There's only one metric worth paying attention to when deciding how good a place is for entrepreneurs - the number of successful companies started there.

Silicon Valley is the best place for tech startups because there are more tech success stories here than anywhere else. Success stories bring with them: - Capital injection into the economy - Happy investors prepared to take more risk in their portfolio - Inspiration to young entrepreneurs - More networks and experience

Anything else is irrelevant in my opinion.

This top 10 list is worthless your right. especially to this community. Heres why:

The entrepreneurs on this "newsgroup" are ALL web entrepreneurs. This means that half of the criteria do not even pertain our needs/interests as founders of entrepreneurial ventures. (tech populations / graduation rates may apply but those should be looked at separately.

Let me pose this question. If VC/angel fudning / programmers needs / location was not an issue, where would you start your company?

There are a lot of places in this country that in my opinion would gather much more interest on a local level that starting a company in NY or SF. I think by starting a web company in an already "hot" web area is like opening a starbucks across the street from a starbucks? Sure you know it will get business, but it would be better if it was the 1st starbucks on a major University Campus.

By launching in a less saturated market, you have the benefit of traditional sources of media attention so that you receive high adoption rates locally, which as we know is vital to high adoption rates globally. Does company location have anything to do with adoption rates?

Thoughts?

Oregon doesn't seem to have some of the specialist infrastructure that's geared towards startups the way the Bay Area does. I'm looking for a law firm in Eugene, but none of the ones that I've talked to seem to be particularly aware of or competent in the areas I need them to have.

It's weird, in Portland there is at least enough density and activity that they get a sustained push and startups either get off the ground or go bust, Eugene seems to have a bunch of lifestyle companies that were formed elsewhere and moved here for the amenities. The only local company that broke the 100 employee barrier recently is sinking fast because they only ever had one customer, who decided to take things in house.

On paper, this town looks ideal; university, low cost of living, easily accessible to the west coast/I5 corridor, very livable friendly town, plenty of cheap commercial real estate if you need offices, a couple of decent sized datacenters if you feel a need to be close to the machines. Plenty of technically savvy people, and there are a few entrepreneurs locally, but the company building part of things seems to happen elsewhere.

Eugene and Portland are worlds apart. I don't think it's a coincidence that Nike split for Portland as soon as they got going. Starting a company in Eugene would be ok from certain points of view, but I don't think it's big enough to have critical mass in some areas. There are some good things happening in Portland, though. For instance:

http://www.opentechcenter.com/drupal/?q=