I was at a recent Ellevate Network event featuring a pretty prominent entrepreneur who runs a VC-funded startup that’s gaining some real traction. In other words, she’s "living the dream." Someone in the audience asked her whether it was fun to be an entrepreneur.

She paused before answering.

"No. Not really."

I can relate. In addition to owning the Ellevate Network, I’ve recently announced a Series A raise for a new business, Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women. I'm striking out on that venture after a career at big companies, and not a handful of days goes by that someone doesn’t ask me, "Aren’t you having so much fun?"

While Silicon Valley gets most of the attention, there are plenty of other areas that are equally conducive to launching a startup. Yes, Silicon Valley is filled to the brim with resources, but it’s also expensive and over saturated. If you really want to provide your startup with a strong foundation, consider one of the following cities.

Best Cities to Launch a Startup

1. Austin, Texas

It would seem that any list of accolades these days must include Austin. It’s one of the fastest growing and most diverse cities in the state of Texas and has quietly become a hub for innovation and entrepreneurial activity.

A $100 MILLION fund to encourage women entrepreneurs and a “lemonade day” to teach primary school kids business basics are among the strategies in a new report to boost Australia’s start-up culture.

The results of a Policy Hackathon event were handed to Innovation Minister Christopher Pyne and his assistant Wyatt Roy yesterday.

Image: http://www.couriermail.com.au

Kendrick White, director of Marchmont Capital Partners, an investment advisory firm, and associate professor at the Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, has worked in Russia for 22 years. He now helps Russian inventors find common ground with local and international businesses.

Image: Kendrick White, founder and director of Marchmont Capital Partners. Source: Personal archive

Mississippi start-up companies that have labored in solitude to turn their ideas into dollars moved into the spotlight Tuesday in day one of Innovate Mississippi’s 16th Annual Conference on Technology Innovation. An audience that included members of Innovate Mississippi’s Venture Capital Network heard five entrepreneurs pitch everything from an application designed to take podcasts into the mainstream to a tiny block box that can alert parents when their teenagers use cell phones while behind the wheel.

Image: Lydia Allison with MSU looking at innovation art competition entries from Brown Elementary School in Jackson - http://msbusiness.com

Emirates Airline made headlines earlier this year when it announced it would operate the longest nonstop flight in the world -- a staggering 17-and-a-half hour expedition from Dubai to Panama City.

If that sounds like an unfathomable eternity of gaping at a tiny TV screen and wolfing down questionable meals, data company Statista has compiled a list of the 10 most excruciating cross-continental journeys currently available.

US based software producer Crossover plans to open a subsidiary in Romania next year and to recruit at least 1,000 programmers, software architects, project managers, and financial experts, according to a company announcement.

The company will pay salaries of up to USD 8,000 per month, reports local Profit.ro.

Printed book sales are rising and eBook sales are slowing. Recent studies have shown that reading comprehension and retention are better with “old-style” printed books. I believe that there are several reasons why people interact better with paper books.

When you hold and read a book, you not only absorb the words and meaning, but you also subconsciously remember the physical location of the words. Whether a paragraph is towards the beginning or end of the book, on the left or right facing page, or at the top or bottom of the page, you remember it.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. and SAN DIEGO, Nov. 12, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), the leading voice to drive innovation for California's life sciences sector, and PwC US today released the 2016 California Life Sciences Industry Report. The annual report indicates that California's life sciences sector has a profound impact on the state's economy, showing industry increases in the areas of sector employment growth, wages, research funding and life sciences venture investment.

No one. Let me say this again. NO ONE can advise you on how to turn your startup into a success. As a founder, you have to make all the mistakes, hopefully in the right order, and learn from it. That’s the only way you will build a company.

At most, people can give their opinions. And as you know opinions are like ***holes. Everyone has them, the only thing that come out of it is shit.

Nobel-winning economist Robert Shiller is famous for spotting bubbles as they form in different markets. In 2000 he published Irrational Exuberance, a best seller that predicted the imminent bursting of the U.S. stock market bubble that had grown up around the dot-com boom. A few years later, he became one of the first to argue that U.S. real estate prices had similarly gotten out of hand, predicting the real estate and housing bust that began in 2007.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com

Mashable's latest #BizChats Twitter chat, sponsored by MOO, discussed how entrepreneurs running a new business can stay on the path to success.

Over the course of an hour, @MashBusiness covered an array of topics, ranging from the factors that determine if a business had a healthy year, to standard goals that entrepreneurs should create when transitioning into year two.

Contrary to their portrayal in pop culture, entrepreneurs aren’t purely “idea people,” dreaming up revolutionary new concepts and introspectively coming to profound conclusions about their industry -- though they are that, at times. Instead, entrepreneurs spend most of their days in the trenches, working hard with others to make those ideas a reality. How entrepreneurs communicate tends to dictate whether or not they are ultimately successful; even great ideas can flounder if a leader isn’t communicating effectively.

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be able to juggle several hats at the same time. Identifying a problem and developing a scalable solution is the easy bit. Your initial days as a founder may be spent coding and refining the technical architecture, but then comes a concerted effort on streamlining operations, drumming up sales, and executing a marketing strategy.

In an ideal scenario, founders already have experience in what it takes to build a company. They might have worked different jobs in the past or have a fancy college degree which will, at the very least, point them in the right direction.

Building a community around your brand can help you create a customer base that’s truly engaged. And with so many online tools and social platforms, building a community online is more possible than ever. Justin Auciello knows first-hand what it takes to build an online community. He’s the force behind Jersey Shore Hurricane News, an online resource for sharing local weather and news. Auciello has grown the community to include more than 225,000 members on Facebook with followings on Twitter and Instagram too.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

When founders realize that they need to raise money, many react like someone falling backward off a cliff: They find whatever’s in front of them and grab on like hell. The lure of instant cash and fear of the unknown distort founders’ vision, so they begin to treat their relational networks like a series of slot machines to be pulled. Know which machines pay out, discover the right ways to play, and eventually you’ll hit the jackpot.

Among the good times, your college years are also filled with moments of hair-pulling and the occasional screaming in frustration at the top of your lungs. Back then, you probably asked yourself, "Why is this happening to me?!" but with the passing of time, your mind-set shifts. The stress, sadness, or anger that you once felt was replaced with understanding—and even a lesson learned. Here, three millennials share their in-the-moment nightmares that eventually helped them overcome:

If people are willing to move long distances to an area, it’s a good sign that things there are going well.

New migration data published by the Internal Revenue Service, based on tax returns filed in 2013 and 2014, shows where Americans are moving to or from at the county level. We’ve identified the top migration flows occurring over more than 200 miles.

US based software producer Crossover plans to open a subsidiary in Romania next year and to recruit at least 1,000 programmers, software architects, project managers, and financial experts, according to a company announcement.

The company will pay salaries of up to USD 8,000 per month, reports local Profit.ro.

With $200 billion in annual buying power by 2017, Millennials have become every brand’s coveted customer. But what’s the best way to reach them? 

The answer is email.

For all the talk of email being dead — Too much noise! Too much spam! Too many distractions! Snapchat! — email remains the standard for digital communication. In fact, Millennials check email more than any other age group, and nearly half can’t even use the bathroom without checking it, according to a recent Adobe study.