A Week in the Life - an Aussie in SF

My reflections on my recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area with the five Plus Eight teams.

April 1st

Stopped in Sydney to attend the SHEeo Summit 2019. SHEeo is a new model of funding for female founded startups, and this event had over 200 #radicallygenerous women from all over Australia (and Singapore) come together to meet the 5 founders who will receive funding this year. The SHEeo model is that 'activators' (like me!) contribute $1100 which is pooled to provide five $100,000 loans to female founders with 0% interest, repayable over 4 years. Less than 3% of venture capital funding in Australia is currently going to all-female-founded startups. So many learnings from this conference. My favourite quote from founder Vicki Saunders was “you can’t just add women and stir”- we need to create whole new models to support diversity.

April 2nd

Long flight to SFO! Sydney to San Francisco is 14 hours of flying, a perfect opportunity for lots of movies, and a bit of catchup on work.

I was recently asked what the worst thing about my trip was. The answer: timezones. They really suck. I was on a call at 11pm Pacific time, so it was a good time for everyone else on the call. You do get used to it, and it is amazing we can make things happen across time, and distance.

April 3rd

First full day of program content!

Started the day by making the brave choice to take the BART train out to Berkeley. Note to self: they aren’t as on time as I had hoped. Leave earlier next time. While they aren’t always punctual, it is a pleasant experience and it's always fun to people-watch and listen to startup talk.

In Berkeley, we had breakfast with the incredible Amelia Mani as she spoke about Perth, SF, startups, women in tech and everything in between. Learnt a lot about online learning programs and student engagement and have plenty of learnings to implement for Perth Web Girls.

After breakfast, she dropped me at the Berkeley Skydeck campus to meet up with Iain McIntrye and the Perth and Sydney Plus Eight/muru-D accelerator teams. Iain, the CEO of Humm Technologies was part of the first Plus Eight cohort and has been living in San Francisco for the past 8 months since being accepted into Skydeck at Berkeley. Iain showed us around Berkeley campus which was equal parts informative and hilarious. We got to witness students getting pies thrown at them for charity, the T-Rex skeleton which Iain assures us has a name but couldn’t remember it, and almost getting run into by Kiwibots – tiny autonomous food delivery robots which roam all over campus.

After a quick pizza on campus we went to Skydeck HQ, learnt about the model for their accelerator program and all the teams gave their one minute pitch to the Skydeck team. This was the first time I’d heard the Perth teams pitch since our program masterclass pitch session and wow, the progress a week made was astounding. Before we could get too comfortable, we were on the move again heading on the BART train back to the city to our next event - the “Welcome to America” alumni panel at HappyCo.

The informal couch area of HappyCo (an Australian founded business) was the perfect setting for a Q&A with previous alumni of Plus Eight and muru-D who now live in the Bay Area, and Jindou, Founder of HappyCo, discussing everything from capital raising and the differences between our ecosystem and the ecosystem there, to how to get meetings, and signals the meetings are going well (or aren’t).

April 4th

My most action packed day of the trip. We started off with a bit of play thanks to Improv HQ “preparing for the unexpected” workshop. Highlights included almost almost getting convergence with Andy from GeoSnapShot, and having to spontaneously pitch Arisave’s 1 min pitch back to founder Michael Breckler.

Over the rest of the day I had 5 coffee catch-ups arranged, all of which went longer than 30 min because they were so dang interesting, and all of which happened to be on opposite sides of SF, oops! So grateful to the people I met, and looking forward to our next conversations.

Of the many bizarre things a person might have on their to do list at 4pm on a Thursday, mine was to look for a bell. Turns out, finding a bell in a hurry in SF is harder than you’d think, and after trying 5 places I left empty handed. Why a bell you ask? Our last event for the day was Mentor Roulette at 3rd St Tap Room. Our founders were joined by the cohort from Navitas Ventures, and Austrade Landing Pad for an evening of speed networking, mentoring and connecting with a little bit of beer and pizza thrown in. Given the lack of bell, we improvised with a teaspoon ding on a water glass. It did the trick.

April 5th

It’s Friday - the week is drawing to a close, it’s time to get to know each other a little better, get vulnerable, and learn how to communicate better as a team. Founder breakup is one of the key reasons for startup failure, and the easiest to prevent with solid foundations. For the full day Brooks Barron and Ricki Frankel led us through a series of activities “if you really knew me”, giving and receiving positive and constructive feedback, and sharing our fears and our proudest achievements. It’s amazing how much better you can get to know someone when you ask the right questions, and how this activity is so much more powerful when you are already vulnerable by being away from home and business as usual.

The location at Fort Mason was stellar with views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge, as well as a popup food truck festival setup in the car park, and an improv show just upstairs.

April 6th

It’s a Saturday, but that doesn’t mean meetings are off the table! We travelled down to Palo Alto (after a hilarious mixup booking an Uber) to meet up with Mark Shelton and checkout Stanford University. While Berkeley and Stanford are close in a lot of ways, they are more different than I had expected. Berkeley is more eclectic, Stanford has beautiful architecture which is very well planned, designed, and cohesive in style. Both are very old. Mark showed us part of campus, focussing on his faculty computer science and engineering, and talked to us about the way they teach at Stanford and his experiences so far.

Next stop: hot chocolate at Timothy Adams Palo Alto, meeting up with a new friend I connected with on my last trip to SF. We swapped stories and sipped our drinks, and wandered around b8ta - a brick and mortar store showcasing the products of hardware tech startups who can’t afford a physical shopfront. The products were brilliant, almost all sourced from around the area. If you’re in Palo Alto I’d definitely recommend both Timothy Adams and a visit to b8ta.

April 7th

While the Plus Eight cohort went on an ambitious bike ride across the Golden Gate to Sausalito, I took a slightly different take on a Sunday. A few weeks back while scrolling through Airbnb Experiences I landed on a couple of listings I found interesting.

1. Tech Tourism for a Cause - A 1.5 hour tour of Airbnb by a staff member from their Public Policy Team, with all funds being donated to Upwardly Global.

I’ve visited Airbnb before, and their office is just shy of magical. Every meeting room is inspired by an Airbnb listing from somewhere in the world to serve as a constant reminder for staff of their customers and their ‘why’. They have a meeting room with a ball pit, a ping pong table, plenty of free snacks, and a program called Airpups for people to bring their dogs to work. Our host talked extensively about his role, community and culture at Airbnb, Airbnb’s purpose, and their focus on customers. The 1.5 hour tour went for closer to 3 hours, and you could feel Collin’s passion for his work every minute of it.

2. Silent Disco Beach Yoga - Yes, it’s exactly as great as it sounds.

Honestly I went to this as it sounded like the most San Franciscan thing I could find, and I was not disappointed. The class was situated on the lovely Baker Beach on an unseasonably sunny and warm Sunday afternoon with clear views to Marin County, the Golden Gate bridge, and a playful German Shepherd enjoying the beach with his family. The class was fantastic - relaxing, stretching, rejuvenating - I think I even fell asleep for a few minutes at the end.

April 8th

Early start for the week with a breakfast event at Montcalm with Happiness Hacker (and Australian) Penny Locaso talking about work, happiness, tech, and money. Plenty of stimulating conversation about the possibilities of good tech and bad tech and the rise of anxiety in young people due to our 24/7 society. A very different change of pace from the normal conversations around the future of tech. After that I zipped across to Stripe HQ to chat about the recent Startup Weekend that Stripe supported, and our Spacecubed member benefits (check those out here). Stripe has a beautiful office - so much greenery - and a delightful tea station. I even got a t-shirt on my way out. On leaving Stripe I raced across town to K&L Gates lawyers office in Embarcadero for a ‘legal lunch’ talking everything from visas, immigration law, flipping up to the US and Delaware corps. We went there last year for a similar presentation and they really do know their stuff! Plus, what a beautiful view from up here. In the afternoon we had a couple of hours break so we found a spot to work from and did some planning for the rest of the Plus Eight year, before heading to a different law firm for a Capital Raising Panel.

April 9th

It feels like it’s been weeks at this stage of the trip. Another early coffee meeting with another incredible Aussie living in SF getting valuable advice and feedback. A little bit of work time. A spontaneous trip to the Amazon Go store (seriously check it out if you are in SF). An exceptional Product Panel featuring Cheryl Porro, CTO Thrive Global, Steph Hannon, CPO Strava, Sam Barnett, CPO Quantcast, Maggie Law, Product Design, Okta, Eric Wilson, Head of Product, Tact.ai and Ryan Panchadsaram, Kleiner Perkins. This panel easily could have gone all day there was so much energy and advice being given. Definitely a highlight! To close out the day I went off-script and missed a Plus Eight event to attend the Women Talk Design meetup at Google Cloud SF campus. The topic was “Preparing Your Talk Topic” and was an opportunity for women in the design industry to workshop what their topic might be at a conference or public event near them, in an effort to get more diversity in speakers at events. The energy at this meetup was so warm and inviting, huge credit to the coordinator of the meetup for that - its difficult to instill culture at a meetup but this definitely had it. The speaker was Sara Ortloff Khoury from Google, who candidly related her experiences speaking at different events over her career, and her process of landing on a talk topic, and crafting a presentation.

April 10th

Catching back up with the Plus Eight teams this morning, diving straight into pitching at Venture University. Venture University describes itself as a “multi-stage investment fund and a trade school for venture capital, private equity, and angel investing”, or as I describe it an accelerator program for investors rather than startups. Our startups had an opportunity to pitch to each of the Venture University students, get feedback on the pitch and ask questions of each other then move to the next table and pitch to a new investor-to-be. This round robin style pitch session was fascinating as you could see the teams shift their language based on feedback and questions they were (or weren’t) being asked as the morning progressed.

After the last round of pitching I jumped in a car and headed down to Mountain View for a lunch meeting, before heading down a bit further down the Peninsula to Apple HQ at Infinite Loop in Cupertino. I headed into the Apple Store while I waited for my meeting, and bought an incredibly overpriced but very cool Apple t-shirt and charged my phone quickly while I waited. I caught up with Kylie Timpani, ex-Perth girl who has just made the jump across to work at Apple and shared with me some of her experiences living and working in Cupertino. I ordered ‘sparkling water’ which was definitely just soda, and we bonded over our mutual lack of understanding how to tip properly. Swapping one tech giant for another I left Apple to head to Google HQ to listen to Penny Locaso (again) talk to Women in Product meetup. Although it was similar content, it was a very different vibe of event and I’m really glad I went to both. I met up with a couple of familiar faces, and made a few new connections to touch base with later. And, of course, took plenty of selfies with the iconic Android Statue garden.

April 11th

Final official day of the Plus Eight trip, rounded out with a quick trip to a local coworking space, then a visit to Salesforce Tower to hear about building company culture that beats any ‘perk war’, and learning a few tricks about incredible customer service and experience, all while enjoying the views of the 61st floor.

April 12th

The penultimate day of my trip! Started early again with a coffee catch-up with longtime Spacecubed member Hourann hearing about his work, lifestyle, and sharing stories. Got back on my Skip scooter to head across to App Academy which is a bootcamp style course teaching app and website development. After my tour I headed across to Berkeley for lunch and a coffee catch-up before heading on the BART down to Menlo Park for a tour of Facebook HQ. Facebook’s campus was initially designed by one of the creators of Disneyland and you can definitely feel a Disney vibe. There is a poster room where employees can get create and design something, a cute little ice cream shop that looks straight out of a Disney movie which provides unlimited free ice cream and sweet treats to staff, and a number of other themed, free, restaurant outlets. We chatted for almost an hour, before I bid farewell and commenced the long, slow process of getting back up to the city.

April 13th

Women Who Code Connect! What can I say? What an experience. From learning about Python development “be the snake charmer”, to being inspired by the keynote speakers, it was quite a day. The event was located at Pinterest which was great to see - they even had a make-your-own macrame keychain booth as part of the conference setup. By the time I had to leave to get my flight out I was both re-energised and completely exhausted.

Final thoughts:

Number of meetings, events, calls: 47

Number of steps walked in SF: 148,420

Number of tech t-shirts acquired: 7