[Brushfire]

I forgot to mention... There are two saving points for Indy that help it a little:

1 - IU Bloomington (not far) was ranked the #1 Public University (#2 Overall) for Entrepreneurship in the country. There are lots of people down there that are trying neat things and are willing to help startups.

2 - The cost of starting a startup here is retarded low. I can get full office space with utilities included for <$500/mo for a small slace or <$1000 for a medium/large space. You wont find that anywhere. Employment costs are lower, living expenses, training costs, infrastructure costs, etc -- all lower.

Still, it wont help you that much since there are very few people in the midwest with startup mentality. And finding '1st' customers here is a real pain. I had my last startup here and we had the biggest problem convincing someone to even spend 3 minutes to try something new. There is a conservatism at work that shuns new things until they are 'proven'. Most successful software/startup companies in the midwest still find their first customers on the coasts.

[tptacek]

Those office space costs are comparable to Chicago. Indy is smaller and less desireable, but there's much more supply in Chicago.

[Brushfire]

I don't buy it. Sure you can get space at those rates in any of the suburbs -- but downtown? Really? If so, could you point me in a couple of directions? I'm not trying to be snide -- I'm honestly interested.

The rent I'm talking about for Indy is downtown (not that it matters in indy). If I went to the Indy Suburbs, I could probably get it cheaper... Almost free probably for trade of some sort.

But driving in Chicago is a real pain, and I wouldnt want to live in the suburbs and/or have to commute there.

[tptacek]

Our offices are at Jackson and Federal, in the Monadnock building. I live in Oak Park; the Blue Line spits me out at the door of my office.

Joel Spolsky wrote an article on finding office space:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/OfficeNewYork.html

If you're running up against really expensive space, you may be falling into the trap of trying to buy "class A" space, or space that's jacked up because of "amenities" you don't care about.