[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?"