The 2013 Gold Rush
A Modern Day Founder Post
While I was in the midst of my unsustainable networking sprint (read first post for context), I noticed a few things. I noticed how many people come to San Francisco with hopes of mining gold. We are in the modern day gold rush here in San Francisco. Instead of a pickaxe and sift, people are armed with laptops and cell phones. The optimism in San Francisco back when the entrepreneurial 49er community mined gold in the 1800’s has carried through and the energy can often be felt just by standing on the streets of south of market (SOMA). San Francisco is now what Silicon Valley was in the dot-com boom of the ninties. Except suburban startup houses are replaced with one-bedroom apartments renting for $4,500 a month, crammed with founders who are trying to find gold. But now the gold is money or users and if you’re lucky, you’ll find both.
In my first medium post, I said I had exchanged some business cards, when in-fact I traded hundreds of business cards, like Pokemon in lower school. How did I get hundreds of business cards? At networking events, cafes and holiday parties in late 2012 and early 2013. I would pitch each person I met why my card was worthy of their taking. I’d pitch my company, my personal story, offer a helping hand or to brainstorm through a problem someone was encountering with their project, all to exchange cards. All of this was a genuine effort to meet cool, like-minded people. I had to build my network from the ground up. I ended up getting hundreds of follow up emails and sending equal amounts. Through this interaction I was mining information so I could bucket each business card based on the contacts immediate or future potential value. This assessment helped me maintain organization and eventually led to forming my all-star team.
So why haven’t I thrown these cards away? I received most of these cards within the first couple months of 2013 and have periodically found a need to thumb through them. Some cards are from tech folk, some from nightlife industry peeps. Some I found an immediate need for, some I still can’t. But I kept all of them. I know that one day, I may find the need to call on a specific contact. I feel comfortable contacting someone when the interaction can be beneficial to me and the person I’m re-connecting with.
During my networking sprint, I drank lot’s of coffee. First Starbucks, then Peets, Sightglass, Stanza and now I am hooked on Blue Bottle. Beside being a ‘coffee expert’, I now knew where most day-time networking got done. At night it seemed easy and accessible. There were lot’s of meetups, and startups frequently had tech talks with catered food and drinks. During the day however, I would go to a temporary office space, WeWork, in SOMA. This space provided me stimulation and motivation. Watching different teams collaborate and frequently chatting with others, I further assimilated myself with the tech scene. Being at WeWork also kept me close to these coffee shops and central to the epicineter of technology in America, SOMA San Francisco, where offices really never close. The coffee shops in San Francisco are unlike any in the world. You step into one and it’s packed. People are talking, coding, showing phones with new apps to one-another and laptop screens with decks being feverously scrolled through. It felt slightly intimidating at first but at the same time, like I could pull a chair up and start brainstorming about someone’s project without them thinking I’m out of place. There was also a sense of maturity. A sense that everyone actually had a solid product or at least concept they were discussing. This fueled my fire to someday be able to talk about a product in one of these coffee shops. Months later when I had a product, I was indeed treated to coffee at many of these shops. After awhile I noticed a theme within each coffee house and the types of people who frequented them.
Starbucks: the gold card member is loyal but would rather walk to a park and have a chat while enjoying their brew.
Peets: grabs a coffee and food. Then eats at Peets while conversing but brings the conversation outside to conclude it.
Sightglass: might as well be called Sightglass Capital. More VC’s come to this coffee shop than any other.
Stanza: grab and go. Very artsy crowd comprised of freelancers andAcademy of Art Students.
Blue Bottle: The classic grab and forced to go, at least to sit on a cement rock and chat in the beautifully located and hip Hayes Valley.
You choose your coffee house but the one that really made an impression on me was Sightglass. Yes, the building is amazing but VC’s swarm the place. The sound of coffee grinders, the smell of the roaster and tech chatter make you feel like you are in a gold mine.
But what if all of this is an illusion? I mean, how feasible is it for someone to come to San Francisco and experience what I have. Well, it seems like two distinct types of people are here. 1) Rich kids and 2) driven individuals, who just make it work. I like to stick with the driven individuals but hanging with rich kids also has its perks. My answer is, it’s easy for someone to experience this but not sustain it. The goal is to attract users or money for your project, right? Well, not really. First enhance people’s lives in unique and almost obvious ways, then money may follow. This means you need to build a runway for yourself, basically a realistic period of time until you have lot’s of users and or money. The rich kids may be able to live off parents money but I believe they miss out on something crucial. The struggle. If you give yourself a 2 year runway until your company has enough users or revenue to get funding or cut yourself a paycheck, and you are forced to support yourself, you will struggle.
The sharing economy in many ways has eliminated the struggle for me. Airbnb and Lyft are the two companies I appreciate most for helping me make ends meet while I am still on my runway. Meetup has also been pivitol, helping me meet with like-minded people and facilitate interaction with potential business partners. And Wework too. That space helped me feel like working at 1am is normal. These peer-to-peer companies that are apart of the sharing economy have made my experiences in San Francisco sustainable. And to the millions of people looking at San Francisco as the place to strike it rich, it’s worth clarifying a few things; You won’t start a company and make millions in 3 months, it’s easier to find a job then an apartment and you may be scouted for a tech job or incubator “fresh off the boat” at SFO. Diving into the unique culture of San Francisco, networking with a population as diverse as the world and utilizing peer-to-peer services will make your journey to striking gold much easier.
