[pxlpshr]

Wholly disagree, proximity of like-minded individuals is the essence of the bay area and why it's so unique.

"Our startup, Kip Solutions, is a social media consulting firm for social causes."

With all due respect, if you were pitching your social media consulting services to startups, it's very likely you were put on the same list as recruiters.

[mindcrime]

Sure, spending time around other like-minded individuals is a Good Thing, and the author of TFA acknowledges that. I think his point was that you shouldn't spend all of you time networking with other startup people. And that's a sentiment that I wholeheartedly agree with.

Unless you are selling to startups as your market, you have to get out of the startup echo chamber at some point, and get out in the trenches where your customers live, and talk to them. If you're selling to manufacturers, instead of going to the nth "startup happy hour" even of the week, how about go the "National Manufacturers Association" trade show or whatever?

On a related note, we should look at our social media activity and ask who our audience is... the HN crowd, and other startups, or customers? Personally, this is something I've just forced myself to start looking at differently in the past 2 weeks or so. I've cut back on tweeting tweets about startups and VC and Silicon Valley gossip, and started tweeting stuff that's, ya know, of interest to the people I want to sell to. It's a seemingly subtle change, but in just two weeks we already have dozens of new followers who represent our potential customer base. That's "permission marketing" at work, and it's something I wish I'd realized a lot sooner.

Anyway, I think the OP is onto something. No, don't take anything as an absolute... and go to the "startup happy hour" from time to time, sure. But don't forget to take time to go talk to customers (or potential partners, suppliers, resellers, etc. Whoever you need to connect with in order to advance your business).