[utnick]

this is really OT

im from austin, live in dallas short term now

but where did you find all the hot startup action in austin?

are there any groups or communities that you frequented? any websites that you conncected with other hackers on? is austinventures really the only game in town? It seems like austin has the free spirit startup culture, but I dont feel near the amount of startup community there as I do when I read about the valley on here and other startup oriented blogs/sites. maybe im just out of the loop tho. got any tips for an aspiring austin starterupper?

[SwellJoe]

I was lucky enough to end up sharing an office with another startup, further along than mine (they had 5 million in revenues and 20 or so employees), because I did some consulting work for them and they had some spare space for a while as they grew (Austin real estate was depressed in 03 when they were negotiating and so they got a good deal on a 3/4 of a floor in the Bank of America building at the corner of 6th and Congress).

Perl mongers was also pretty interesting, though not startup-y enough. PUG (Python Users Group) also met a few times, and they were a bit more dynamic.

There's also some money in Austin. Austin Ventures is well-known and well-regarded, and they do a lot of deals. A few angels exist there, and if you're doing anything related to oil and gas or telecommunications you can find investors, if you beat the bushes. Other areas are not as well served.

But, the valley is in a class by itself. I wouldn't recommend starting up in Austin to anyone, now that I know how big the difference is between the #1 startup hub and the #5 startup hub...as pg pointed out in his article about startup hubs, the drop-off is steep. Boston is barely half as good as Silicon Valley, and everything else is likewise half as good as the next step up (I believe the list goes SV, Boston, New York, Seattle, Austin, but I might be misremembering). Might as well be in Dubuque as anywhere other than the Valley.