Diego and I drove through miles of salt in Utah and stopped in Reno, Nevada for an “In N Out” burger. Also, I made $4 profit by investing $1 in a slot machine! We stayed the night in Soda Springs, California. On our way to Palo Alto, we pumped gas for $3.20 a gallon… a new high record for this trip! Diego and I stayed four nights in a church office, which was kindly provided to us via a connection through the Praxis Emerging Founders program. We went to a meetup group, hung out with Stanford students, worked at Coupa Coffee (a famous VC hangout spot), joined a worship night at a local church, and met with an investor. The first night we showed up late to a meetup group and ended up coming home with 4 boxes of pizza. Praise God… that was literally our breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three days. We visited downtown San Francisco our last day to relax on the Golden Gate Bridge beach, try some famous ice cream, see the original “Full House” house, and drive down Lombard Street, twice. We departed south on Saturday morning along the Pacific Coast Highway for a scenic route to Los Angeles.
Duration
4 days
Accommodation
My Car (1 night) and Church Office (4 nights)
Favorite Food
Famous ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery
Favorite Site
Golden Gate Bridge
Cool Person I Met
John. John moved to Palo Alto almost a year ago to work for a Christian Venture Capital firm in the Valley. He’s 20 something years old. Before working in the Valley, he moved to Malaysia as a recent college graduate to pursue a business opportunity. Diego and I enjoyed hearing his perspective as an investor, Christian, and resident living in the hotspot for business-building in the world. I’ll share two conversation topics we bounced around. John shared that 2-3% of people attend church in Silicon Valley and that nearly every person he bumped into is working on a startup… this region is flooded with high capacity, brilliant people. John, Diego, and I enjoyed this time over some tasty Italian meatballs in downtown Palo Alto.
Highlight
On our way from Salt Lake City, Diego and I decided to spend the night in Soda Springs, California. We arbitrarily chose this spot after seeing a beautiful scenic view of people cliff-diving into bright blue water after making a quick Google search (check Google images yourself)! Well, we didn’t find a campsite and it was 28 degrees outside… there was snow everywhere! So we slept in the car between two vehicles covered in snow. The next morning we had a snowball fight and I attempted to slide down a snowy hill on a metal sign. What a great way to see snow for the first time!!
Big Takeaway
Diego and I have gotten advice from investor and entrepreneurs for almost two weeks now. The recurring theme has to do with being laser-focused on increasing active users and executed rides for Wahi. It’s not easy to maintain focus in a startup because most startup activities become distractions. In our case, cool marketing videos, Facebook posts, finding an investor, and adding features to the app became our distraction. All GOOD things, but not the best and most important activity to focus on. So we’ve now become obsessed with one goal: get 100 executed rides on Wahi. Diego and I shared this obsession in our next team meeting to encourage leaner approaches to marketing and development so that every activity would align somehow to our goal. It’s crucial to maintain focus in a startup, and not to get distracted by good things!
Your Turn
What is do you think is the main reason the majority of startups fail?
Think about how silicon valley has single-handedly directed American culture (Apple, Google, etc.). What do you think about “redemptive entrepreneurship”? Christians launching businesses to directly impact culture for God’s glory.
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