I lived in Pittsburgh for 17 years. I bootstrapped a company out of CMU, grew it to $25M/year in revenue and sold it to IBM. Pittsburgh is a great place to start a company, lots of tech talent, lots of support and exposure in the community, cheap rent. And it is today a much more enjoyable place to live than 20 years ago (great restaurant scene, bike paths, revitalized downtown).
There are two big drawbacks: finding experienced non-technical talent (our C-suite ended up in DC) and raising significant funds. It's just really hard to get serious VCs to pay attention to Pittsburgh.
There are two big drawbacks: finding experienced non-technical talent (our C-suite ended up in DC) and raising significant funds. It's just really hard to get serious VCs to pay attention to Pittsburgh.