* We've cultivated a startup-friendly business community. I remember 2007 - the only tech "community" we had was when HP or Micron had engineering dept mixers. It was kind of sad.

* There's been some VC activity in Boise - I know of a handful of startups that have gotten angel funding or their series A from local investors. It's nowhere near the scale of what's in Silicon Valley, but it doesn't need to be. Everything is cheaper here.

* We have a real coworking space now. I think the Watercooler was around in 2007, but I never really thought of that as a coworking space. It was more of a office space rental that was somewhat targeted at startups, but kind of still had the same mindset as any other office space. idk. Anyway, we have Trailhead now, which is a really great environment for startups, remote workers, or freelancers. Really cheap too - it's like $30/mo.

* There's a large number of technology specific meetups now. Angular, Python, PHP, .NET just to name a few.

* I can't remember if Boise Code Camp was a thing in 2007, but it is now. It's an annual tech camp run by BSU and handful of other orgs in Boise. The quality of the sessions has been pretty high the past couple years.

To me, it feels like a much different environment for startups and tech businesses in general, but I'm not entirely sure how to quantify that beyond the points that I mentioned above.