Tony Wright

"every time I approach a hacker about starting a project and bring up the subject of my contributions to the business end and also me being a source of ideas and creativity, they are instantly turned away, and essentially treat me as someone who would be useless as far as the development of the product..."

It depends on what kind of impression you make. Frankly I am a bit tired of creative people who can't get things done. I am not implying you are one of them, just giving you a reason why techies may be discouraged.

Good article on the subject:
http://www.tonywright.com/2007/5-reasons-you-dont-want-to-partner-with-an-idea-guy/

There are three hurdles for bootstrapping (http://www.tonywright.com/2008/bootstrappers-beware/ ):
covering operations (ie hosting)
ramen profitability
salary profitability

For a web startup, you should bootstrap or take very small investment (ie YC's $15K) to get to ramen profitability. At that point you can choose whether to grow slowly from revenues (like patio11) or seek growth capital (like DropBox did a few months ago).

With the fall in costs for build web companies, a beta is the new PowerPoint. Any credible angel or VC will want to see a product and traction before giving you money.

Then how do they explain Washington's higher 8.2% rate?

You should read the comment in the original post (http://www.tonywright.com/2009/should-you-move-your-startup-to-the-valley-depends-on-where-you-are-data-included/) by user abscondment.

He contends that the data that Tony wrote is uncertain because there is less data available on Washington than California, so he propses using a confidence interval of at least 97.5%, which puts California in the lead. Lowering the confidence interval even more would give California an even greater lead.

Read this recent thread/article and reexamine your equity position:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1151743

Also, read this:

http://www.tonywright.com/2008/a-newbies-guide-to-startup-compensation-or-stock-options-will-make-me-rich/

What is your % stake in the company? If you aren't getting a good piece of equity then I would push for a market rate salary based on your position and years of experience.