Making It In Silicon Valley When You Have Zero Connections | Hacker News Reader

Making It In Silicon Valley When You Have Zero Connections

westonludeke.com

77 pointsweston21 comments

There's some good advice in here regarding attitude and hustle.

Can I give one more piece of advice? If you (correctly) figure out that the reason you aren't getting given jobs / funding / etc is a lack of connections, then you should optimize for achieving connections. This doesn't come naturally to everybody, myself included, but it isn't harder than lots of things which are table stakes to being an engineer.

Similarly, if you keep getting told No and think you need social proof... then get social proof. Plan B, whining about how humans have exploitable deficiencies in decisionmaking processes such as requiring social proof, is distinctly suboptimal.

Plan B section 2, whining about how exploitable deficiencies opens up people to being defrauded by vendors, consultants and recruiters who can talk the talk but not walk the walk, is still legitimate (though not constructive). There's getting social proof, and then there's not being a douche. Sometimes the line isn't clear either.

If you want to network, it's a good idea to create something of value first.

I did this in the form of a magazine (http://www.interestingtimesmagazine.com) which has allowed me to reach out to a ton of people.

I am always sending out links to people and hooking various e-acquaintances up with each other ("why don't you interview this friend of mine for your podcast?").

When you do this for long enough, I think everything just starts to fall into place.

It's not something I do with a conscious plan, most of it is just because I see an opportunity to do something cool (ie get my buddy on a podcast or whatever).

In the cheesy New Age hoodoo-voodoo $29.95 frou-frou flim-flam world of self-help we call this having abundance mentality. It has a lot of connotations, one of them being that if you see a resource as available and abundant to you, and don't come from a super-greedy frame of mind, things will be easier. There is probably a logical explanation why this works too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effe...

Sorry for stating the obvious. If you come to SV and have zero connections, then make connections. It's really easy, there are events, meetups, talks, hackathons, you-name-it pretty much every day. The culture is so pervasive that sometimes you make industry connections even without trying (e.g. at the climbing gym).

I enjoyed this article, but I think it could be titled "Making it in Silicon Valley when you have zero technical skills". Also not sure the blog is for Hustlers and Geeks, seems like it's more for hustlers.

Which is alright. I remember the huge parties in the first dot com boom, when I met a guy who answered the question "what do you do?" with "I work with startups". "What do you do for them?" "Everything". Interestingly, people at these parties weren't especially interested in meeting developers.

The culture seems very different now. For starters, people don't waste nearly as much money on big parties, and the value of technical skills seems to have risen dramatically... well, it was always useful, but now people actually understand that value.

I would figure step 1 of making it is to pursue an idea and create a minimum viable product. If you have programming ability, you (along with a couple of friends, I would hope) will have something to pitch. Otherwise, all you can do is say vague things like "I work with startups".

I consider a "Geek" anyone who likes tech things, they don't have to be technical.

Edit: I originally wrote a paragraph with lots of F-words to make the point that the author was using so many expletives that they lost impact. Got downvoted, probably because the point was ironically lost amongst the expletives, so removed the offending paragraph.

Other than that, once I decoded it, I enjoyed the article.

Aww man, don't edit because of downvotes. I saw it before you edited and I knew what you meant. It's more important to make a point than to appease the karma police (not related to the Radiohead song). Fuck the karma po-lice.

This guy might find a way to make it into my office and shake my hand, but I'd never hire him.

Anyone who can write the sentence "I’m a salesman and a hustler to my core" with a straight face has the wrong kind of passion.

If you're driven by a love for programming, or designing products, or the joy of developing a business, it will show.

This blogger sounds like he's just driven by the desire to make money and retire young, and is looking to get in to a startup because he's got visions of stock options dancing in his head.

You might not hire him but I might. The truth of the matter is that sometimes you do need people like him. Hustle to me is the willingness and ability to get things done. This guy just chose to apply hustle to sales. There's nothing wrong with that.

Better code, design or "joy of developing a business" don't always win in the market and I'm willing to bet that the one that hustles harder will.

Besides I'm pretty sure start-ups, founders, companies are all driven by some desire to make money. Difference between you might be degree. Just because you're not comfortable with it doesn't justify pontification.

I just found the manner in which you laid judgement a bit harsh.

The only thing I would add is to not place so much emphasis on shaking the CEO's hand more than any other founder.

You're exactly right... any founder would be just as good.

This is perfect for me - I have zero connections, and after I graduate I hope to make it in SV. Thanks for posting.

Why I'm SV? Are you from Cali? Why not make it where you are first. Use the resources you have easy access to before jumping on the bandwagon. If I could give some advice to anyone with dreams of VCs, startups, and, Ferraris I'd tell them to exhaust every resource you currently have available, build up some cred, then move out to SV but only if that's the right place for you to grow as a founder or as whatever you're trying to become.

I'm from England. I want to move to the US for various reasons. SV merely happens to be my first choice.

This kind of comes off as thinly veiled marketing for Ramit. I subscribe to his emails and I'm a fan but I didn't expect to see this here I'm the front page.

That didn't bother me as much as something else in the post. The article assumes you should want to make it in SV. I'd say ask yourself why you want to make it SV? Do you really need to go there to make it? I have a lot of respect for silicon valley and the things that come from there but there are too many people who want to make it in SV because it's trendy. They read HN and want to be just like the cool hip startup founders.

We should be doing what's right for us and our companies. Not all of us even belong in the entrepreneurship game. I briefly dreamed of coming to SV and trying to make it with a cool tech startup. Then I realized that I had no business there right now. It would be far better to get some momentum here in Chicago, build up some success, and grow my companies to the size they are meant to be while avoiding VCs on purpose.

There's too much hype around Silicon Valley and I'm afraid it's trendiness will be the death of its reputation for innovation. If things continue this way I fear that SV will be known for hollow, get rich quick types. Like Wall Street on the west coast. Do what's right for you. You might not want to make it in SV after all. Try to make it in Salt Lake or St. Louis, Hickville Alabama or Chicago or wherever it is you find yourself. I doubt anyone could succeed in a new location without the skills to make connections to succeed in their original location.

I didn't mean for it to come off as marketing for Ramit. He has written some good stuff and I got something out of it, so I thought I would share to "pay it forward" so to speak to other people.

While I specifically was writing about Silicon Valley, I think many of the lessons could be applied to other cities and other industries. If you can build your startup in Chicago and can be successful, like Groupon or 37signals, I applaud that as well!

Well then I stand corrected. I trust you're not a paid shill for Ramit so I'm not so concerned about the marketing anymore. Like I said, I like Ramit, I'm a subscriber, and I once had a brief back and forth exchange with him over email. He's a nice guy.

I get that you were speaking specifically about Silicon Valley. My criticism has more to do with the general trend I see of people advocating that you should rush out to SV and try to strike it rich in Startupland. This post just got me thinking of that so please don't think I was being critical of you. I was just reminded of something related and was speaking about that. The Ramit thing was critical of you but I trust you're sincere so, like I said, I stand corrected on that point.

If I can make it in Scandinavia, I am all for that. But I don't know if the "mental climate" is very suitable for doing so. People just don't grok disruptive startup ideas. I need to be on the same wavelength as my environment.

Well, there are some examples I guess (Minecraft, Skype, Spotify, TAT).

First rule of making it in Scandinavia: have a more concrete plan than “disruptive startup idea”.

1. ???

2. ???

3. Profit!

Hehe. It stings me 'cause it's true :)

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