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

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.