I've been in Hong Kong for a year and a half. As a city, it's quite nice. Low taxes, extremely safe, vibrant culture. Pollution is really the biggest downside for me (you get used to the # of people quickly, and I'm from a small city and I hate people so...)
However, professionally speaking? Forget about it. It's a horrible place for programmers. In the last couple months I've met with 2 entrepreneurs looking to move to Hong Kong as well as 2 founders already in Hong Kong. I purposefully did not lead, but all four conversations immediately went to the lack of available talent. And, we weren't talking about the lack of talent the way it is in SF or NY (where there's talent, but it's working for someone else), we are talking about the fact that if you could pick a dream team of all programmers living in Hong Kong, it wouldn't be very dreamy.
Most of the senior programmers are long-time bank employees. Their X years of experience is the same year X times. They are risk adverse and creatively challenged. What's really troubling though is that the young programmers (interns, new graduates) have a strong desire to work for the bank. It's culture...working for the bank is what they want to do. Non CS students will take programming internships because "that's what was available at the bank".
Of course you can point to some small communities or some example company, but you really have to realize that hiring is going to be a challenge you might not be able to overcome. You'll almost certainly have to get your "senior" programmers from abroad, and recruiting your talent is going to be unlike anything you've seen state-side.
I was based in Asia for 12 years hiring web development and design teams. Six of my 12 years were in HK. Finding top talent is very challenging there. I tended to hire young and train, anything else never worked out.
HK is not a cheap city to live in. I realize that it can be done cheaply, but that loses its charm quickly. Like, goodbye farmers markets and even semi-affordable organic food.
Also, if anyone else is considering HK, keep in mind that the investment model is almost purely driven by connections.
Conversely, I knew several niche development companies that had set up shop in Thailand, outside of Bangkok, and had unbelievably low overhead and very talented developers. That was years ago, but it always struck me as a savvy model.
Anyone else looking at Asia should consider Singapore as well. They have some amazing investment programs run by the government at any given time.
There are quite a few software companies in Thailand. I know a guy with 100+ local staff building iOS software. The problem with doing business in Thailand is the foreign ownership laws (you can't own your company or the building it's in) and the amount of bureaucratic red tape. The rising cost of living is also making Thailand less attractive. I've read it's on par with Chicago now. I'm not sure how that's measured but I could certainly live comfortably in Chicago for what I spend in a month here. Import taxes are outrageous. I paid 150% for my car.
I used to run a company in Thailand (not tech) but now I just live here and run a company offshore. I've become pretty negative about the place with all of its idiosyncrasies and don't think I'd set up another company here.
I've currently got my eyes on HK. Friends of friends have established several business hiring locals (though not purely tech companies) there. Everything I've heard is that it's straightforward to get setup there. It's also easy to stay there with the various visa programs they have in place.
Agree, hiring developers is going to currently be difficult, but I expect that this will steadily improve as demand grows. Coming here tends to be trivially easy, and there are a lot of things that being in either SF or NY would give a US focus to when there are a few other people globally that are potential customers.
Working in undeveloped markets tends to be both more difficult, but also can be much more rewarding.
If you want to work for a bank, probably. And you probably will be able to find a job at a startup, but (a) you won't have hundreds of choices, and (b) the pay might be horrible.
You probably shouldn't move here unless you had something lined up before hand.
I don't mind at all working for a bank... I'm already I'm fortune-100 land.
Currently living in southwest china, but coming from NYC so wondering if salaries are comparable? Are there any i-banks or hedge funds with dev shops in HK?
That said I'm really a UX guy with an enterprise background, so any BigCorp would do.
Only caveat: I have very little putonghua and zero guangdonghua. How screwed am I?
You really need to target the large international banks. UBS, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche, Credit Suisse. They use agencies/recruiters a lot, so that might be an angle of attack worth exploring.
If you do that you are fine in HK with english-only (professionally speaking. Socially, I could see it annoying some people (english is an official language in fact only), but it has never bothered me). As for salary, I don't know if they are identical to NY or London salaries, but it's gotta be in the same ballpark.
HSBC might be the only large international bank where english-only would be a problem (though I'm really not sure, just heard a few things).
That is sad but true.
Almost all my CS friends went to investment banks or private funds. I can only name a few that is willing to engage in startup-like activities. Fighting against the norm is hard here. (especially when the banks and funds pays pretty well)
I emigrated from Hong Kong when I was 9. I wouldn't mind returning to work as many of my relatives live there, but only if you are willing to pay wages on par with what I'd get in Australia...
I looked for programming jobs there and interned for 2 months. They do treat you like a slave and pay only $10,000 HKD a month. (around $300 a week).
I am an enthusiastic (and high scoring) software engineering student in Sydney. So yeah, if anyone wants to hire me to work in HK, see my profile for contact details.
Well, the banks pay wages which are comparable to what you'll get in SF/NY. You'll get more benefits and more job security. That said, I'm sure your mileage will vary, but it wasn't for me and it won't be for a lot of folks. It was easily the worst job I've had.
might I add that if you are a techie/programmer (anything to do with the 'backend'), you are not valued.
If you are an ad guy, artist, creative blah, designer blah, you are still given a smile. A programmer in the opinion of the suit coats(entrepreneurs!!) is a slave guy who executes their ideas. Trust me.
Try going to webwednesday; a meet up on some wednesday of the month.
Hey,latch,you seem to want to pay top programmers with noodles.How do you want this to work out?HK does have 2 of the top colleges in the world for CS,so I do believe there should be some people,that would be interested in startups.But maybe the problem is in the startups,in which those people may not see enough value or prospects.
Right on! Leon, I'm connected to the HK startup folks (founders of StartUps HK and Boot) there as well. Feel free to ping. Here is their FB group which most communication is done: https://www.facebook.com/groups/startupshk/ It's a closed group but I could add you.
Group is very active. I think they require people to physically show up to their Startup Monday event to be added to the group. Ping me offline and I could connect you to the group organizers. Or tweet them at: http://twitter.com/startupshk
I'm one of the founders. For the FB group we try to keep it the immediate community active members. Send me a message on FB and let me know who you are.
One other problem we run into on FB is that people use random photos and user names so we have no idea who half of them are, even if we have met the people before.
As an American, our immigration policies make me so damn mad. I know both Leo and Joel quite well, having went through AngelPad together, and they were building a solid company that should have stayed in America.
The fact that wealth-builders, and innovative startup founders that seek to create new frontiers can't legally find a way of staying in this country is preposterous.
Looking at the world and deciding where to go. Having no one that tells you what to do and nothing that holds you back from not doing it.
Wherever you go on the planet, there will be people seeing a human being in you. Welcoming you and making a son, a brother, a father, a lover, a friend out of you.
There will also be a government to remind you you don't belong.
I'm curious at to what statistical facts inform that opinion. Police certainly may show up after being a victim of a crime, but being protected from crimes seems a harder case to make without resorting to unfalsifiable claims (sort of like those put forth by defenders of patent law).
I have a friend doing long term AI research in the HK area and he talks it up so positively that I have considered going there for 4 or 5 months to live and work on my own projects. Does the Cyberport rent inexpensive shared office space suitable for one person to have a nice work environment? I work out of a home office in Arizona, and have a great working environment but living for 4 or 5 months in a foreign country probably means a small apartment so I don't think that I would want to work at "home."
BTW, my wife really likes Hong Kong (we were there 15 months ago) so this would be an easy sell for me to talk her into it.
We have a few cowork options, and expect some more spaces to open within the next 6 months.
BootHK (http://boot.hk) is my space I opened and is mostly hotdesk space for early startups.
HK Commons is a little more for established companies that are still 2-4 people and growing.
There are also more traditional serviced office type offerings, but that isn't quite as interactive with the general community.
Beside Cyberport there is also a place called Science Park which also provide cheap places for start-up.
From my second hand information the rent for a 1,000 sq. ft. office is about $1,100 US dollar (electricity inclusive)
I am from HK and if you want to know more about HK you can contact me.
I'm at a start-up in Beijing, and here's my 2 cents:
The internet is broken in China. Rather than an international internet, we've got a really fast domestic intranet. Not only is every cool, important site since 2004 blocked (e.g. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox...), but VPNs are less reliable than they used to be. Gmail is unreliable. Even paying for significant bandwidth, international sites are slow and video is a pain. I've seen an office full of really smart people's unproductive because they can't load a basecamp page or because dropbox transfers through a VPN move at a crawl.
Every time I go to HK, it's like a breath of fresh air having the internet. For this reason alone, I'd say don't do a start-up in China unless your market is China and you plan to be using primarily Chinese services.
I've created a WFOE (Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise) in Shanghai. The red tape is incredible and it took us almost 6 months to complete the process. Also, in between the law changed and employees became significantly more expensive due to the new social security law...
As a software development consulting company, the pro is that there's a big market but if you want to do your own product then HK is the way to go...
Launching a web based product in China is dangerous because it's very hard to predict what will happen (you could be shut down by the government for one reason or another). Also cost of living and salary wise, Shanghai is anything but cheap (housing is cheaper than hong kong but the rest is not that much cheaper).
For the internet connection, it's manageable when using a ssh tunnel to a private server in the US... But it's a bit of pain (without that and tsocks even doing a bundle install in ruby takes a very long time and often times out)
If you are doing business in China, then Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen would be your best options. You really can't do a business for China from HK effectively, unless part of the business is connecting with the rest of the world in some way.
That being said, big differences are the ease in setting up a company and costs. Ease of getting visas and the general paperwork. Also, HK is much safer than any of the mainland cities. The big cities are probably about similar to New York in terms of safety, but Hong Kong is ridiculously safe in comparison. There are basically no areas that you really shouldn't go to, and the medical system is quite good and reliable vs. mainland.
Also, one nice feature, no corporate tax if the income is from outside of Hong Kong.
My non-expert, second-hand information is that it's very hard to start a business in Shanghai without either a Chinese citizen as cofounder, or a joint-venture arrangement with an existing Chinese company.
Hong Kong and Macau are special administrative regions (SAR). For all intents and purposes, they are independent from China except for two key aspects: military and foreign affairs. They have their own courts, their own law, their own police, their own currency, their own visas, etc, etc, etc. It's known as "one country two systems".
The occupy wall street people in Hong Kong are actually camped INSIDE the HSBC HQ building (granted, it's a special open-ground-floor building). But the sense that you get from HK is one of more freedom than the west, not less.
They still have a (somewhat) separate judicial system and government, which results in a considerably freer media and society; for example, many of the newspapers print anti-PRC editorials that wouldn't be allowed in mainland China, and there are open demonstrations on things like the Tiananmen anniversary.
The Hong Kong Basic Law stipulates that it will have high degree of autonomy at least 50 years after its transfer to Chinese rule. (ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong)
The Hong Kong Telecommunity Authority is, therefore, not required to implement the GFW.
Even in China, there are some GFW-free spots. You might find some 5-star hotels giving you unrestricted access to the likes of Facebook, Google+ etc
I m surprised no one mentions vibrant Vietnam with its endless tropical beaches, amazing food, fast internet at nearly all coffee shops and friendly people. The population is young, cost of living is still low and many big tech companies have shops here (Yahoo, Microsoft, Intel,etc) Plus it is a breeze getting a visa.
As someone looking for some alternate destinations to work as a developer, I'm genuinely curious about Vietnam. Where should I stay and what would be the downsides?
Personally I'd go to Singapore -- low personal taxes, no capital gains tax, no tax on income from dividends, low regulation, lots of capital, close to both Australia and Asia and it's a global flight hub.
Hong Kong is pretty much the same in those aspects, but larger population and more mountains. The government money for startups in Singapore has created an environment that is not entirely healthy or desirable in that there is little incentive to succeed or be that creative. Hong Kong has some government funding and space available, but tends to be in a matching funds arrangement.
I think you're right that Hong Kong is a comparable alternative; I've seen the two referred to as the Asian equivalents of New York and London in terms of their importance to Asian capital markets.
For myself, as an Australian, Singapore is more attractive because of its proximity.
You'll pay about 15-16% income tax in hong kong, there's no capital gains tax, no sales tax, no tax on dividends.
Hong Kong is also a global flight hub...in fact, compared to the US, most places in Asia are relatively close to each other.
If Singapore does have a tax advantage or a geographic advantage, it really can't be significant enough to be the reason you pick one versus the other.
Singapore is a dictatorship, and I think one should always consider the political and legal frameworks of a country in case one runs afoul of the law. I don't know about Singapore, but in some countries merely criticizing the government can get you into trouble, e.g. Thailand.
In this context, "dictatorship" is akin to an epithet, and using it risks short-circuiting rational discourse. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with personal rule: Napoleon wasn't Hitler, Queen Elizabeth I wasn't Stalin, and Marcus Aurelius wasn't Chairman Mao.
Singapore is a de facto single-party state with a strong prime minister. Is that good or bad? That depends on whether we're talking Aurelius or Mao. Having spent the better part of a week in Singapore this past summer, I can tell you that it was the only place on my itinerary where I thought, "I'd love to have a place here." (The other destinations were Thailand, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Ireland.) If I were to have a residence or business in Singapore, probably my biggest fear would be not government oppression, but rather the People's Action Party losing control, probably to the quasi-communist Workers' Party—i.e., a triumph of "democracy" over the highly effective government Singapore has today.
Excellent comment. I'd also point that there are democracies in the world that are orders of magnitude worse places to start a business than Singapore.
Singapore is consistently rated by the World Bank/International Finance Corporation as the number 1 country in the world to do business[1]. That covers the ease of starting a business, contract enforceability, getting credit, and other metrics that are necessary precursors to getting started.
Although China's rise has been the largest in absolute economic terms, Singapore has probably been the fastest.
Just to be clear, I was in no way trying to tie them to a brutal dictatorship. But I think it's important to understand the political structure of the country, not just the current economic/civil environment. For the political structure may help you determine what the civil/economic condition will be as things change, i.e. a change of leadership in an authoritarian regime will have more of an impact on economic and civil life than a change of leadership in a democracy (I don't know if this is true btw).
You are probably better off visiting the place and getting a feel for it rather than relying on "facts". For example, some people might see Hong Kong as part of China and thus conclude it's oppressive. However, it only takes a day or two here to realize that people enjoy a ton of freedom (I see protests all the time, and haven't seen anyone pepper sprayed or arrested yet).
"However, it only takes a day or two here to realize that people enjoy a ton of freedom (I see protests all the time, and haven't seen anyone pepper sprayed or arrested yet)."
It won't be like this forever. I think the autonomous government deadline is 50 years. When this happens, it won't be as "free" as it is now.
This is also only if the Chinese government doesn't go back on their word.
If you truly want a free country, go to Taiwan. Taipei is just as vibrant as HK.
If it helps, I'm go-authoring a book with Derek Sivers on Taiwan. Leaving next week for Taiwan to write the book over the next month. It's an awesome place to do business because of their low cost of living but their taxes are similar to the US>
Coincidentally, the main reason I visited Singapore was to hang out with Derek. I'll be interested to see the result of your collaboration. P.S. I'm sure it's a typo, but I love the idea of "go-authoring" a book—it has a great ambitious ring to it.
The downside to Singapore is that they are authoritarians. Confucian capitalists, you might say. William Gibson famously called it "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" in a Wired article of that title.
Hong Kong is a great place for business and for most important purposes (GFW, law, freedom of speech, immigration, language, etc) it is a different 'country' to China.
Guys, thanks so much for all the tips and best wishes, you are amazing. If you have any more tips on accommodation and startup circles on top of the awesome ones mentioned, please let me know below or ping me leo at bufferapp.com.
It's just incredibly sad when you see such people leave the country because of immigration issues. I have been reading their posts and can say this with confidence that Leo and Joel are just getting started with Buffer.
Kind of off topic, but I am thinking about traveling to China (mainland, not HK) over the summer and working on my own business while doing touristy stuff. My business is completely online and based in the US, so I am wondering if I should get a business visa or just a normal tourist visa. I won't be going to business meetings or anything like that in China, but should I get a business visa just to be safe?
Setting up companies and working visa should be pretty easy in HK. I have never heard anyone having issue regarding that.
There has always been funding but investors don't usually add as much values as ones here do. The main reason could be these investors made their fortune from other non tech business like stock or real estate real estate. They are usually great business minded people but they may have a hard time advising tech startups.
Funding with experienced investors is not as common. We are seeing a big jump in investments over the last 6 months from investors that have started coming in and are really able to take their pick of deals. I think we will see more of this happen and continue to grow.
One thing that is lacking are founders of successful companies that are investing in new ones, but it takes time to grow the ecosystem.
Hong Kong is my favorite place in the world to live or work. If I were working on something other than computer security, I'd have a hard time not doing it there. I'm sure you will be very successful there.
I only know marketing agencies there, but haven't run into any groups of either hardware or software hackers. Would be interested to find out what is there as well.
We also recently left the USA because one of our party is a UK citizen. We spent 6 months in the UK as US citizens with no problem, but when we came to the USA, we had to leave after 3 months, or send the UK resident co-founder out of the country at least. This visa thing is kinda absurd.
What is the visa situation like in Hong Kong? I've read elsewhere that getting a visa for China is very difficult (this might be an area where HH is different from CN). Are you able to get reasonably long visas so that you can stay there indefinitely, or will you have to relocate again in 6 months or a year?
FWIW, others have recommended Singapore, and one nice thing about Singapore is that they have a pro-entrepreneur Visa process, though it seems a bit focused on business that will be hiring singaporeans, so the traditional tiny consumer internet startup might have trouble meeting their requirements.
Singapore is an expensive place to live, housing wise (though I hear food is super cheap and super plentiful with a massive "Street food"/mall-food-court culture).... though I imagine HK real estate isn't cheap either.
The approach we're taking is that we're going places where our core costs are low-- apartment for the founders plus food, etc, and trying to make our funds last longer that way, and then working with people remotely to expand our staff.
Singapore is an expensive place to live, housing wise (though I hear food is super cheap and super plentiful with a massive "Street food"/mall-food-court culture).... though I imagine HK real estate isn't cheap either.
Housing is expensive, yes, but you can live cheaply in HK if you're willing to adjust your standards downwards: you can get a tiny flat in a low-rent area without worrying about violent crime, you can eat at cheap diners or buy groceries at cheap wet markets without worrying about food-borne diseases, etc, owning a car is logistically & socially unnecessary, etc. Not everyone needs these guarantees but it helps if you're the kind of person who worries a lot =)
What is the visa situation like in Hong Kong? I've read elsewhere that getting a visa for China is very difficult (this might be an area where HH is different from CN). Are you able to get reasonably long visas so that you can stay there indefinitely, or will you have to relocate again in 6 months or a year?
HK Immigration Department is totally separate from mainland China. Different laws, different visa types, different procedures. It's not that hard to get a real visa here. ImmD is strict about their requirements but they are not mysterious, arbitrary, or painfully slow like USCIS. There is a self-sponsored employment visa (called "investment visa", but it doesn't require big capital investment, just a business plan). It does have to demonstrate some sort of benefit to locals, but that can be in terms of using local suppliers for goods and services, rather than hiring lots of local workers. There's also the QMAS visa, a sort of points-based skilled migration visa that gives you more flexibility.
Trying to work for your own company while on a tourist visa is a gamble. For 90 days you'll be okay. Longer term, some people have josscrowcroft's experience and go on visa runs for years without trouble. If you're low profile and don't compete with local companies the Immigration Dept. may ignore you. But others end up like this Aussie who came to HK to give a risk management seminar and got two months in prison followed by deportation for working illegally: http://news.sina.com.hk/news/2/1/1/2352180/1.html
If you decide to stay really longer term, the system is generally quite fair (at least to skilled workers and students; if you're a maid or construction worker it's a whole other kettle of fish): permanent residence takes seven years, but your "clock" doesn't reset if you change employers (e.g. if you get acquired and become an employee sponsored by your acquirer), and there's no ridiculous quota on how many PRs are approved each year. And once you have PR it's actually permanent: you can vote, you cannot be deported and there's no bullshit about "losing status" for filing a tax return as a non-resident or going back to your home country for a couple of years.
However, professionally speaking? Forget about it. It's a horrible place for programmers. In the last couple months I've met with 2 entrepreneurs looking to move to Hong Kong as well as 2 founders already in Hong Kong. I purposefully did not lead, but all four conversations immediately went to the lack of available talent. And, we weren't talking about the lack of talent the way it is in SF or NY (where there's talent, but it's working for someone else), we are talking about the fact that if you could pick a dream team of all programmers living in Hong Kong, it wouldn't be very dreamy.
Most of the senior programmers are long-time bank employees. Their X years of experience is the same year X times. They are risk adverse and creatively challenged. What's really troubling though is that the young programmers (interns, new graduates) have a strong desire to work for the bank. It's culture...working for the bank is what they want to do. Non CS students will take programming internships because "that's what was available at the bank".
Of course you can point to some small communities or some example company, but you really have to realize that hiring is going to be a challenge you might not be able to overcome. You'll almost certainly have to get your "senior" programmers from abroad, and recruiting your talent is going to be unlike anything you've seen state-side.