

Yes, PHL/BOS/CHI/SEA/NYC/BLT/XYZ does Web startups - jlangenauer
http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/09/yes-phlboschiseanycbltxyz-does-web-startups.html

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tptacek
Add to this:

 _More diverse economy_ : If you're doing anything that involves selling to
companies instead of individuals (and a substantial portion of YC companies,
for instance, do), cities like Philly or Boston already host broad groups of
big companies, and whole constellations of smaller companies that work with
them, all of whom have IT shops of varying degrees of sophistication, which
creates a myriad of opportunities for selling into real companies.

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epi0Bauqu
That's very true. Philly in particular is a pharma mecca. So if you are health
2.0, this is a great place to be.

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sachinag
Aetna is surprisingly forward-thinking for a bunch of evil bastards.

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lionhearted
> Aetna is surprisingly forward-thinking for a bunch of evil bastards.

I know it's fashionable to bash health insurers, but I think it's not quite
accurate. Aetna's profit margins are lower than 4% [1] and they generally do
well for people.

Insurance is the kind of business that is almost always disliked, because
people attribute the positive success stories and gratitude towards the people
doing the direct work (the doctors), but everything that goes wrong to the
insurer. It's just the nature of things. I'll share a counter-story though:
When I was 13 years old, I had a kind of benign skin cancer growth on my head
and we had Aetna at the time. If memory serves, the policy for our entire
family was only $500 per month, and pretty much every dime that we'd ever paid
was more than wiped out by me getting surgery. The insurance process was
fairly smooth and there were no problems. For $6000 per year to insure a whole
family against disaster, I think that's a pretty awesome service.

Their margins are low. Currently I've got Patriot International insurance
while traveling, $150 for six months for coverage up to $2,000,000 with a
$10,000 deductible. Honestly, though it's unfashionable to say, I think the
health insurance companies are generally a massive net win for society.

[1]
[http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/08/25/why...](http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/08/25/why-
health-insurers-make-lousy-villains.html)

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rbranson
Bootstrapping in "alternative" cities makes business sense. I work for a
profitable startup in Memphis that's using consulting to finance our work on a
core product. It's shockingly easy work, because the bar is VERY low outside
of the major major cities. Our nice, sunny downtown office is dirt cheap, all
of our personal bills are low, taxes are low, and we've already got all the
talent we need to launch the product. Perhaps we'll need the services and
talent pool of a SF/NY type city eventually, but if you've already got a team
and don't need funding, smaller cities are what's up.

~~~
bmelton
The Memphis ecosystem works especially well in that there is a really low cost
of living and quite a good amount of talent in the area.

Companies that transitioned through, like Stream, did a really good job of
bootstrapping many an IT career in Memphis. That FedEx, Hilton, International
Paper and AutoZone all have major IT centers there helps as well, though it
does lead to there being lot of very UN-talented IT people on the whole.

The trick, as always, is sorting out the good from the bad. Where I think
you'll have problems is in raising Venture Capital (if you need it), finding
dotcom-centric marketing agencies, SEO development, and that sort of thing. Of
course, that only matters if you're looking local anyway.

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shawnwall
I have to add the obligatory representation for my home city of PIT here,
given IMHO we have one hell of an excellent startup community. We've got
various VC firms, incubators such as Alphalab, CMU throwing in its support,
not to mention the fact that you can live here affordably with quite a nice
lifestyle.

Once you're out of the valley the startup scene definitely changes, with a tad
more focus on actual monetization :)

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Juliuso
This is good news. I recently moved to the East Bay from Brooklyn, and before
that was going to school in Philly. Philly always had that low-key feel that I
enjoyed, and was less than 100 miles from NYC. Public transit sucks though.

What's sad is that a majority of the local economy is outside of Center City
Philadelphia, and Philadelphia proper mostly due to the city wage tax which
takes out almost 4% on top all other deductions in your paycheck. And young
people want to live in the city, so it's a tough sell.

It reminds of pg's essay on Cities and Ambition. This kind of thing will give
people more options on where to set-up shop, in an area they're comfortable
with. It will also help prevent groupthink, and promote a diverse startup
ecosystem.

I moved to the Bay area to feel the pulse, and get a feel for the startup
scene. Hopefully, I'll have the chance to attend startup school next month.

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bherms
Sometimes I wish Indianapolis had a bigger tech community, but realistically,
being one of a few startups may play in my favor in the future. Hopefully we
start to see more and more startups popping up throughout the country instead
of just in SV. It will help inspire others and grow the communities around the
country, vs keeping the startup realm a exclusive SV club.

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bmelton
Since it's up for discussion, does anybody know of anything even remotely like
YC for the DC/Baltimore area? I know that LaunchBox was here in 09, but it
looks like they've moved to NC.

Failing that, would anybody recommend any venture capital firms that focus on
web startups?

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rubashov
Something "remotely like YC" no, but there is plenty of industry specific
angel and venture activity all over the country. DC/Baltimore is mostly
gov/DoD/intel. Philadelphia (whole delaware valley, really) is heavily
pharmaceutical industry focused. It's all off line.

The difference between a silicon valley web startup and most of the country is
that in most of the country founders are getting rich off of high margin niche
business software. They are selling licenses to specific industries with
specific problems for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, or doing
lucrative consulting.

These people simply do not write blogs or do web published interviews. They
have no incentive for mass market publicity.

There are only so many ways to make email and ebay/CL more efficient, which I
think broadly sums up most mass market web ventures you read about. I'm firmly
convinced the way to go is with a list of 20 specific corporate customers in
mind. Make something you know they need. Ideally, they're already paying
$80,000 a year for an inferior piece of shit.

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barrydahlberg
Even New Zealand... E.g. <http://www.xero.com/>

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ronnier
Dallas/Fort Worth anybody?

~~~
kapitti
I always thought there was a decent community in Dallas, or maybe Alex Muse
just convinced me of that.

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Raphael
Mmm, bacon, lettuce, and tomato.

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dpratt
You forgot AUS.

