You do not necessarily need to start in [Silicon Valley] to become successful, especially if your situation there imposes additional hurdles to success. Living out of a car or tenement is generally detrimental to one’s ability to focus on the business.
It’s always amazing to me that as tech entrepreneurs we largely sell to others the idea that technology enables us to do anything from anywhere, but simultaneously believe that there is exactly one place on earth where we must physically be to get anything done. The ideal place to start a startup is anywhere that your day-to-day life issues can take a backseat to working on your startup.
— downandout on Hacker News
P.S. I just wrote a book on bootstrapping indie startups called MAKE. And I'm now on Twitter too if you'd like to follow more of my adventures. I don't use email so tweet me your questions.