A Visitor’s Guide to Silicon Valley

walk around 3000 Sand Hill looking at all the names of the VCs on the building directories and be disappointed how incredibly boring the outside of these buildings look. (Some VCs have left the Sand Hill Road womb and have opened offices in downtown Palo Alto and San Francisco to be closer to the action.) For extra credit, stand outside one of the 3000 Sand Hill Road buildings wearing a sandwich-board saying “Will work for equity” and hand out copies of your executive summary and PowerPoint presentations.

Drive by the Palo Alto house where Facebook started (yes, just like the movie) and the house in Menlo Park that was Google’s first home. Drive down to Cupertino and circle Apple’s campus. No tours but they do have an Apple company store which doesn’t sell computers but is the only Apple store that sells logo’d T-shirts and hats.

San Francisco—Startups with a Lifestyle

Drive an hour up to San Francisco and park next to South Park in the South of Market area. South of Market (SoMa) is the home address and the epicenter of Web 2.0 startups. If you’re single, living in San Francisco and walking/biking to work to your startup definitely has some advantages/tradeoffs over the rest of the valley. Café Centro is South Park’s version of Coupa Café. Or eat at the American Grilled Cheese Kitchen. (You’re just a few blocks from the S.F. Giants ballpark. If it’s baseball season take in a game in a beautiful stadium on the bay.) And four blocks north is Moscone Center, the main San Francisco convention center. Go to a trade show even if it’s not in your industry.

The Valley Is About the Interactions, Not the Buildings

Like the great centers of innovation, Silicon Valley is about the people and their interactions. It’s something you really can’t get a feel of from inside your car or even walking down the street. You need to get inside of those building and deeper inside those conversations. Here’s a few suggestions of how to do so.

  • If you want the ultimate startup experience, see if you can talk yourself into carrying someone’s bags as they give a pitch to a VC. Be a fly on the wall and soak it in.
  • If you’re trying to get a real feel of the culture, apply and interview for jobs in three Silicon Valley companies even if you don’t want any of them. The interview will teach your more about Silicon Valley company culture and the valley than any tour.
  • Go to at least three tech-oriented Meetups or Plancast events in the Valley or San Francisco (Meetup is a deep list. Search for “startup” meetup’s in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Santa Clara).
  • If you’re visiting to raise money or to get to know “angels” use AngelList to get connected to seed investors before you arrive.
  • Never leave.
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Author: Steve Blank

A prolific educator, thought leader and writer on Customer Development for Startups, Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur who teaches, refines, writes and blogs on “Customer Development,” a rigorous methodology he developed to bring the “scientific method” to the typically chaotic, seemingly disorganized startup process. Now teaching entrepreneurship at three major universities, Blank co-founded his first of eight startups after several years repairing fighter plane electronics in Thailand during the Vietnam War, followed by several years of defense electronics work for U.S. intelligence agencies in “undisclosed locations.” Four Steps to the Epiphany, Blank’s fast-selling book, details the Customer Development process and is increasingly a “must read” among entrepreneurs, investors, and established companies alike, when the focus is optimizing a startup’s chances for scalability and success. After 21 years driving 8 high technology startups, today Steve teaches entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Stanford University’s School of Engineering and the Columbia/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program. His “Customer Development” teaching and writing coalesce and codify his experiences and observations of entrepreneurs in action, including his own and those he advises. “Once removed from the day-to-day intensity of founding a startup, I was able to observe a pattern that distinguishes successful startups from failures,” Blank says. In 2009, he earned the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in Management Science and Engineering. The San Jose Mercury News listed him as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley. In 2010, he was earned the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business. Despite these accolades, Steve says he might well have been voted “least likely to succeed” in his New York City high school class. Steve Blank arrived in Silicon Valley in 1978, as boom times began. His early startups include two semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS Computers; Convergent Technologies; a consulting stint for Pixar; a supercomputer firm, Ardent; peripheral supplier, SuperMac; a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL; Rocket Science Games. Steve co-founded startup number eight, E.piphany, in his living room in 1996. In sum: two significant implosions, one massive “dot-com bubble” home run, several “base hits,” and immense learning leading to The Four Steps. An avid reader in history, technology, and entrepreneurship who seldom cracks a novel, Steve has followed his curiosity about why entrepreneurship blossomed in Silicon Valley while stillborn elsewhere. It has made him an unofficial expert and frequent speaker on “The Secret History of Silicon Valley.” Steve’s interest in combining conservation with best business practices had Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appoint him a Commissioner of the California Coastal Commission, the public body which regulates land use and public access on the California coast. He also serves on the Expert Advisory Panel for the California Ocean Protection Council. Steve serves on the board of Audubon California, was its past chair, and spent several years on the Audubon National Board. A board member of Peninsula Open Space Land Trust (POST), Blank recently became a trustee of U.C. Santa Cruz and a Director of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV). Steve’s proudest startups are daughters Katie and Sara, co-developed with wife Alison Elliott. The Blanks live in Silicon Valley.