I went to San Francisco for the business trip, by the program provided by Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. And I'd like to write the overview and my thought about San Francisco in this blog.
Conclusion
San Francisco has good environment startups because- we can find lots of pitch events and the opportunities to meet with investors,
- this city has lots of big successful startups in the past and they are in charge of investors or mentors.
For venture companies who aim stable growth, they don't choose there because it's not so good place to live. Everything is expensive.
I felt most of the people (especially investors) living in San Francisco are thinking this is the center or the world. I think this feeling is important for the people who want to change the world seriously.
But I also thought they should see the really growing market. This must be Asia at the moment. And the next target will be Africa. Both are physically far from San Francisco. It is the fact that top level of startups gathers there but this situation will be kept from now on too?
Good weather is also a good factor for them to make the people positive.
Purpose
The reason why I went to San Francisco is I wanted to find the actual activities that I can contribute to the startup eco-system. I wanted to find what to do actually.As a conclusion, all I have to do to contribute to the startup industry in Hanoi is to succeed in our business! This must be the first step. So I strongly decided to focus on the growth of our business and its traction.
Visit some startups and IT companies
Off-the-grid
URL: https://offthegrid.com/Unique startup. The founder was inspired by the Yatai culture, which is movable small restaurants with the vehicles, in Fukuoka, Japan.
We can choose some types of cuisine.
I chose lobster sandwich. It's was good!
Slack
We made the NDA so I can't clarify the detail of this visit but we made the great discussion with product managers.
I thought this company has so so long history but actually, it's taken only 3 years since established. This is the speed of startup in San Francisco.
Sales Force
URL: http://www.salesforce.org/
Recently they have put the force to investment to startups. If startups are selected as an acceleration program, they are provided the great working space.
He's a famous person who has often taken lots of photos with VIPs as his hobby. So I took a photo with him too. Then I can be very famous as well, haha.
The other scenery of San Francisco
I introduce the other scenery of San Francisco and Silicon valley.
This is a shop in Silicon Valley and startups (especially IoT related) can exhibit their products. Then we can try using them. Startups can get the response from users too.
This is a device to help us work online. We can feel closer than only chatting or calling because we can see the face.
In San Francisco, we can find lots of pitch event like this. We can join frankly. The atmosphere is like this. Judgment is by investors basically. Then they always ask "how do you make money?" after presentation.
This is one of the most famous co-working space in San Francisco. Special point is this has a function (opportunity?) to match the working people. If you are looking for team members, this seems to be good.
Pitch presentation
In this program, I practiced pitch presentation many times. Of course, I practiced the pitch of Jobright, which we're developing MVP now. Pitch presentation is 30 secs for elevator pitch, 3 - 5 mins for general presentation. So important point is to focus on what we really inform and remove the other issues. This is very difficult. In this program, we used this framework.
After this program
Just after I came back to Japan, I joined one pitch event held in Japan. If I could win it, I could go to Estonia in May. I improved my presentation and I practiced many times. I requested to review my presentation to the members of the same program before we came back to Japan. But I lost! huhu...
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