Why we’re taking our startup to Tel Aviv

It’s been an incredible 6 months, that the Buffer team could spend here in Hong Kong. I first wrote about our startup journey to Hong Kong a few months ago. That’s why I wanted to do an update, as sure enough, we are seeking new shores.

Within the next two weeks we are heading to one of the top startup hubs in the world: Tel Aviv.

I couldn’t be any more excited about heading there. The startup community, the beach and the great location for working on Buffer with the whole team, it’s most certainly a perfect spot.

A lot has happened in the past 6 months. We’ve grown the Buffer team to 6 now (Joel, Tom, Andy, Alyssa, Tom A. and me). Grown to a base of close to 250,000 amazing people on board and are working closely with lots of amazing partners to integrate Buffer across services on the web.

We then sat down and thought about where to go next, after Hong Kong. Our thought process of doing this is really quite simple. The key parameter we used to make a decision were: buzzing startup community, “craziness of the place” i.e. level of feeling uncomfortable (the higher the better) and nice weather.

The top places that were in the race were the following:

• • Tokyo
  • Bangkok
  • Tel Aviv
  • San Francisco
  • Rio de Janeiro
  • New York
  • Hawaii

Whilst we considered all of them closely, Tel Aviv came out on top. Here is why:

The startup community is incredible

The first and probably strongest reason to go to Tel Aviv was the amazing startup community.

Ben Lang, a friend of mine, made an amazing app showing you how many startups are currently based there:

From: MappedinIsrael.com

As Ben writes:

“A country smaller than New Jersey with thousands of startups.”

When we first arrived in Hong Kong, the startup community has welcomed us so heartily we couldn’t be any more grateful. We were invited to give talks, mentor at events (Joel rocked!) and made lots of friends. That’s why we decided we wanted to continue to help other fellow entrepreneurs with their ideas and be closer to more like minds. For that, Tel Aviv was perfect.

Average rainy days: 0

We might over-simplify things by making a big deal out of the weather. Nevertheless, this played a big role.

We wanted to make sure to be in a place where the sun shines, we can take breaks to go to the beach and be close to the sea.

Check out this graphic on Tel Aviv’s climate: almost 0 days of rain, 30 degrees every day and over 350 hours of sun per months:

Why not San Francisco?

A lot of people have asked us, so, if those are your criteria, why are you not in SF? The short answer is this, we’ll go back to San Francisco, no doubt. We wouldn’t be entrepreneurs if we wouldn’t try again after getting kicked out.

All is looking great for us to make it back to the states in early October, bringing the whole team and lots of smiles on our faces.

In fact I really can’t wait, as the support we continue to get from so many people there is incredible.

Where, what, who…in Tel Aviv?

It’s going to be an amazing time that we will spend in Tel Aviv, I’m sure of it. At the end of the day, we are most focused about just enjoying ourselves, having  fun and practicing being happy. That’s what will all make us do our best work.

It’d be amazing to hear, if you have any thoughts about Tel Aviv. Where is best to stay and find apartments? Which events are going on in the next months and which coffeeshops and co-working spaces shall the Buffer team take over?

I would love to hear your thoughts. Have you been traveling lately? How do you go about it?

Photo credit: Fellowsisters, Wikipedia, Mappedinisreal