We moved to the Bay Area 3 weeks ago. Here’s what we learnt so far.

The Valley blog series is written by husband and wife co-founders, Patrick and Alexandria Gentry, to chronicle their experiences in The Bay Area while on a four-month accelerator program. 

Part 1

Bay Area musings

So it’s been 3 weeks since we packed our bags, our laptops, our kids; high-fived and hugged our team in Manila; and settled into our new home in San Francisco at the invitation of Silicon Valley’s premier SaaS accelerator, Acceleprise.

My cofounder (who is also, and more importantly, my husband) and I run Sprout Solutions, an HR and payroll platform that fully-automates complex timekeeping and attendance from biometrics all the way down to payout.

We had specifically designed Sprout for emerging markets, replacing spreadsheets and printed forms with fingerprint and eye scanners, single-click processing and prescriptive analytics.

Patrick and Alexandria Gentry.

The Bay Area has always been an interesting destination — from the counterculture of Haight and Ashbury or the colorful exuberance of The Castro, to the quiet mystery of Muir Woods.

Over the last few years, another layer of dynamism was brought on by the buzz of the tech scene — the buzz of thinkers seeking their legacy, of game changing ideas taking shape, of old industries toppled by intrepid game changers.

Being here now feels like being in the height of the Renaissance — surrounded by cool tools, naive optimism and intimidating talent. A few of our takeaways so far:

1. There’s an app for everything

Before coming over, I was fretting a lot, not so much about the program itself, but more about juggling my time between learning from mentors, remotely managing the team in a different timezone, and maintaining a household with two young kids and absolutely no paid help.

In one of my early conversations with Michael Cardamone, the Managing Director of Acceleprise, he was quick to appease my worries with sound advice, “the good news is that there’s an app for everything here.” And there really is.

Need groceries delivered within the hour? Instacart! Forgot to pack some lunch? Sprig or Uber Eats! Don’t have time to do the laundry? Washio! Running late for a meeting and can’t find anywhere to park? Luxe! Confused about the many different microclimates in the city and don’t know whether to pack a sweater or a sundress for your toddler? Mr. Chilly! Running low on wine in the middle of dinner with friends? Minibar!

2. Everybody is either in a startup, or is thinking of starting up

Okay, not everybody! But a lot of people are. These are snippets of conversations I’ve heard out and about:

3. Supportive community

4. Small egos