I think the problem would be the isolation. It could end up as the blind leading the blind. The advantage of most of the "accelerators" is that they're run by successful entrepreneurs, bring in more to serve as mentors and provide a network of successful entrepreneurs on top of that. Since you'd be competing with that, you'd probably only get the folks that didn't get into those places and then the most successful startups would leave to go to startup hubs.
You're right. There would have to be a financial benefit to it – we'll continue to fund you if you stay in Indiana. Perhaps you should read up on incentive programs your state offers startups.
This issue is somewhat near and dear to my heart because I've seen how bad Michigan has gotten. (Partly because of that, I live in D.C. now, and the rent certainly isn't cheap.)
I wonder if you could get funding from the state this way?
As for the blind leading the blind, how about a teleconferencing link to Boston or Silicon Valley? A company I worked for tried having a couple of webcams/projectors in a meeting room during a Friday social hour to try and link the Connecticut and Houston offices. It only went so far. But maybe if you had an entire wall of an old school "terminal room" style workroom, this could work. Have 3 connected projector/webcam sets linked on a pair of dedicated machines, with software that could quickly and rapidly change functions of the two side screens. (Add some Wiimote hackery for a cheap augmented multi-touch whiteboard, or instant desktop sharing with any machine in the room.)
Hmm, if a rig like this could be scrounged together cheaply enough, one could form a community of such virtually linked hacker-spaces as a network! Maybe use daily round robin, or random pairing. And then, why limit it to just Boston or Silicon Valley? How about Houston-Atlanta for starters?
But this quickly becomes a case of optimizing for the wrong variable -- because it's already become, "How can you find a way for them to stay?" rather than, "How can you find a way for them to be successful?"
I also don't think that you hook up with mentors via teleconferencing. For whatever reason, face to face meetings matter a lot. You don't have dinner with someone via a teleconference. You don't tell stories over beer via a teleconference. There's a rigid formality -- "Why are we having this conversation?" I think mentorship rarely happens within those lines.
One of the comments above talks about the face-to-face networking opportunities. There's a reason he didn't say, "Why would I want that? I can call up people via Skype Video now..." ;-)
I also don't think that you hook up with mentors via teleconferencing. For whatever reason, face to face meetings matter a lot. You don't have dinner with someone via a teleconference. You don't tell stories over beer via a teleconference. There's a rigid formality --
Well, I don't know about mentoring per se, but if you have an "always on" connection in the workspace, then you leave the situation open for serendipity. What I'm envisioning is just a "serendipity conduit" or maybe "serendipity space." The workspace can become a play-space in the evening or on the weekend. I could even envision communal dinners.
I'm not thinking about people "calling up" other people. I'm thinking of communal spaces with "magic walls."
Probably not quite what you mean (focused more on tinkering than startups), but I can't not link to http://hackerspaces.org when I read "a whole network of hackerspaces".
Maybe we should get together and write up a proposal and a standards document? We need something that requires minimal financial outlay, but that can be made up for with a lot of technical skill/knowledge. (Like, with the Wiimote hacking, there would be some soldering, dremeling, and hot glue gun action involved.) A fairly hefty bandwidth requirement seems reasonable, though we would only want to take a minority of what is available. (Caroline Collective has 16mbps down and 8 up.)
Future-proofing the standard will take some thought. We would like the standard to grow as technology becomes available, but still be inclusive of older installations.
I'm not sure you'd need to lock people in geographically. If you retain some equity in their venture, and it succeeds, it builds the community no matter where they end up relocating. And if there are enough people doing cool things in Richmond or Timbuctu, then a certain number of them will stay anyway.
Ultimately, enough would stay that they'd influence the local economy. Frankly, any one startup here would influence the economy. It's a small town and hasn't had serious industry since about WWII. Although when my house was built, it was one of the richest towns in this part of the country, and the architecture shows it.
They built cars here. Pianos. Louis Armstrong and Gene Autry recorded here. It was an actual place. It wouldn't take much to make it a place again.
If I was in a different spot, I would probably roll the dice on this endeavor. Alas, I actually have a career.
One other idea for you: Maybe you could hitch your wagon onto the Knight News Challenge somehow? http://www.newschallenge.org/
They just extended their deadline until December, which is plenty of time to build something. And a town like what you're describing seems like it'd be a great testbed for something like that.
It's worth you finding out why all that industry left the area in the first place, in case you fail for the same reason. Seems to me the close shop system doesn't help among other things.
