From Tomsk to Silicon Valley and Back
We have heard many times: “You sit here in your Tomsk and do not know what is happening on the front line. Here you come to Silicon Valley - they will open their eyes to the world. ” Once said, you need to go. We planned a trip for January simultaneously with the opening of the beta version of our service . A little less than two months later we returned to Russia.
And indeed, we discovered a lot of new things. The most interesting discovery was that today Silicon Valley is the valley of CEOs, marketers, managers, and anyone else, but not developers. For us it was a big advantage, because we are techies. We even know how to embed video in Wordpress.
With a sound problem, we recommend turning it off. But the Valley went out well.
')
All the best and simply good specialists are recruited into Google, Facebook, DropBox, LinkedIn and another hundred of top companies. There they are provided with the most comfortable conditions for all criteria. At the same time, the salary for the majority of engineers is far from the most important motivator, although you cannot call low salaries either. To a large extent, this situation applies to web developers.
As a result, simple companies cannot find a good developer without a big name, a global mission and good financial opportunities. The salary of a novice web specialist approaches $ 100,000 a year, provided that he likes your team and the project will seem interesting.
Anyone who is going to California: DO NOT post a CEO on LinkedIn or something like that. There are four CEOs in the same communal living. Whether you are looking for work or not, write “web-developer” or simply “Python” and you will be happy. People immediately reach out to you.
Before our trip, we read a lot of articles about how another startup came to the Valley for a conference or won a serious competition and the like. We did not win any contests, but we really wanted to go there. Therefore, without further ado, we made visas, bought tickets and, as Gagarin said, drove off. Although, like him, we actually flew.
Visa B1 / B2 can be obtained independently, without knowing anyone in the United States. An invitation can be made from almost any company, anyway, the embassy will not check this, because it is expensive. Bureaucracy is also a bureaucracy in America, and its main concept is in the near-zero speed of information movement.
Really important is a good preparation for the interview. All answers must be logical and consistent, look honest and innocent. The requirement, in fact, is one: it is impossible for the consul toguess that he took you for a potential emigrant. More detailed advice in abundance provide Google and Yandex.
There is also the political side of the issue, which we cannot influence: we sometimes get offended by the Americans (but for good reason) and begin to refuse everyone.
We lived mostly with friends. One of them works in a well-known office in Habré, implements a fast Fourier transform on Cuda. The company rents him a two-room suite at the Hilton. And although it is difficult to believe in it, he does not lead girls there. However, this is not so surprising, because there are practically no girls in the Valley. Once we visited the local disco / party: two modest Chinese women for 20 shy guys.
If you have no friends in those parts yet, it is not a big deal. An apartment in the Valley itself can be quickly rented for $ 1,300 per month, a bit cheaper housing in San Francisco. A normal hostel in downtown San Francisco costs $ 25 per day.
We were interested to try the services of the legendary silicone advisors. We decided to improve our presentations by agreeing on consultations with a good discount: $ 125 per hour with Angelica Blendstrop . Already at the second meeting, it turned out that Angelika needed help with her website (technical details like embed-video inserts). We received a third consultation with barter: the first hour Angelica helped us, and the second hour we helped her. Angelika taught us a lot, especially in terms of communication in the local culture. In addition, Miss Blendstrop presented our project to one of the investment funds, which resulted in valuable contact. It is impossible not to note her personal qualities: Angelika is a competent specialist, a kind and sympathetic person.
We did not plan to find an investor on this trip. But they wanted to talk with one of them in order to better understand what we would need to do in the future, so that in three months the conversation would end with a deal. We went for a couple of investment parties. Investors and representatives of investment funds always overgrown with a queue of startups who were eager to tell them something. We are bored in queues since childhood, so we just hung out and drank free coke.
We decided to try to contact investors through social networks. We viewed interviews, read articles, and selected the most interesting investors who were close to us in the spirit. Then they wrote a message on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter. Responded, of course, not all, but enough. After each personal meeting, we received so much new information that it only needed to be digested for a week. In general, we recommend bolder to write to people directly. In California, people are very open to communication. Now we understand that in Russia it is possible not to be too shy. Apparently, it was necessary to go to the other side of the globe to understand this.
We like Evernote with its design, ideology and, most importantly, we have long used it ourselves. Therefore, it was interesting to talk with them. We were looking for contact with Evernote among all our friends. As a result, through a chain of 8 people, we managed to meet with Dmitry, one of the founders of the company.
Dmitry gave us a couple of T-shirts with their logo, told a lot of interesting things about the markets of China, Japan and Russia. I will briefly retell his story in my own words:
In general, we had the feeling that because of the Russian roots, Evernote managers feel something like responsibility for their compatriots: despite the fact that Dmitry did not catch fire with our idea, we communicated mentally and sensibly.
Three months before we arrived in the Valley, we began correspondence with Christian, the project manager for closing Google Wave (the project is called Walkaround). Christian took a tour of Google’s Mountain View office.
It seemed that a contest for the most stylish and comfortable office was taking place in the Valley, and Google decided to defeat everyone again. The air is filled with fast and free Wi-Fi. The food is delicious, all the major cuisines of the world are presented, and even free. There is something to see, to admire: a lot of sculptures and entertaining installations, cool slides for infantile ones. Live hares run around the office.
Sketch, transferring the atmosphere: the office is a lady with an open laptop and a poodle on a leash. It should be noted that not all companies in the valley are like that. We were also in several "offices", from which it blows corporately.
Initially, we set a goal to get a feedback and popiarit project. The goal of finding investments we did not set ourselves. Although, of course, this option was considered, of course, I want to find and relax a bit on financial issues.
Piarit as well as programming can be done from Russia (as IamAnton correctly noted) But feedback was really invaluable. We generally understand what markets we need and how we need to enter. In addition, they understood a very important criterion: a serious conversation with a venture capital fund about investments begins when the number of users approaches 10 thousand. This applies to business services and collaboration tools. On razvlekalovkam conversations begin when the number of active users approaches 100 thousand.
In general, you need to finish, speed up, write instructions, look where users are uncomfortable, type likes in facebook and come back.
Habralyudi from Tomsk! On Sunday (March 18) at 15:00 local time, we invite everyone to the sports bar BetCourt on Lenin, 174. The event is held by Rizzoma together with SCRUM experts from RosBusinessDesign . Each JavaScript Specialist has a free beer mug. Teleport readers from other cities around the world have also been invited.
And indeed, we discovered a lot of new things. The most interesting discovery was that today Silicon Valley is the valley of CEOs, marketers, managers, and anyone else, but not developers. For us it was a big advantage, because we are techies. We even know how to embed video in Wordpress.
With a sound problem, we recommend turning it off. But the Valley went out well.
')
All the best and simply good specialists are recruited into Google, Facebook, DropBox, LinkedIn and another hundred of top companies. There they are provided with the most comfortable conditions for all criteria. At the same time, the salary for the majority of engineers is far from the most important motivator, although you cannot call low salaries either. To a large extent, this situation applies to web developers.
As a result, simple companies cannot find a good developer without a big name, a global mission and good financial opportunities. The salary of a novice web specialist approaches $ 100,000 a year, provided that he likes your team and the project will seem interesting.
Anyone who is going to California: DO NOT post a CEO on LinkedIn or something like that. There are four CEOs in the same communal living. Whether you are looking for work or not, write “web-developer” or simply “Python” and you will be happy. People immediately reach out to you.
You do not need a special invitation to come to the Valley
Before our trip, we read a lot of articles about how another startup came to the Valley for a conference or won a serious competition and the like. We did not win any contests, but we really wanted to go there. Therefore, without further ado, we made visas, bought tickets and, as Gagarin said, drove off. Although, like him, we actually flew.
Visa B1 / B2 can be obtained independently, without knowing anyone in the United States. An invitation can be made from almost any company, anyway, the embassy will not check this, because it is expensive. Bureaucracy is also a bureaucracy in America, and its main concept is in the near-zero speed of information movement.
Really important is a good preparation for the interview. All answers must be logical and consistent, look honest and innocent. The requirement, in fact, is one: it is impossible for the consul to
There is also the political side of the issue, which we cannot influence: we sometimes get offended by the Americans (but for good reason) and begin to refuse everyone.
Amazing Victor
We lived mostly with friends. One of them works in a well-known office in Habré, implements a fast Fourier transform on Cuda. The company rents him a two-room suite at the Hilton. And although it is difficult to believe in it, he does not lead girls there. However, this is not so surprising, because there are practically no girls in the Valley. Once we visited the local disco / party: two modest Chinese women for 20 shy guys.
If you have no friends in those parts yet, it is not a big deal. An apartment in the Valley itself can be quickly rented for $ 1,300 per month, a bit cheaper housing in San Francisco. A normal hostel in downtown San Francisco costs $ 25 per day.
Kind Angelika
We were interested to try the services of the legendary silicone advisors. We decided to improve our presentations by agreeing on consultations with a good discount: $ 125 per hour with Angelica Blendstrop . Already at the second meeting, it turned out that Angelika needed help with her website (technical details like embed-video inserts). We received a third consultation with barter: the first hour Angelica helped us, and the second hour we helped her. Angelika taught us a lot, especially in terms of communication in the local culture. In addition, Miss Blendstrop presented our project to one of the investment funds, which resulted in valuable contact. It is impossible not to note her personal qualities: Angelika is a competent specialist, a kind and sympathetic person.
Facebook Investors
We did not plan to find an investor on this trip. But they wanted to talk with one of them in order to better understand what we would need to do in the future, so that in three months the conversation would end with a deal. We went for a couple of investment parties. Investors and representatives of investment funds always overgrown with a queue of startups who were eager to tell them something. We are bored in queues since childhood, so we just hung out and drank free coke.
We decided to try to contact investors through social networks. We viewed interviews, read articles, and selected the most interesting investors who were close to us in the spirit. Then they wrote a message on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter. Responded, of course, not all, but enough. After each personal meeting, we received so much new information that it only needed to be digested for a week. In general, we recommend bolder to write to people directly. In California, people are very open to communication. Now we understand that in Russia it is possible not to be too shy. Apparently, it was necessary to go to the other side of the globe to understand this.
Countryman from Evernote
We like Evernote with its design, ideology and, most importantly, we have long used it ourselves. Therefore, it was interesting to talk with them. We were looking for contact with Evernote among all our friends. As a result, through a chain of 8 people, we managed to meet with Dmitry, one of the founders of the company.
Dmitry gave us a couple of T-shirts with their logo, told a lot of interesting things about the markets of China, Japan and Russia. I will briefly retell his story in my own words:
- in Japan are ready to try new things and do it yourself. That is, your service can become popular in Japan without promotion, users can come themselves.
- The Chinese market is almost infinitely large, but under tight censorship. It is necessary to share information carefully. In fact, any service that wants to operate in the Chinese market must create its own separate Chinese
fakeversion. - Russia. You can't understand it with your mind: the market is big, but small. Our users need the simplest basic things: online store, search, news, communication. Therefore, services with a new functionality better run in other markets.
In general, we had the feeling that because of the Russian roots, Evernote managers feel something like responsibility for their compatriots: despite the fact that Dmitry did not catch fire with our idea, we communicated mentally and sensibly.
Hipster google
Three months before we arrived in the Valley, we began correspondence with Christian, the project manager for closing Google Wave (the project is called Walkaround). Christian took a tour of Google’s Mountain View office.
It seemed that a contest for the most stylish and comfortable office was taking place in the Valley, and Google decided to defeat everyone again. The air is filled with fast and free Wi-Fi. The food is delicious, all the major cuisines of the world are presented, and even free. There is something to see, to admire: a lot of sculptures and entertaining installations, cool slides for infantile ones. Live hares run around the office.
Sketch, transferring the atmosphere: the office is a lady with an open laptop and a poodle on a leash. It should be noted that not all companies in the valley are like that. We were also in several "offices", from which it blows corporately.
Result of the trip
Initially, we set a goal to get a feedback and popiarit project. The goal of finding investments we did not set ourselves. Although, of course, this option was considered, of course, I want to find and relax a bit on financial issues.
Piarit as well as programming can be done from Russia (as IamAnton correctly noted) But feedback was really invaluable. We generally understand what markets we need and how we need to enter. In addition, they understood a very important criterion: a serious conversation with a venture capital fund about investments begins when the number of users approaches 10 thousand. This applies to business services and collaboration tools. On razvlekalovkam conversations begin when the number of active users approaches 100 thousand.
In general, you need to finish, speed up, write instructions, look where users are uncomfortable, type likes in facebook and come back.
Silicone invite
Habralyudi from Tomsk! On Sunday (March 18) at 15:00 local time, we invite everyone to the sports bar BetCourt on Lenin, 174. The event is held by Rizzoma together with SCRUM experts from RosBusinessDesign . Each JavaScript Specialist has a free beer mug. Teleport readers from other cities around the world have also been invited.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/140020/
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