be there. You need to inspire trust face to face.

If you’re building B2C, you can build from anywhere.

But the mindset shift that happens when you spend time in SF, surrounded by people who think in terms of global scale by default, is something you can’t get from a podcast or a newsletter.

And ReaktorX helps you get there by:

The applications are open until June 11.

Only 15 teams will be selected.

Apply HERE.

Shoutout to Ideas Center UCU for hosting us and making Lviv happen!

The tour was an absolute blast, but now I’m back to base for a while.

In the meantime, I’ll get back to the regular newsletter that will help any early stage founder go from idea to traction faster.