When I started iExplore in 1999, Chicago was jokingly referred to as a “flyover city” because the big venture-capital firms in Boston and Silicon Valley would fly back and forth to each other looking at deals, ignoring Midwestern startups altogether. Even worse, these funds would insist that any startup wanting their support would need to relocate to their city (which many aspiring entrepreneurs did, having no other choice) in order to leverage their expertise and tap into their local ecosystem.
