Building a bridge to the Bay Area \u2013 its resources, but also its mentality \u2013 helps startups leverage geographic advantages (inexpensive rent and talent, limited competition) and work against disadvantages (immature capital markets and limited networking opportunities), according to Rafael Jimenez<\/a>, the Mexico City-based founder of Seenapse.<\/p>\n He says that just hearing success stories from the U.S. has helped catalyze a local investment market still feeling burned from the dotcom crash and recession.<\/p>\n FIND A FOUNDER PEER GROUP THAT CROSSES BORDERS <\/b><\/p>\n Ondrej Homola<\/a>\u2019s startup, Corinth, built a global publishing platform for education from their base in Prague. He sees government funding, European Union support and proliferating incubators in the Czech Republic providing more and more resources.<\/p>\n Like Rafael, he sees a problem of peer group \u2013 \u201cThe lack of CEO type founders with international experience, as well as ambitions,\u201d Ondrej says.<\/p>\n \u201cLife in Prague\u00a0is awesome \u2013 great culture and food, Brno (the second biggest city in the Czech Republic after Prague)\u00a0is getting quite hip with a great pool of developers. But sales and marketing is still not in our blood. At the end of the day we are still a small province \u2013 if you want to make global impact, you have to go to Silicon Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n As Corinth\u2019s CEO, Ondrej spends half his time in the Bay Area, forging connections and partnerships.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is crucial for us \u2013 we have recently been preparing for fundraising, and particularly for a foreign company there is much more to learn and adapt\u201d he says. \u201cJust following the discussion from other Founders Network members I find an interesting piece of information almost every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n START IN SILICON VALLEY, BUT DON\u2019T END THERE<\/b><\/p>\n Finding a peer group of those \u201cspecial animals\u201d often starts with a pilgrimage to the Bay Area, but it doesn\u2019t end there. For founders used to working alone, visiting a tech hub can feel magical.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember it like I was a kid in Disneyland, I learned so much,\u201d Founders Network member Pedro Neira Ferrand<\/a> says of traveling from Peru to Palo Alto as part of Blackbox Connect, an accelerator for international startup founders.<\/p>\n Pedro met Founders Network members and savored the opportunity to connect with a far broader \u2013 and more experienced \u2013 range of entrepreneurs than were available in Peru.<\/p>\n \u201dIt was very helpful to see other entrepreneurs like me, with the same challenges and some of the same issues that I have, but in a completely different environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Finnish entrepreneur Rami Korhonen<\/a> was working at RocketSpace, a shared office space that serves a cluster of startups in San Francisco. His current startup \u2013 Playmysong<\/a> \u2013 functions as a social jukebox app.<\/p>\n He tagged\u00a0along on a startup ski bus, chatted\u00a0with others on the way up the mountain and made connections he could carry back to Scandinavia \u2013 Founders Network among them.<\/p>\n His observation: networking has to scale across geography as well as time \u2013 so seek out the kind of connection that can thrive beyond a first face-to-face.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing back 15 years, when I studied in the tech industry here in Finland, things were siloed \u2013 people were at their own companies, in their own world, thinking they had something unique,\u201d Rami says. \u201cIn SF it was about people meeting all the time, giving instant feedback and learning. Founders Network is a virtual community that exemplifies the same idea \u2013 the sharing mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut everybody is getting more experience every day,\u201d Rami says.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an atmosphere of people exchanging ideas and helping each other \u2013 it\u2019s a virtual version of what I learned when I lived in San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n Finding these opportunities takes travel, and conversation \u2013 but making something out of them in the long term requires a very basic investment: time.<\/p>\n Staying plugged into online communities from a non-central location requires active participation, not just a browse through\u00a0what everyone else is saying.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more I put time aside and participate actively, the more I\u2019ll get help myself,\u201d Rami says.<\/p>\n IMPORT TECH CULTURE, BUT APPLY IT TO YOUR OWN<\/b><\/p>\n Tech culture is an exportable commodity, and the iconography of incubators like Finland\u2019s StartupSauna<\/a> conveys a clear message: American tech hubs have a defining status when it comes to \u201cstartup life.\u201d<\/p>\n Rami has seen the Finnish scene grow as groups of students at Aalto University began pilgrimages to Silicon Valley \u2013 not to migrate, but to pick and choose what resources would help their own community.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s a game-changing idea out there, Rami adds, it\u2019s only going to surface when groups of innovators cross-pollinate.<\/p>\n COMMUTE, BUT DO IT SMARTER<\/b><\/p>\n International entrepreneurs have all felt the pull \u2013 many spend months or years in New York or California building connections. Others expand a startup to locate a management team in a tech hub, while maintaining the majority of a company in its country of origin.<\/p>\n How much can an entrepreneur glean in one visit, or monthly trips? More than you might guess, Founders Network members say.<\/p>\n A founder based in San Francisco building relationships with five different venture capitalists as his company develops won\u2019t be meeting with them weekly \u00a0\u2013 no one has time for that.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re only going to the area once every month or two months, but you\u2019re always going to the right place and meeting the right people, it\u2019s almost the same thing,\u201d Rami says. \u201cBut if you go for a month and expect something to happen \u2013 that\u2019s a tall order.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLearn what you can, get the tools you need, and decide whether to move there for longer.\u201d<\/p>\n What does it mean, to learn the ecosystem and find one\u2019s place within it? Think of it as understanding the competition\u2019s energy level, Rami says. Ultimately, you\u2019re all competing for the same thing, even for different apps operating in completely disparate fields. In the end, every founder needs attention and money. Both are limited resources.<\/p>\n \u201cOther companies are after the same thing you are and it\u2019s good to see it,\u201d Rami says. \u201cYou need to understand \u2013 ok fine, this is what I\u2019m up against.\u201d<\/p>\n Pedro Neira Ferrand\u2019s fourth company\u00a0in Peru, Mi Media Manzana<\/a>, has looked like your typical startup story from the inside \u2013 find a brilliant team, rent an empty office, find a big table and stack people around, working shoulder to shoulder for the first four months. But a look out their window shows the beautiful Miraflores neighborhood \u2013 known for many things, but not tech.<\/p>\n![\"Rafael](\"http:\/\/foundersnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/rafael_new_mexico2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/i>\u201cSince this ecosystem is fairly new, there haven’t been many exits (less than 5, maybe) and so experienced mentors and investors are quite rare,\u201d Rafael says of Mexico City.<\/p>\n\u201cThe Founders Network model is what’s needed here \u2013 we don’t have many people to follow, and could instead build a peer-to-peer network.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cAlso, just hanging out with other FN folks is cool – at end of the day, founders are quite special animals.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a selective group of handpicked people who are in the thick and thin of being a startup \u2013 some have companies that are doing well, some companies are not doing so well\u201d<\/blockquote>\n
![\"Startup](\"http:\/\/foundersnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Screen-Shot-2015-05-26-at-7.02.29-PM.png\")
<\/a>However,\u00a0communities like Startup Sauna remain deeply rooted in their countries of origin, with coaching, live events and a shared workspace in Helsinki. They import cultural values, such as tolerance for failure, a need for speed and love of collaboration \u2013 and apply them to the local scene.<\/p>\n\u201cThe world has changed \u2013 people understand that you need to be open-minded and communicate a lot in order to find the winning formula.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n
![\"Seenapse](\"http:\/\/foundersnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_4891-001.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cI’d say that we’re constantly looking to Silicon Valley for cues on what’s good or bad and adjusting our criteria,\u201d Rafael says of Mexico City. \u201cWe\u2019ve always been hard workers so that hasn\u2019t changed, but failure used to have a lot more stigma.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Miraflores](\"http:\/\/foundersnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Miraflores_Skyline_Lima_Peru.png\")
<\/a>As Pedro\u00a0closes\u00a0a second round, which expanded to international investment, he required a foreign frame of reference \u2013 and had to pitch on a scale that made the 600 million consumers in his region sound like only a first step.<\/p>\n