This time last year I hopped around the world participating in startup pitch events for venture capitalists. I had a ball; the cool people, the free food, the new ideas, and (in the case of Denmark) the delicious beer. All of it had been in the name of getting the attention (and the almighty buck) of deep-pocketed venture capital firms hungry for the new idea.

As I traversed from one pitch to the next, I started to notice a trend: everyone wants to start up a web/app/digital company. I went to one pitch event, and there wasn’t a single pitch that dealt with products and services that belong outside of the digital world. It’s as if the entrepreneurs of today took a snort from Facebook and Google’s crack stash and then jittered over to the VCs looking to get their own brand of yeyo.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE web-based companies. Hell, I couldn’t stand on my soap box like this if it wasn’t for my friends at WordPress.com. However, I think that entrepreneurship should be more than just the next iPhone app. Get your head out of the ‘cloud’ for a second, and think about things we need offline. With so many startup junkies thinking digital, digital, digital you’ll be able to distinguish yourself to the VCs and customers if you think differently – if you think outside the (computer/tablet/smart phone) box.

And if you don’t do that, then maybe consider what the new startup OWN is doing. They’ve taken the best of both worlds (the digital/app market and the tangible products market) and created a business that will help streamline and reduce the costs of, potentially, hundreds of thousands of small and mid-sized companies using their application and tablet devices.

So, rather than limiting yourself to just developing a web/digital-based company or just a tangible product, you can meld the ideas together and come up with something better. Hey, it might even be better than crack.