rtf

Some background: I graduated college a little over a year ago with an Economics BA. I have the start of a career in game development; I did level design and scripting on a work-for-hire console license, which went six months from contract to ship. (Not a sane schedule.) There was stress, long hours, a month of working weekends, but I'm fine now; and the game shipped.

Since then the company hasn't gotten new gigs to support its staffing, so they had to let me go. Both the founders said they'd have me back in a heartbeat; I can probably find a job in gaming again with some time. I'm also working on some open source game tech ( http://gamesc.sourceforge.net/ ) - If I had to point to one technical skill I'm best at, coding is probably it.

However, starting a startup intrigues me more than game projects, and this seems like the time to consider it seriously...but although I'm in the Bay Area, I don't have connections in the startup world, and I really want to tap into that experience. Also, being deeply into games, I'd like to stick to that topic for business ideas. I don't know if I could buy into any old web app. Working on any old game is better, but only a little bit. I'm really keen on finding something innovative to do in the sector(business-wise) and a team to do it with; something that's really disruptive. I think it's possible. But I don't think I can do it alone.

I guess my question would be: What would be the right steps to take, to meet the kinds of people I want to meet that would work together on this kind of startup? Staying in the industry might be the way to meet the people I need. But I'm not convinced it's the best, or the only option.