

Unfortunately, it did not go as planned. Even with the relocation packages, salary and stock bonuses we offered, along with a clear timeline of our plan, people were not sold — morale collapsed in that instant.
After the announcement, communication was poor and morale decreased significantly. We should have clued in team leaders sooner to help mitigate the damage and gauge their own willingness to move before the rest of the staff. For anyone thinking about relocating your startup, make the relocation decision a company-wide discussion from Day One.
Despite its poor initial reception, we had signed a lease, the plan had begun and there was no turning back. So after the official announcement, we made sure to speak to every single employee in the company and gauge their interest every single week. Some gave us an immediate, “Yes I’ll move.” Some gave us, “I need more time to think about it.”
Others were interested in working remotely. And, some were very upfront and said they were likely to leave the company in the upcoming months. So, we needed to get creative here.
I needed every employee during the transition, as we couldn’t risk gaps in service, so I incentivized my team to stay together as long as possible with a $5,000 bonus for staying with the company until July 1.
This all paid off. That scary moment of thinking I was losing most of my talent in reality changed to losing only about 7 percent. And even for those 7 percent, we’ve given LinkedIn recommendations, handled reference calls and even offered introductions at top SF companies. It was important to us not to forget the very people who facilitated our growth, even at a parting of ways.
With a vague idea of who was following us down to San Diego, we still had to set our sights on setting up shop in San Diego. Our VP of Finance created a huge to-do list of what tasks needed to be done, when they needed to be done and who needed to do them.

We all got to work on our laundry list of things to do. From getting bids on furniture, to hiring movers, to opening up a new office, we were busy with the logistics of the relocation itself. Installing furniture, activating services, relocating your team… a lot goes into opening an office. This is also a decisive period for employees riding the fence on moving, so it’s critical to keep them comfortable. We opened our new office in San Diego on March 1, two full months before we closed our SF doors.
Those two months between March and May when we had two offices open were tough. It was change: We were in limbo. I was surrounded by an amazing team who still hit their goals and kept on task, but I also had to see some of them walk away, even if I desperately wanted them to stay. I watched people go, for good, for remote-working, or in the process of moving to San Diego. I was, literally, the last man standing. We closed our San Francisco office on April 21, yet I didn’t head down to the new office myself until May 1 when our lease ended. It felt important for me to stay behind; a captain never leaves his ship.
And it was personal. So much had been accomplished in that space. We were on the Inc. 500 fastest-growing company list for two years in a row, there had been so many great times and our processes had improved immensely. We had fun, we learned and we grew as a team. Closing our San Francisco office was an emotional time for everyone, but the show must go on.
We began our San Diego talent search months before leaving San Francisco, flying candidates up to interview in our SF office and hiring them before we opened our SD doors. The media buzz surrounding our move leveraged our recruiting more than anything — we received hundreds of applications.
Our announcement to move attracted top media attention, and the mayor of San Diego offered to join us for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. In regards to becoming a bigger fish in a smaller pond, the move itself went extremely well.
There’s no doubt the decision to move had its ups and downs, but the benefits far outweighed the mistakes I made as we transitioned. The one that hurts the most was that we lost about 7 percent of our valuable employees, and I attest that to the way the move was presented to our team. Another struggle we are still working around is half of our team is now working remotely, which strains communication and productivity.

If given the opportunity to do the moving process over, I would have planned more carefully. Our move plan covered everything from prepping our remote team to cleaning the carpets and disabling the alarm system. However, with all this planning, I should have clued in more employees individually sooner rather than relying almost solely on company surveys. When selling employees on the move, I also focused too much on San Francisco’s drawbacks and not enough on San Diego’s advantages. I failed as a leader here, and view this as my biggest mistake with the move.
As CEO, I lost the trust of many employees who felt undervalued by my decision. If you’re committed to moving, you have to take the heat that comes with that. I know the decision was right. The benefits we are seeing are just the beginning. We anticipate all of the above metrics to only improve as time goes on.
I know I’ve harped on this enough, but the benefits are real: lower operational costs, shorter commutes, less competition for talent. These factors position you in a way the Bay Area’s saturated atmosphere can’t. As the great Jack Welsh said, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”
After reading the above, you might think a move is crazy — it’s expensive, risky, uncomfortable and borderline insane. But so is losing out on prime talent, pouring money into rent and operational costs that dwarf the rest of the country’s. If you ever plan to get out, the time is now. Tech hubs are emerging all over the country; from San Diego to Detroit to Atlanta, cities are eyeing the opportunity to pick up where the Bay Area has left off, evolving into more profitable locales for businesses that are just as ready as residents to head for shore.
Yes, Silicon Valley will probably always be the best place to start the next Facebook. For the other 99 percent of us — those with practical, executable ideas — there are better places out there. If you want to build a profitable, mid-sized company, explore elsewhere. Don’t get caught up in the notion that tech lives and dies in the Bay Area, or that sharing an area code with the giants will spur your momentum. Growth is about competitive advantage, not proximity to the scene.
Home is where you make it, even for startups.
