You Don't Need to Leave Your Hometown to Start a Great Business
Forget Silicon Valley. A growing number of entrepreneurs are returning to their roots to build a business.

By Maggie Ginsberg •

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Nobody really wanted to fund us," recalls Alex Kubicek, a soft-spoken Midwesterner with a shrewd scientific mind.
He's thinking back to 2013. He was 25 and had already banked dual degrees in physics and electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, as well as a master's in atmospheric science from top-tier UW–Madison. Then he'd created a hyperlocal weather observation company called Understory and landed it in the first-ever cohort of an accelerator in his hometown of Madison, which in turn sent him off on nearly a year's worth of pitching to Wisconsin-based investors. But nobody put in money.
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