There is a huge difference between founding a startup in the midwest and being an engineer in the midwest. I believe that gets lost in a lot of the rhetoric from both sides. I love hiring engineers in the midwest. Consistently great work ethics, etc, etc.
On the other hand, if you're an entrepreneur, you don't live in SF and you're building a consumer internet startup, you're fucked. Primarily because your access to capital is so limited it's ridiculous. Most people that live in the midwest aren't able to put in the time required to build out the relationships needed to successfully fundraise in the Valley.
Cutting calories is the only way to lose weight. Cutting carbs typically means people end up eating less calories, because protein is more satiating.
"Eating the same diet, just a lot less carbs"
If you're eating less carbs, that's 4 calories less for every grab of carbs you've cut out. If previously you were eating around 200g of carbs everyday (probably on the low end, honestly) you've now removed around 800 calories from your diet.
I built the first version of Boxcar (http://boxcar.io) in a weekend -- because I was bored. Started on a Friday, submitted to Apple the following Sunday evening.
Since then we've grown to 1M+ users and have delivered 2B+ push notifications. We're a team of 4 now.
For mobile apps, your tools are basically decided for you already. Eclipse for Android, Xcode for iOS. The goal of an MVP is to keep things as stupidly simple as possible. Use external APIs if they already exist, use services like Parse, etc, to give you a leg up.
MVP is less about code and more about results. If you can get away with no coding at all, that's the ideal situation. :-)
And we'll have a blog post up at http://blog.boxcar.io here soon too. It's a bit easier than the above now, as you can just choose "Sparrow" from the list of Installed Clients to have it work.
Boxcar (disclosure: I helped build it) will allow you to send remote pushes to your desktop and mobile devices. On the desktop, we partner with Growl to display messages as a pop-up.
As a huge fan of swole.me and long-time lurker of it - you could add in push notifications right now using Boxcar (boxcar.io). Disclosure: I helped build it. ;)
Boxcar is hiring paid interns anywhere in the world. We're a distributed team, with bases in Wichita, KS and NYC. Email [email protected] with what you're passionate about!
As someone that has traveled from Kansas for many years for conferences, it's wonderful to see friends from the coasts coming to Kansas!