I live in Waltham, right outside of Boston, and am considering moving somewhere cheaper and warmer because the benefits of building a company here (or SV) don't seem as important if you're going the MicroISV/Micropreneur route. Thoughts?
And it's pretty warm--though the summers get hot. But that's the beauty of growing an Internet business--locate somewhere it's cheap, and head out for a month or two whenever you need to.
You will also have no backup plan if your startup doesn't work since wages are so low.
There is no startup scene and everyone you meet will work in real estate or hospitality.
I live in beacon hill now and can tell you that I am constantly impressed by the smart people I meet in Boston. When I lived in Orlando I felt the exact opposite.
If you decide to move there feel free to email me any Orlando specific questions.
No, I love the seasons. I love a heavy winter storm and hiking up into the back country for virgin runs in 3 feet of champagne powder. I love sitting in front of a roaring piñon fire drinking hot cocoa. I love the spring thaw and swollen rivers. I love the summer and the heat and the smells and sitting on the porch at night. I love the fall and the aspens turning with long hikes and mountain bike rides.
I've also lived in central Brazil which is quite a bit nicer and more steady than Florida being medium elevation in the tropics (ie. daylight and temperature vary only slightly and it's not too humid). I mean it's nice to visit from a winter climate, but I prefer some variation.
As one comment summed up: "As the founder of a 5 strong semi-stealth Madison startup I can definitely attest to our fair city's startup culture. Great university, great lifestyle options and create urban and natural environments. It's hard to beat our live-work-play stats outside of Europe. We've been rated the best place to live in the US, raise a family, bike, and other various accolades from major orgs/mags over the years."
If you want your tech startup to have the best chances of success, there's no substitute for moving to the Bay Area. That's only one axis on which to optimize, of course, and there's more to life than maximizing the value of your company. But anyone who thinks that the Madison (etc.) startup scene is a reasonable substitute for the Bay Area needs to get on an airplane tout de suite and hang out in Palo Alto, Mountain View, or SOMA for a week. Believe me, it'll blow their mind.
There's also a great Ruby community here if you happen to be a Ruby developer: http://sdruby.org
It's unclear what stage you're at right now from your question, but being in a tech hub isn't always as important as you think. If you grow beyond a certain size (hard to quantify; there's no hard-and-fast rule here), you'd be foolish not to have at least an office in/near one of the large hubs, but that's not necessarily the biggest consideration at the beginning.
By the way, this is one area in which tech isn't really any different than any other industry - you'd be surprised how many companies in the financial sector have headquarters elsewhere and simply have a (rather large) office in New York (though not usually on Wall St. - that's more of a metonymy than the actual center of business these days).