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As part of our "Never Mind the Valley" series here, we often feature communities outside the Silicon Valley that have become thriving centers for entrepreneurship. We've profiled cities like Boston, Montreal, and Austin.

If there's one thing every entrepreneur realizes before launching a new venture, it's that one of the most important steps toward success is getting your name out there. If you're new to the startup game and don't have a reputation upon which to announce a new company, public relations (PR) is likely at the forefront of your mind as you build your startup. Most startups, however, are looking to penny-pinch in any way they can in order to bootstrap their businesses, so how can you get the word out on a budget? Here are a few tips.

Y Combinator’s first Demo Day five years ago in Boston consisted of eight companies and an audience of about 12 investors. Even Paul Graham, the founder of the tech incubator, admits the investors were mostly just his friends.

Financing a new business is never easy in today’s credit crunch times. The lending market is getting tight especially for the new and upcoming entrepreneurs, as no one is willing to take the risk of lending money for starting a business. However, it does not mean your new business venture cannot qualify for any financial support. Still there are several opportunities available for funding a new business. Less is known about angel investing as compared to venture capital, due to the privacy of their investments. However, these are the key points to consider in order to make the right choice.

The problem is obvious: it’s hard to launch a startup. But one potential solution, great mentorship and support, isn’t so easy to come by. With their own startup of sorts, seven ex-Googlers are going to attempt to solve that.

While there isn’t too much information out there just yet about AngelPad, it should be something very interesting to watch in the next couple of weeks. A tweet today (the first from their account), reveals a launch date of Friday, September 10 and the opening of an office in San Francisco.

About a year ago, Josh Felser, co-founder of the Web 1.0 era music service Spinner.com and more recently, online video service, Grouper, decided to forego being an entrepreneur and instead become an angel investor. He and David Samuel started San Francisco, Calif.-based firm, Freestyle Capital, which is well known for some high-profile investments such as Formspring and SimpleGeo.

1. Better the Devil You Know

Ensure that your pitch demonstrates your businesses sustainable competitive advantage in your market place. Show your in-depth knowledge of your own business and the main competitors in your market. An Angel Investor is much more likely to invest in you if you have carefully considered what information they need in order to determine if this is a viable investment and you already have the answers ready for them. It shows foresight, dedication and a good head for business.

Throughout the past year, I have noticed several trends while trying to raise capital. Angel investors, and venture capitalists for that matter, take forever to actually invest in your business. There were several times in my entrepreneurial career when I thought that I was guaranteed investment. I kept thinking to myself, I have a great concept, strong team and even a half way decent alpha build developed. Sadly, I still do not know exactly what it takes to grab an investor’s attention enough for them to actually pull the trigger.

Ready two blog posts back to back, and realized just how much of a change in approach the biopharma industry needs.

In post #1 Derek Lowe reproduces a letter from someone at a big pharma companies with a lot of analogies and metaphors comparing pharma to Hollywood. Part of the thrust of the letter is a lament about risk aversion in big pharma. In addition to highlighting areas where the analogies work and where they analogies break down comes this little bit