You won't need sexy VC capital if you can build a business that runs a good profit. Honestly I'm getting more and more cynical of the SF bubble that doesn't seem to be about making great software, but about getting a lot of investor money and going public - prioritizing short-term profits at the expense of the consumer and employees.
SAP was particularly successful because not only did they make money, but so did the Systems Integration partners.
At Accenture, for example, there were projects where 30-40 full time consultants were flown in from all over the country to do big SAP implementations.
...so you could see how Systems Integration partners heavily sold SAP products.
When good enough software solves the right business problem, it frees up resources to solve the next most important business problem. Good enough software runs many great businesses.
The one unicorn I worked for had so much cash to spend, there were at least 3 teams of 8-10 engineers on the same floor trying to solve similar business and infrastructure problems with different combinations of open source software.
Agreed. Running a company with a sustainable business model and healthy profits, not being propped up by VC money would probably do the local economy of one such a city perhaps more good.
