There is a lot of crap about startups NEEDING to be in the valley. Most there say you have to be there, and many outside say 'but why?'. I'm in the second camp for sure.
I like starting my business in the middle of Ohio. I market Servee directly to businesses. My stats show 397 new businesses in the Central Ohio area in the last four weeks. Not bad at all for this economy.
I also market to designers. Columbus is not lacking at all when it comes to designers. There is most certainly a vibrant creative community here.* The rest of Ohio doesn't suck either. I can daytrip to no less than four other major metropolitan areas, and three of them are in the top 100 most populous cities in the country (Columbus is 15...and I'm sure it creeps near 6 or 7 on Gameday). Not to mention CMH is the most pleasant airport out of every Intl Airport I have ever been in.
The independent programmers here are doing interesting things. The designers I know aren't stuck in 'copy apple' mode. The business people are down-to-earth and not looking for a gold rush. Life is good in Columbus, OH, and there is plenty of life to be had.
Things like the momentum around startup weekend and the buzz about podcamp ohio just go to show that plenty is going on. Bryce is seriously trying to get some coworking started (we've been meeting on Fridays). Today I heard that Columbus had the 8th most active blogging community.
This turned into a 'Columbus in general is pretty great' and not a 'Servee is working out well in Columbus' but whatever, it's worth it. What do you like about being in Columbus?
11th January 2009
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I'm Issac. I live in Oakland. I make things for fun and money. I use electronics and computers and software. I manage teams and projects top to bottom. I've worked as a consultant, software engineer, hardware designer, artist, technology director and team lead. I do occasional fabrication in wood and plastic and metal. I run a boutique interactive agency with my brother Kasey and a roving cast of experts at Kelly Creative Tech. I was the Director of Technology for Nonchalance during the The Latitude Society project. I was the Lead Web Developer and then Technical Marketing Engineer at Nebula, which made an OpenStack Appliance. I've been building things on the web and in person since leaving Ohio State University's Electrical and Computer engineering program in 2007. Lots of other really dorky things happened to me before that, like dropping out of high school to go to university, getting an Eagle Scout award, and getting 6th in a state-wide algebra competition. I have an affinity for hopscotch.