A little more than a decade ago, it used to be a much costlier undertaking to start a new technology business, particularly in software. The cloud and distributed computing has changed all that.

So has the growth of accelerators, like Y Combinator and TechStars and others that provide small amounts of seed funding to startups in exchange for some equity in your business. But in contrast to a decade ago, that small amount of money goes further.

Image: http://www.inc.com