I am going to suggest for you to go visit San Francisco, stay in a hacker or startup house. Try a few, some are awesome, some are bad, depends on the guests. Sm

I am going to suggest for you to go visit San Francisco, stay in a hacker or startup house. Try a few, some are awesome, some are bad, depends on the guests. Smaller houses are more casual, but bigger houses often host events or team up to travel together to nearby events. Plan to stay around 2 months to really get the feel of how things work. Check if Stanford or some other university hosts a startup camp of some sort. I feel like you should stay away from actual hackathons in the valley, but I may be wrong. Also the winter is warm in San Francisco, so you get to move around easily and it attracts more traveling hackers from around the world. Another thing - don't focus too much on the engineering part - don't dismiss artwork, design, and sales people.