If you as an entrepreneur are confident to build the next unicorn, a start-up with 1b market capitalization, then go ahead and settle in the Silicon Valley. Best choice.

If not, there is a better place to start and run your business, to live and to invest.

Why Panama? Living here for 8 years already, let me present my thoughts in a series of posts. 

Conditions have changed significantly.

“The Valley” began as a center for the capital-intense semiconductor and computer industry, followed by Internet software developers and service providers in the late 90s.

Renting an office, hiring staff, setting up servers and workstations, purchasing software licenses was expensive and Venture Capital was a necessity to take off or to grow.  

These days are over. However, it has established a concentration of ideas and capital there as nowhere else in the world, now focusing to solve the big problems of mankind.   

Your ambitions are a bit smaller? Then you don’t have to pay the ridiculous price of living and working there.

Establishing a business nowadays is much easier than a decade ago.

No fancy office, desks and chairs.

No permament hires, beside a core staff, people work project-based.

No hardware investments, but BYOD.

No software licenses, get everything cloud-based.

No expensive marketing. Win followers by early release of a good-enough product.

Conclusion: The capital demand for new endavours is low, as are entry barriers. So who needs VCs anyway anymore?