

Ask HN: Which startups accept visitors (and I should visit)? - petercooper

I'm planning to do a week long US "tour" (I'm from the UK) to promote and do research for my startup as well as generally meet and talk to lots of interesting people. While I have several leads, it would be nice to visit startups I have no contacts at that encourage/accept visitors (for example, Twilio - http://www.twilio.com/company/).<p>What startups are good to visit and like visitors? (Bay, NYC, Seattle and LA are where I'm focusing.) I want to ensure I'll never be bored and, who knows, I might be able to provide some entertainment/ideas/advice, publicity or even some beers to those I meet! (If, for some reason, you'd rather personally invite me and not the whole world, you can find contact details in my profile.)
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dmor
You can visit us at Twilio anytime! Email me danielle@twilio.com and I can set
it up so that we have time to hang out with some of the team for a meal or
something.

SAN FRANCISCO

One place to meet tons of awesome people: Pier 38 / Dogpatch Labs is home to
at least a dozen tech companies including Threadsy, Cotweet, 99 Designs, and a
bunch of stealth ones, too. You could also try Citizen Space and Parisoma,
they're awesome co-working spots with several startups each.

SEATTLE

The Seattle 2.0 Startup Index might be a good place to start there:
<http://www.seattle20.com/startup-index.aspx>

There is a concentration of startups in 3 neighborhoods: Pioneer Square (by
the ballpark and Amazon), Capital Hill (the "hip" part of town), and East Lake
Union (up and coming, near new Amazon campus)

Shortlist of startups I'd hit up: TeachStreet, Cheezburger Network, SEOmoz,
Kashless, Gist, GarageBand.com (shares office with iLike/mySpace), many more
since I left there

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JangoSteve
I'm in Ann Arbor, MI. I also know a lot of the startup scene here (it's not as
huge as many of the other startup hubs, but just as passionate). Our office
specifically is in an old brewery (built in the 1860s) that has been turned
into an office building, and affectionately dubbed the "TechBrewery" since
being overrun by tech startups.

Anyway, I'll DM you more details if you're interested at all in making a stop
in Ann Arbor.

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MPiccinato
Definitely stop by and see Steve if you can, great guy to talk to.

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zds
Harvest scheduled something in NYC a couple of weeks ago called Walkabout. It
was a walking tour of a bunch of NY startups - I'd start with them
(<http://www.walkaboutnyc.com>). Other than that, there are definitely a lot
of great companies that are open to visitors so long as you email them!

As an aside, I'm reading your Beginning Ruby book to get into Ruby and it's
great. Thanks Peter!

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thehodge
Your more than welcome to come and visit us anytime Peter... there are
technically two web apps and a startup in our house :)

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bdickason
I'm in nyc if you want to meet for even a few minutes :) My company was
acquired, if that counts.

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petercooper
Thanks! I'll remember that. I'm keen to meet anyone who's a software developer
or computer scientist (or in those general areas) :-) (Or anyone interesting,
to be honest!)

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maccman
Hi Peter. Which week are you coming - we'll be around till the end of the
month. I'll also DM you with some intros to various Ruby startups (I've been
doing something similar).

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petercooper
It probably won't be till September/October at the earliest. But thanks, look
forward to that.

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shalmanese
One week in 4 cities? You're going to have your hands full.

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petercooper
It's only a vague plan at the moment but yeah, the plan is to be crazy busy
(and it'll probably be 8-9 days and 3 cities in the end). Think of the
37signals "constraints are good" technique, just with the evils of airline
schedules in the mix ;-)

