THE DREAM IN ACTION

No 10 mile run today. However, the weather was probably the best it’s been in the last 2 years of my life. I started the morning hopping on Yelp and finding an awesome little cafe called Caffe Capriccio in North Beach. Cafe Capriccio was the quintessential SF cafe with hipsters galore and breakfast egg wraps to die for. I did a little reading and scheduling the rest of the day.

Just after noon I headed south on the 101 towards San Jose to meet up with Ryan Kuder in Palo Alto. I had this perception of Palo Alto and all of Silicon Valley that every establishment has wifi, every coffee shop is filled with keyboard blazing software developers, and every restaurant is packed with VC’s either raising money or funding the next Facebook. I was excited to see how close my perception was to reality.

The drive south was gorgeous and as I pulled off on the famed Sand Hill Road I expected Teslas and Ferrari’s to swarm the streets; the reality was a little off from this expectation. I drove around Stanford’s beautiful campus for a while then headed into Palo Alto towards the also famed University Cafe.

Ryan Kuder has been serving as a sudo adviser to me in the process of building SD. He totally understands the space and as an ex-Yahoo is now diving into the startup world himself. We had some great conversations around both his startup Neighborsville.com and mine. We discussed the challenges of the social web space and the important aspects of a product launch. Ryan asked me an interesting question (as good advisers do) that I thought was a very good way to think about the process.

What are some of the decision you’re going to have to make?

Decisions, after thinking about this further, are what make a the founder of a startup special (and powerful). The decision to start, the decision to get funding (0r not), the decision of what business model to choose, the decision to hire employees, the decision to make a decision, or wait. The process of building a business is all decisions and defining the decisions you make is what will determine your success. Great question Ryan.

After a cup of tea at the Uni Cafe I was headed back to the city. I was disappointed at this point of my lack of Tesla sightings until…

The day was complete. A great, in person meeting of someone I originally met on Twitter. A Tesla sighting. A beautiful drive down to PA from the city. Overall, my weekend in San Fran/Bay Area has been awesome. The preconceived notions I had of SF are officially eliminated and now I have an accurate perception of the city. I love it. It’s got all the benefits of being in California, the diversity of the people and their vibe is awesome, the cities neighborhoods are classic with tons of character, and  there is tons to offer someone who enjoys being very active! In summary, I could definitely live here.