Also, about mobile.. Europe has had mobile for a lot longer than the US.. yet it takes Apple releasing the iPhone to begin to unleash its true power??

Interestingly some of the biggest investors in the tech boom and the housing bubble were UK and European institutions.. So the money is there.. it just needs to be redirected locally...

Justin.tv is the youtube of the future.. Name one VC outside of Silicon Valley that would have invested in that? When I first heard about it I thought.. man that'll never work... I was so wrong! It's a webcam, on his head, that simple.

Imagine being a VC and getting this biz plan:

1) put webcam on head and broadbast to world. 2) ??? 3) profit!

I guarantee you that nobody probably knew (even the VC) how the hell they would make money at it..

Without a doubt, you have to be near a university.

Also consider the following, the std. angel investment is $12k from ycombinator. That gives you 3 months, which is also about the minimum amount of time you can arrive on tourist visa.

Can you take that to get up and running and then move to silicon valley? If your idea is promising then you seem to be ok.. It doesn't seem that reality gets in the way here, either by immigration policy or the details of a ycombinator investment.

The theory is that the market will grow and/or you will exhibit exponential growth. Take for example Google which is valued by the outstanding shares value (market cap) which is driven mostly by public perception of market growth and Google's operation with respect to real and perceived growth..

So apply this to your startup.. get VCs to bid on it.. If you have revenues then you can go to a bank and see what type of credit line your business qualifies for. But since most startups don't have revenue then you really don't know.

Essentially your initial idea is worth $0... this is why angel investors are nice to have. They make the first real valuation.