My humble opinion is that biggest advantage of visiting SV/SF and staying in SSH is to move out from daily routine, to clear my mind of everyday tasks which can kill “free spirit” and probably the most important component for doing things different – imagination.
Staying in SSH and visiting SV changed my mindset. I was surrounded with interesting people all with different backgrounds, some hackers, other entrepreneurs, one just seeking for new ideas always willing to listen to other thoughts and ask questions, but all with one common mind – think big. Slavic House (I’ll tell you a secret, it is not a house, it is a large flat) is just fun. It has one large daily room, normally quite silent during the day, for working/hacking, meeting, cooking (we had two great chefs) and eating. During evenings it quite often changes to small private club, with easy music from disco deck and beer tasting while watching Daily Show.
I just loved meetup groups! Every day you can find one, two or even more interesting events to attend. Practically every possible topic is covered by some meetup group if you have similar taste like me, you’d go to various develops groups, try to exchange ideas on pitch events or listen others talking about their startup experiences. Since California has very stable and warm climate, weather is not a subject of any talk! So all conversations are going directly to “and what do you do, what is your startup, your idea, how big market is” theme, everyone will listen and discuss and they will give you some useful hints. But be prepared, there are people who will tell you that your brilliant idea is maybe not so brilliant! ;)
So if you are looking for ideas, you’d like to validate your startup or you already have shiny MVP and looking for investors, just do it! Just go there, you will be in good company, invest (not spend) two months of your life and you’ll never regret it. Imagine yourself at age 80* if nothing else you’ll always say: “I did it! I tried and I have no regrets!” as they say: ”The only true failure is inaction”;)
Just a small hint for the end: if you are not sure what is MVP, who are your customers, what is customer discovery process, what is market size, what is your differentiator, … Skilled people from Hekovnik can help you with answering to those questions – apply to new BoundBraker generation!
* Check for Jeff Bezos Regret Minimization Framework
