The first month in Silicon Valley: how to be prepared and what I learned here

Since I came to Silicon Valley to live a few months here, some people were asking me how this experience is going, lessons learned and how to be prepared.

To share and help you to come here if you are interested, I'll create three posts talking about it (one per month).

First, a good point to start is an article that I wrote in 2015 for EXAME (in Portuguese), an important business portal in Brazil talking about my first impressions when I visited this region of California in 2015.

Today I will write about four things:

• Preparation - be ready before going;
• Meetings & Networking;
• Studies at Stanford;
• Plus & Conclusions

Preparation: be ready before going!

To have an enjoyable experience here, the first thing to do is be prepared. But, what does it mean? To start, you must talk with other people who passed for a similar experience in the Bay area.

E.g. before come, I talked with at least 5 people that lived here before and they gave me important insights as showed below:

Have a goal: understand what's your mission here. You can find so many different things here that it's easy to lose focus, so a target will help you to use this time to reach it. I need be honest, I didn't have a specific goal, just some hypothesis to validate, so what I did was an exploratory test in the first weeks and just now I'm starting focus. It's ok, but If you have a goal it's better;

Start your connections before the trip: otherwise, you will waste time looking for opportunities in your first weeks. You can use LinkedIn for that;

Where's the best city to live here?

The answer depends on what you are looking for:

• San Francisco has a lot of meetups and tech companies around the city, and have more things to do, but it's dangerous at night and expensive;
• Menlo Park and Palo Alto are close to Stanford, where you can connect with brilliant minds of the Valley, but don't have a lot of things to do at night. It's really safe but EXPENSIVE.
• San José, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara: you can find cheaper prices and you can use alternatives as Caltrain, rent a car or use Uber/Lyft to go to other cities.

Airbnb, hotel, or Hacker house? I was looking for places that I could find different kinds of people, so I choose a hacker house, where I met people from different parts of the world, Stanford students, developers, and entrepreneurs. If you want the same, I really recommend Hacker Home. my choice was the Menlo Park house, where I share the house with 20 people.

Be ready to spend money: To share a bedroom with at least 4 people, the prices start at $ 1,000 a month. Furthermore, eat out and drinks are expensive too, But Gustavo, why you are telling it, you don't want to motivate other people to go? No, I really want to engage you to come and have this experience, but you need to be ready and have a plan. E.g. choose one or two days to eat out, try to cook your own food… and spend your money on better things, like use this money to drink a coffee with someone you'd like to talk or to get a Lyft/Uber to a place you wanna visit.

Meetings & Networking!

You want to expand your network, right? To start easily, find people with common interests or from your country.

I'm from Brazil, so for me, the best way to start my connections here was talking to another Brazilians to understand how is the culture and meetings of this area, and for sure, how to make new connections and check new people they can introduce me.

A bit of good advice that I received here was people here work a lot and have focus, so when you ask for an introduction to a new person, be direct and give something in exchange - what I want and what can I help you?

Remember, networking is important, so don't be shy and try to meet new people in your classes, meetups, and cafes (if you share something with them, probably they will do the same too).

The most valuable information and knowledge usually are shared mouth to mouth here in the Bay area, not on the internet.

E.g. I'm working as Product Consultant for two healthtech startups here because of quick talks I had in a Cafe and with residents of my house.

Use your time to visit new places too. In my first weeks, I visited places like Facebook, Google, Autodesk Gallery, and Stanford museum. But why if I don't want to be here for tourism? Because establishing a rapport/connection with people that you will talk in the next weeks is important too and places have stories to share with other people. Use it in your favor to build trust with them.

Studies at Stanford!

First, you must go to Stanford even If you aren't going to study there. A friend that studied here last year told it to me and now I can understand why he insisted so much on Stanford. You can find the best people and trends in the technology future here.

You have so many ways to study or be part of this community, some are more expensive than others, but a few links to find which one fits better for you:

• Stanford Ignite;
• Stanford Continuing Studies;
• Stanford MBA
• Stanford Design Thinking Bootcamp at D.School;
• Stanford events
• Extra: you can find some open classes at Stanford, as like this one of Stanford: Launchpad Venture Hub.

Plus and conclusion!

The focus is important but tries to use 20% of your time here to learn new things and trends of different markets, because sometimes you can apply it to your target too. E.g. Autonomous vehicles and blockchain are trends here, so why don't go to some events to know more about it, right?

I didn't write about many places that I visited this month, such as Amazon Go, Facebook, Blockchain Conference, Startup Grind, among others, but I saved some Stories at my Instagram, click here to check it out.

Remember, Silicon Valley is made by people, not just technology, so make connections and learn a lot!

Hope I helped you and if have any questions or would like to suggest some content to my next posts, just comment below.

Next posts I will go deeper about places that I visited, personal experiences and I probably will share some biohacks I'm learning to increase my daily performance, such as wake up at 4:30 am, create an agenda...

A special thanks to many friends I met who helped me with valuable tips before the trip and also now.