[manglav]

Great advice, but this seems like you need a trifecta of things going for you.

1. The right environment - going to school in Seattle or the Valley/SF, or even NY, the big companies are literally in your backyard, and you're aware of it. Meeting people, showing them your motivation is a lot easier in person.

2. Mentors in the Space - Unfortunately, most teachers aren't as awesome as yours, who was a great mentor and had cool connections.

3. Internal Motivation - For most high schoolers, I would say this is the biggest impediment. They (and I) didn't realize there was something actually cool you could do in high school, and we coasted, making programs on our calculators and doing math puzzles in the back of the room during class.

Of course, if I had discovered HN back then...who knows? Thanks for the great post though.

[vampirechicken]

> 1. The right environment - going to school in Seattle or the Valley/SF, or even NY, the big companies are literally in your backyard, and you're aware of it. Meeting people, showing them your motivation is a lot easier in person.

Great companies are everywhere. You've probably never heard of them because they can't afford to advertise on TV. You don't have to be in the countries 5 largest TV markets to find people bootstrapping really cool stuff.

In fact, I posit that not being where the cost of living is too damn high means more interesting bootstrappers. Bootstrappers love cheap labor, and who's cheaper than a high school intern?

[manglav]

You're right, I was referring more to the startup culture in those areas. Unfortunately, all the examples I named are the large markets, but I would also include Portland, and some parts of Texas maybe? I've heard Las Vegas is trying to turn itself into a hub as well. If you know any cool places near Ann Arbor, MI, let me know! Olark and some other security startup is based in this really cool building, and we have a few events as well monthly.

[vampirechicken]

Since I'm in Columbus, I'm probably supposed to say that there are no cool places in Ann Arbor. :-)

But the way to find the start ups is to go to the local tech scene meetings: Perl, Ruby, Python, Node.js, big data. Check meetup, etc. Find a few meetings, go and meet people. Make acquaintances, and before you know it, sombosy will be coming over to you to say something like "Hey manglav, didn;t you say you were really good at technology X? Wanna consult for a couple of hours?"