There are only two ways to ascend economically. Find a growth area and bootstrap a business (lending to yourself to capture more market share before others) or

There are only two ways to ascend economically. Find a growth area and bootstrap a business (lending to yourself to capture more market share before others) or chasing risk taking investors. What is happening is a huge ecosystem based around chasing California style VC risk takers is getting less water and it's starting to dry out at the edges. But chasing local growth has never been easier thanks to the legacy from the California VC ecosystem. One or two persons with knowledge of programming and networking (and some old timey human networking) can now easily throw services at a local big city market and see what sticks.