When not completely buried in work, I try to read through my feeds in Bloglines, and everyday I read about the launch or beta release of new startups around the country.

Most are located in Silicon Valley with founders that came from Google, Yahoo, or any of the other hundreds of not-so-small tech companies in the area.

Thanks to Fred Wilson’s blog A VC, I read a lot about the New York based startups that Union Square Ventures is funding.

I don’t really follow VC in the Seattle area, but one of my favorite social news sites has its roots in that area; Newsvine is headed by Mike Davidson and funded by Second Avenue Partners.

Despite all the places I read about these companies, and all the really interesting products they are launching, I don’t have any serious contacts with these companies. So that is the problem, how does one find the right startup for them?

There are thousands, maybe millions of really tallented people out there that for one reason or another want to be involved with a startup. It could be the potential to strike it rich. It could be the modern and flexible work culture. Or it could be that these startups are doing something more groundbreaking and worthwhile than any of the big guys.

I’m sure there are resources out there for getting involved with these fledgling companies. Maybe I could scrape up a few connections through my LinkedIn network. However I’m betting that most of these companies find and hire staff through companies they used to work at, or through references from friends and families. So for someone sitting outside of these areas, what’s the best way to get involved with a startup?