Funny, point taken about Chicago. I guess I wasn't thinking about the fact that these are test markets, which is indeed a good reason not to start with the biggest cities.
This isn't a very good snapshot of what's going on in Chicago. I don't know what kind of outreach this site does, but it seems to be tied to local investors.
Chicago being the 3rd largest city in the country and filled with plenty of wealthy angel investors and VC's, seems to really miss the mark in the internet field. We see much smaller markets from Boston, Austin, Boulder, San Francisco to merge as a growing hub for web entrepreneurs. Why does Chicago seem ages behind the rest of the country? There are very few if no angel funds, start up groups, or incubators. Chicago, whats up?
Being from Chicago, reading this was great. But I was wondering:
"Mr. Leshner thought MelonCard wouldn’t be able to put together a deal in Chicago nearly as fast: “Chicago moves slower. It takes seven meetings (to make a deal), and there’s more of an old-school focus."
Why do you think this the case? Is it Chicago's financial background? Is it the Midwest thing? What keeps it from being one of the startup hubs? All the factors are here: Close to excellent universities, tons of money floating around, culture, etc. (maybe not so great weather). People used to say that it lacked a big, successful startup to act as an anchor, now we have Groupon. So what gives?
reply