Disclaimer: This is entirely speculation as I have no direct experience in these matter. I live in Seattle, WA, have never had a job, nor truly done a start-up.

Disclaimer: This is entirely speculation as I have no direct experience in these matter. I live in Seattle, WA, have never had a job, nor truly done a start-up. If you really need money, say for storing and serving terabytes of videos, and you can't get the money all on your own, you might have a shot and getting some local angel investor. Maybe not someone officially in the angel racket, but one with money to invest and a weak enough will. Use your University or other high quality contacts to find out where potential investors are spending time, and go to the lake (or wherever), and make friends with them! Plus, you're only a stone's throw from all of Europe, so you could take your idea on the road to conferences and technological hot spots. But this all assumes you need this nice bundle of money from the desk of Paul Graham. Ask yourself, "What do I really need this money for?". Is it just living expenses, a web server, and a shiny new laptop? Do you need to pay employees too? Would it be an option to find a job and save up the money? Considered leeching off friends, girlfriends, parents, or even homelessness? (Depends on sanity and dedication, I guess.) I'm with charlesju on this one: _Build a business and you won't need funding._ We all have ideas that are more interesting than monetizing. You need to compromise this to have a true business. True, the interesting idea can pay off long term (see Facebook for an extreme case that hasn't even played out yet), but you need to think shorter to finance it if this is your path to seed funding for the real project. Which is why, And then there's the whole location fallacy. This is the internet, not real estate for goodness sake. Just think: I'm sending you letters with zero postage over the ocean like it's nothing. Is TechCrunch really gonna care that you're not 5 miles down the street? If all they want to report on is Twitter, then there is other media coverage out there. I know it's cliche, but there are starving kids in Africa that would love to be in the place you are. And you want to leave? Isn't there an adequate concentration of hacker types somewhere the UK? Maybe I'm just spoiled with Microsoft and Nintendo operating out of my backyard, but in a country with tens of millions, surely you can find investors and a community of to work with. Find a club or organization that draws the kind of people you need help from. Or pass a clipboard or a digital equivalent around and start your own. So screw Silicon Valley! Make your own fucking Fiber Optic Kingdom! (And, when you've made all that £££ off of Cheeri2.0, you will effortlessly gain passage to the Americas, just like you dreamed.)