1/ The most important price that determines almost every other price and the cost of living is the price of land.

Land prices increase very rapidly with population density.

People collaborating with other and the resulting value added justifies higher land prices at first.

2/ Over time, as a location becomes too popular, land prices go up faster than local economic value added (local GDP).

Late arrivals to the hot location in effect work to provide an outsized return to lucky early residents who "got in" at the right time and the right price.

3/ This has the effect of increasing local inequality as more and more of wage income goes to rent or mortgage. Some people simply get priced out of the market altogether.

We can see this in almost all the "desirable" big cities around the world.

The problem has a solution.

4/ Young entrepreneurs are the solution. If you are not a landowner in a popular location (and most young entrepreneurs are not), do you want to pour your effort to provide even bigger returns to existing land owners?

Because that's where a lot of the value added would go!

5/ Jobs go where job creators go. When Zoho started our office in Tenkasi, there was an apprehension "Can we find talent? Would people want to work in a small town/village setting?"

8 years and 500 people later, no one worries about that anymore. We have a lot of applicants.

6/ Smart young entrepreneurs should internalize this lesson. Your job is not to make the already landed even richer, but to create opportunities and wealth for your workforce and your community.

Low land or rent costs give you a long runway too! You can survive mistakes.

7/ I have never gotten anything right the first time I did it. Let's say that I am a "slowerpreneur".

The only thing I did right was to make sure I could afford my mistakes.

If you develop a high burn rate due to a high cost location, you allow yourself no room for mistakes.

8/ There is a macro-economic theory known as Georgism that formalizes these notions. He saw the fundamental importance that land values and rents play in inequality. We can visibly observe that in big cities.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George

Entrepreneurs should understand Georgism!

Finally, for those not from Chennai, Guduvanchery, the place where Zoho has its headquarters, is considered quite unglamorous and low-prestige.

In Tamil, Guduvanchery was almost a generic term equivalent to "boondocks" in English.

We have done quite well there!

I picked Guduvanchery specifically because of its unglamorous nature. That was part of its appeal for me!

If some day it becomes too popular (I hope not!), please keep that in mind.

Entrepreneurs rarely succeed by chasing what's popular right now.