In our case, YC was worth it. We left working wives behind and they visited us occasionally to remind us that we were married.

But if there was a similar quality program locally, we would've considered it. (For the record, I don't think TechStars is good enough that we would've punted YC for it if it were local, but it seems to be getting better).

Geography is less of a factor for YC applicants, I'd assume, because YC is far enough above the competition that it's worth it to move.

I've heard they might do that as well.

I'm guessing the difference between techstars and YC is less about going regional to source applicants than it is about spreading around the mentor pool, sort of like franchising the "learn from elders" experience rather than concentrating it. YC's a bet in the other direction, sure, but I'm also interested to see how this plays out because I just can't imagine the bay area has a complete lock on all of the previously successful entrepreneurs willing to advise the next generation of hackers. At the very least, there's a certain amount of mentors and potential investors that like being away from the echo chamber and prefer to talk in Boston about Derrida rather than in SF/SV about virality, or in the case of Techstars and Brad Feld, about Lance Armstrong, beer and whatever else people like in Boulder.

http://www.angelconf.com/

One of the hardest parts of being in Boston for us was that this pool of advisors was so much smaller there. It was just a handful of people. Whereas in the Valley there are on the order of 50 different people we might introduce one or more YC startups to each cycle.

The bay area's network effects really do create different kinds of opportunity rather than just more of the same - it's the reason I moved to the bay area in the first place three years ago and it's been a great career decision. Living here means being able to do things like apply to yc, whereas I'd probably never consider moving to Boulder or Boston if it just came down to 5 digits of seed investment. I'd rather stay here and force my projects to happen during nights and weekends instead. Here, you'd be crazy to turn down admission to yc and access to the advisors involved, no matter what your day job pays.

Not all can, or are willing, whatever their reasons. While it might be smart business in your case to have picked your location and make the startups come to you, I think it's disingenuous to say that seed funding is not a regional business [because] startups at that stage can move.

I won't bore you with the specifics of my location or what's possible here, but I do think there's a good business opportunity for anybody that's willing to come up with a VC/incubator model similar to yours, but that can be deployed in lots of different locations.

Oh well. Bootstrapping isn't as much fun, but it'll get me there. :-)

Why not come down to Sunny Florida. The Space Coast is an amazing place and their is a lot of innovation down here. Its also extremely warm.

What if they don't want to? What if they don't want to be in California. This gives them options.

Though this isn't the reason we decided to be in CA year round, such interactions are much increased here. I was sitting in a cafe in Palo Alto recently having lunch, and in the course of one hour I ran into 3 YC founders and 2 angel investors I knew, all 5 of whom were there independently.

The thing we used to like about going back to Cambridge in the summer was the lack of this, actually. If you had to overhear the conversation at the next table, at least it was about Derrida and not virality.

I understand the Silicon Valley advantage exists b/c of the physical proximity of so many important ingredients, and the overwhelming number of the ingredients, but surely the number of non-SV people outnumbers even that.

I would love to hear those kinds of conversations in diners around here - but it doesn't happen. The only place I hear those kinds of conversations are here, on the web. I have a fairly limited dialog with people on these subjects, really the market and my partner are the major sources of input for ideas and where to go in the future.

I'd love to be in SV, to be a part of it, but I'm not willing to trade what I and my family have for the benefits to found there. How can anyone afford to live there also, is beyond me.

Anyway - i'm rambling. I guess I should start to take my online identity more seriously. I should post in my profile what my company is and does. I should try and connect with people I meet on here. But finally, something is holding me back - a certain innate caution retreats from that type of display. Because for all of the wonderful people that are on here, there are probably some bad apples. I guess its the same as in the physical world, but there you have cues, and police, and safety.

pg - any way to add some kind of reputational system to hacker news? Or maybe thats a good startup idea.

You could put in anyone's username, and any site, and rate them on a series of categories - whatever. It can be as simple as 'friend' like facebook. But it would be a kind of metadata for these relationships. I could see if someone who is a friend of mine on here likes them, trusts them, etc. Though making all of that explicit might be too much. Human social interaction allows for alot of subtlety - you can say alot without saying anything. Thats another place online communication suffers, its very hard to detect sarcasm,etc. Oh well, I guess I'm really rambling now.

I've often thought of doing something like that, as an aid to people trying to find hackers to hire. Would other people want such a thing? (Assuming it could be implemented in a way that wasn't obnoxious.)