Technically, it's trivial to manufacture carpet anywhere you want -- but 85% of all US-made carpets are manufactured in Dalton, Georgia. Likewise, theoretically it's easy to develop software from anywhere (or many anywheres), but in practice you will benefit from the secondary effects of locating in a major tech hub -- or even a minor one. Some of this has to do with ease of recruitment of qualified candidates, but also the network effects of having a large number of tech companies and groups interacting with each other, leading to an overall improvement in capabilities and quality. Finally, funding is a key controller; in the Bay Area, funding can be as simple as opportunistically pitching a GP during a shared UberPool, but in regions without mature VC and angel economies, you'll have to fight harder, and pay more, for those investments.