9 things to do as a founder visiting Silicon Valley

Image Credit: David Yu

Silicon Valley – The Hollywood for startups. You’ve heard about it, you’ve watched it on HBO and fantasized about the billion dollar pitches.

If you are like me and do not have the luxury of relocating to the epicenter of the startup world, the next best alternative would be to pack your bags for a startup adventure. When I was planning for my trip, I could not find any resources to guide me and ended up scouring information from friends and fellow founders.

Therefore, I am now consolidating 9 highlights and resources for planning a short trip if you can get a glimpse into the life of a Valley entrepreneur. Get ready to quash some rumors of the perceived reality, where it’s really all hustle, sweat, and grind. This is a mindset after all.

1) Join Meetups – Multiple startup events happen everyday

Get ready to meet tons of aspiring startups, at all stages and be sure to know what is going on at the meetup, if not you would be wasting your time. Visit websites like Meetup and Eventbrite to find listings for startup related talks that happen everyday. Do plan ahead and its rather convenient to get around in the city (note: San Francisco is not close to Palo Alto, Mountain View area, think Pasir Ris to Tuas distance, where you will have to take a Caltrain). Do not make the mistake where I missed the hourly trains upwards to SF.

Our Singaporean startup meetups are similar with beers and pizzas thrown into the mix. I attended almost 6 in a period of 3 weeks while I was there, including the Yahoo Dev meetups and SVE bay entrepreneur sessions.

2) Schedule meetings with young aspiring entrepreneurs – especially from Stanford

Think of Stanford as the breeding ground and hotbed for aspiring entrepreneurs, with tons of distinguished alumni like Reid Hoffman, Elon Musk, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Do exchange notes and experiences on cultural and geographical differences, and share on what works in the ASEAN region. I found that after chatting with many of them, its really not the fear of failure but the increased probability of success that spurs many of them forward.

3) Live in a hacker house in downtown Palo Alto or Mountain View area – No, Pied Pieper does not exist, sadly.

To get that HBO Silicon Valley vibe, try living with a group of international hackers who have descended upon the valley to work on their dreams. For example, I stayed in Startup Embassy – a house where there was literally 2 Swiss, 1 Brazilian, 1 Indian, 1 Canadian, 1 Australian and 3 Americans living under one house working on different ideas. That’s really the magnet of the valley mindset. And interestingly, it was messy and day-old Ramen sat atop fridges, giving justice to the hacker life.

4) Work at a hot-desking space – Yes, tons of startups are bootstrapping to get things on the road along with you

For Singaporean startups, consider getting in touch with a newly setup incubator – Block71SF, which is really one of the initiatives that has left me astounded. NUS Enterprise, Singtel Innov8, and IIPL came together to create this soft-landing for local companies to work there and managed an awesome community manager who would love to be your bridge to the bay area. If hot-desks are not a thing for you, then you can choose to work at the multiple cafes around the city. Philz Coffee is a good one in SF, if not, literally every corner has a Starbucks.