I know it has been over a week since Paul Graham spoke at the FOWA conference in London and basically told everyone why it makes sense for startups to be located in a startup hub city (basically in Silicon Valley, but he does tip his hat to other “hubs” in the US).

He sure did seem to rub a lot of people the wrong way by his speak, so much that at the end of his talk one of the organizers of the event got up on stage and delivered his retort. I understand where Paul was coming from when he stated that startups are better served to be located in one of the startup hub cities, but that does not mean that is the only way that a startup will survive. It is a little self righteous for him or anyone else to think that the only way to make it big is to be in one of those cities, there are plenty of successful startups operating in non “startup hub” cities (Feedburner, Threadless, Scrapblog, Moo just to name a few). I, and I am sure countless others, are tired of hearing how the only way for your startup to work is to be in a hub city, for many, being in one of those cities is just not desirable for whatever reason.

Success is like beauty, it is in the eyes of the beholder. Many startups are started to be a lifestyle business, not to be the next YouTube. If that is your intent, being in a non startup hub city is completely fine. Even if you want to be the next YouTube, it does not mean that you have to uproot and make the pilgrimage to the Valley, it just means that you may need to work a little harder to get where you want to be, which in the long run, may make you and your company much better as a result.

There is no denying that the Valley and Boston have an abundance of all the right ingredients to make a startup successful (good universities, talented individuals, investors and money), but those alone to not guarantee success. There are plenty of other cities that have the same ingredients, take a look at what Lance Weatherby has to say about Atlanta and you will understand (Lance, BTW, is a fellow startup weekend organizer of mine. He in Atlanta, me in DC.).

Bottom line, if you are running a startup and you are not in a “startup hub” city, it does not mean that you will not make it. You will have to work harder for it, but in the end, it will be that much sweeter.

Mixx, a DC local startup (not to mention that several of my old co-workers work there: Kerry, Joe, Jason and Michael), is set to launch into public beta sometime today. GigaOm has a good write up of the product, and there have been several (and I mean several) favorable write ups over the past couple of weeks.

If you are not into the Digg / Reddit social news scene because you think it is too narrowly focused, have no fear, Mixx solves that problem. Not only can you vote up or down a particular article, you also get a customized start page that caters to what your interests are, not the interests of the company. There are all the standard news features like submitting an article (on the site and there will be a Mixx this link on several major news sites either with this launch or shortly thereafter), but there is also local news, as well as the ability to create private groups.

All in all, they have taken the social news / personalized news start page game to a whole new level. They have a bright future ahead of them and I wish them all the success, the product is rock solid and has mass appeal. I am glad to see that Mixx is a local DC company, and I hope that they will help pave the way for other startups in the area. DC is filled with technological and product marketing talent, and Mixx exemplifies what DC has to offer.

If you want to Digg the write up (which is kind of funny since Mixx is competing with Digg), click here.