My best answer right now is the United States, and more specifically, San Francisco.
Not just any city in the U.S, but San Francisco.
See this a graph showing the amount of funding allocated in the U.S. in 2024.
And also see this graph showing the number of startups based on funding stages and which country has produced the most billion- or trillion-dollar companies.
There’s no real comparison—San Francisco leads by far, ahead of Europe and anywhere else in the world.
Now, if you can’t move to San Francisco right away—maybe because you have kids, visa issues, or you’re building something localized for a different region—you still have a chance to succeed. But you’ll face a lot more headwinds.
There are many reasons for this.
One is money—as I mentioned, there’s simply more funding available for founders who build American companies than anywhere else in the world, whether it’s Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, Southeast Asia, or East Asia.
Another is the innovation mindset.
San Francisco has produced multiple trillion-dollar companies. As a result, investors, founders, and even regular citizens have an optimistic attitude toward ambitious startups. If you go there and tell people you have a crazy idea, they won’t think you’re crazy—they’ll believe in you.
In most other parts of the world—especially in Europe and Southeast Asia—if you say you have a crazy idea, people will assume you’re actually crazy. Even if they don’t say it to your face, they’ll believe you’re going to fail.
And it’s not great to build a company in a place where people think you’re going to fail.
Why?
Because people don’t help those they believe will fail. People only help those they think will succeed—so they can have a share of that success. That’s something you have to consider if you’re starting a startup in 2025 or anytime in the future.
Even if you can’t live permanently in the U.S., spend some time in San Francisco. There’s this great video of Tim Ferriss explaining why you should try to live in a dense startup hub like SF, at least for a while.
Why? Because you’ll build a network. That way, when you need resources, you can tap into a group of founder friends who can make warm introductions.
Not just that—when you’re making product and business decisions, it’s important to be in an environment that supports bold ideas.
If you’re surrounded by people who constantly doubt you, telling you:
- “Are you sure? This sounds crazy.”
- “Have you thought about this risk?”
- “Why not do something easier?”
Then, over time, you’ll make less and less ambitious decisions.
That’s why so many startups outside of places like San Francisco end up becoming mediocre businesses—not because the founders weren’t capable, but because they were constantly talked out of taking big risks.
In contrast, in San Francisco, people look at your craziest prototypes and ideas and say:
“Holy sh*t, you must build this, because no one else is.”
There’s something powerful about that kind of affirmation.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it validation at the product level, but that mindset makes you feel like you can change the world. And there’s no reason to believe that’s false—you could be the one who changes the world.
So, if you can—incorporate in San Francisco.
If you can’t, at least spend time there.
If that’s not possible, join an online community that fosters the San Francisco culture—one that values extreme collaboration and extreme competence.
Why those two things?
Because San Francisco’s culture dates back to World War II, when the city was home to many war factories. People worked together to build weapons and war machines. The war united them, removing competition among them. Their focus was on winning the war.
When the war ended, they were left with a population that was:
1. Extremely competent
2. Extremely collaborative
But they no longer had a war to fight.
So, what did they do? They applied that same collaboration and competence to building technology.
That culture is still here in SF today. There is no other place in the world that values competence and rewards it as much as Silicon Valley does.
So—spend some time there if you can. otherwise, join an online founder community that is designed to value competence and collaboration, ideally one that has moderators that enforce that and keep it active. I spent 3 years of my life building such a community for myself and a small group of other founders and made it open to public so I have a strong bias towards our founder founder community LL (LearningLoop.com). I’d love to invite you to it 🙂