3 ms·

I'm a Londoner. SF is a beautiful city and I want to go back very soon. With that said I'm not sure what the purpose of this trip is (I did read your objective

I'm a Londoner. SF is a beautiful city and I want to go back very soon. With that said I'm not sure what the purpose of this trip is (I did read your objectives). Some food for thought below. > "A very high-level view of where a few startups and VCs are located." You're based in London, which means you have access to some excellent global VC houses (Balderton, Index, Accel + others). There is a proliferation of small (<£500k) money in London which is also easy to tap into. There are plenty of outstanding startups who are based in London. What do you gain by going to SF that you couldn't get by setting up a few meetings in London? > one that requires a US entity within a year, we want to get a good sense of how SF can be done bootstrapped, or at least affordably A lot can change in 12 months. It's hard to envisage a situation in which you're making a smart decision by expanding to the US within 12 months without either the capital to make it relatively pain-free, or the traction required to do Series A. It's also hard to think that groundwork you do now is going to be useful or inform that move in any way shape or form. If you're in a situation where you absolutely must be in the US within the next 12 months then maybe, but otherwise just cross that bridge when you come to it. > Figure out how SF/SV works from a startup perspective […] build a few connects with VCs who might later become investors SF/SV works the same way as London, Berlin or Paris: you can get swept up in scenester nonsense or you can spend your time working on your product and focusing on steps 1-20, not on steps 2000-3000. In six months time if you have a good product, excellent traction and some revenues (+ ideas about 10x growth) then you will find that investors and interesting people won't be a problem. A good intro goes a long way, but it doesn't matter that much. It's platitudinal now but still true. Everything is dictated by the focus you apply over the next few months. If I were bootstrapping my company I would be focusing relentlessly on building and testing assumptions. So my advice is to have a GREAT time, see as much of the city as you can and have zero expectations. If there are any startups in your space in SF, drop them a line and go say hello. Drink beer with the people who are on the trip with you. Bond with your cofounder. Then come back to London and work seriously on the thing which will determine 99.9999% of your success.

buro9 14y ago
We are in a strange place. We're very non-scene even in London. We've raised our seed (GBP 55k) entirely from our active users who were very enthusiastic about supporting us. We have a strong growth plan from the 2nd level network of those same users, people who are waiting to use our product and we can't grow fast enough. All of this is non-scene, under the radar if you will. It already feels like things are going faster than we'd like, a good problem, but we do know that we will need proper investment in the future and a US presence. We'll likely still be based in London, but we know that we'll need basic stuff in the USA too. Hence, before those problems arrive the purpose of the trip is: 1) To build some VC contacts so that we can start plotting our growth chart in front of them and hopefully have them as investors when that time comes. 2) To make sense of how SF works with a view to understanding where to base and why, should we need to move on that sooner rather than later. Not to say it will be SF, it could be Chicago. But I know Chicago as a town already, and I know zip about San Francisco. Being so non-scene I also don't have a network or address book in which I can call someone up and say, "Hey, throw some doors open, and help show me around, and which of these social things should I go to?". So we're coming in quite cold, which is why LDN2SFO appealed to us... but we've given ourselves an extra week to get a deeper understanding and perhaps build some relationships that could be mutually beneficial in the future. In some respects the Berlin, London, Barcelona startup scenes have, by necessity, already documented this stuff quite well. But San Francisco seems so large and established that there's a lack of a curated "The SF startup scene guide". At least, I couldn't find one that seemed current. And as my limited network is simply "I am a user on HN", and this is the best place to ask... I asked here.
- georgespencer 14y ago
  Can you email me a few more details? I have someone in mind that you might like to speak to.
  - buro9 14y ago
    Will do. I'm literally just running out for a few hours, but on my return I'll drop you an email.

buro9 14y ago

We are in a strange place. We're very non-scene even in London. We've raised our seed (GBP 55k) entirely from our active users who were very enthusiastic about supporting us. We have a strong growth plan from the 2nd level network of those same users, people who are waiting to use our product and we can't grow fast enough. All of this is non-scene, under the radar if you will. It already feels like things are going faster than we'd like, a good problem, but we do know that we will need proper investment in the future and a US presence. We'll likely still be based in London, but we know that we'll need basic stuff in the USA too. Hence, before those problems arrive the purpose of the trip is: 1) To build some VC contacts so that we can start plotting our growth chart in front of them and hopefully have them as investors when that time comes. 2) To make sense of how SF works with a view to understanding where to base and why, should we need to move on that sooner rather than later. Not to say it will be SF, it could be Chicago. But I know Chicago as a town already, and I know zip about San Francisco. Being so non-scene I also don't have a network or address book in which I can call someone up and say, "Hey, throw some doors open, and help show me around, and which of these social things should I go to?". So we're coming in quite cold, which is why LDN2SFO appealed to us... but we've given ourselves an extra week to get a deeper understanding and perhaps build some relationships that could be mutually beneficial in the future. In some respects the Berlin, London, Barcelona startup scenes have, by necessity, already documented this stuff quite well. But San Francisco seems so large and established that there's a lack of a curated "The SF startup scene guide". At least, I couldn't find one that seemed current. And as my limited network is simply "I am a user on HN", and this is the best place to ask... I asked here.

georgespencer 14y ago
Can you email me a few more details? I have someone in mind that you might like to speak to.
- buro9 14y ago
  Will do. I'm literally just running out for a few hours, but on my return I'll drop you an email.