Pros: * Lower cost of living (think 3 bedroom house for 100k)

* Low tax rate (Chicago tax adds up)

* I can literally drive in my car to any chain store within 7 minutes. Chicago I could get to most stuff, but it was 30, 45, 60 minute drives.

* Can commute anywhere within about 20 minutes, Chicago it's not hard to get 60-90 minute commutes

* Decent state level programs to help startups (I found some decent programs from the state of Indiana to help!)

Cons: * Sometimes harder to find niche something. I.e. if you want to play board game X wit ha weekly meetup, I bet you can find 3 in Chicago. Here no one may play that thing. Or if you want to eat Vegan X... odds are it doesn't exist (but Chicago has 2+)

* Local community is still not ready to support startups. For example - The city claims to be tech friendly - but their programs are either for factories or farms. Not a factory or farm? City can't really help.

* Walkability sucks for most of the area. There are a few pockets, but not that many

* Smaller pool of applications for career motivated developer / other niche fields. I am sure I can get 1000 resumes for forklift driver, but I might only get 20 for Java developer.