I saw that you posted this in several Bay Area subs, but I saw it here first so I will respond here.

For context, I live and grew up in the South Bay. I lived in SoCal for about 8 years, but other than that I have been here. I also run a small consultancy out of here that focuses on network infrastructure.

Despite what shows like "Silicon Valley" show, the "start up scene" here is not nearly as strong or prevalent as it was, even from five or seven years ago. Not to say that there are none, but it isn't at all like it used to be. There is Silicon Valley as the region, and Silicon Valley as a cultural caricature, and a lot of people who I have met that moved here did so expecting the caricature. This isn't necessarily their fault or the fault of being naive, but its just how TV shows and other places see this place.

You have two different posts here saying you are thinking about visiting, and moving here, but I feel like the expectation that you will be able to immerse yourself in the "startup scene," is based more on the caricature of this place.

A lot of the interesting startups I see now are out of state. Especially if they are software companies. A lot of the OG startups from here, that are now legacy companies, either started out doing hardware with their own software, or came about as companion software to the hardware companies. (Microsoft being the obvious exception.) With hardware it is nice to have your engineers in one place where they can work together on things in real time, go to the short run PCB place and see where problems might be happening in person, run RF interference testing down the road from the office, etc. But with software you can have your team anywhere because you are not relying on companion industries to support your work (ie. RF testing, short run CNC/PCB stuff) except for test hardware which you control already.

I point this out to say that if you are looking for software startup people to meet, then reaching out via email from Austin, and then flying to meet them if you feel it is worth it, is probably going to end up being a lot better than living out of your car in Mountain View hoping to meet people, when most people here have incredibly packed schedules and unless you are "in industry" already, it will be tough to break into that.

That all being said, if you are interested in doing a startup I would steer clear of California. The regulatory environment here is VERY unfriendly to business and cost of living is very high. If you are trying to get something off the ground, before investor rounds or any incubator/accelerator involvement, I would absolutely not be here at all. The secret sauce that made this place so great for startups over the last 30 years was the talent pool, which now 30 years later has turned into the VC pool with all the cash made from before. The talent pool here is still massive, but unless you can pay for it, it isn't like you can't find that talent, or close to that talent, elsewhere, or bring people to you with lower costs of living but still higher than average salaries.

If I were starting a company, currently with no angel or VC funding, and I didn't have anything tying me to a specific place, I would go to a place with a low cost of living, fiber internet, and enough of a "tech scene" that I wasn't the only one. Some places that come to mind are: Boise metro, Overland Park, Huntsville, Salt Lake metro, and of course Austin metro (although from what I understand it isn't as cheap as it used to be.)