
Ask HN: Fellowships to work on startup in SF? - anishathalye
I&#x27;m a student working on a software (education + ML related) startup idea with a couple friends, and ideally, we want to spend our summer working in SF.<p>We don&#x27;t need much money -- we just want money for rent -- we don&#x27;t need to buy equipment, we don&#x27;t need to pay ourselves, and we&#x27;re good with eating PB&amp;J sandwiches for the summer. We just want to be living and working together, and in SF, if possible.<p>We don&#x27;t want to give up equity, so we&#x27;ve applied to some fellowships, like Lightspeed Venture Parters and Summer@Highland. But these kinds of zero equity fellowship-style programs seem pretty rare.<p>Any ideas on how to be in SF for the summer? Anyone know of any other programs that we should look into?<p>We&#x27;re doing our own research on this, but I thought I&#x27;d ask HN in case anyone here had any advice to share.
======
hanniabu
Since you're restricting yourself so much, you don't have many options. One
opportunity, although a shitty one, is to find a 24-hr gym with treadmills and
get a membership, make a platform for your laptop that can hang onto one of
the treadmills to use as your work 'desk'(can't get kicked out if you're
'exercising'), you now have a place to work/shower/bathroom, and then you can
sleep in your car (which is probably illegal there so find a good parking
spot!).

I guess it just comes down to how set on being in SF and not giving up equity
you are.

------
jcr
Since you didn't mention it, YC has a Fellowship program.

[https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/](https://fellowship.ycombinator.com/)

------
xiaoma
Why SF? It's a pretty expensive place in terms of rent and it doesn't sound
like this is the kind of thing that requires a specific location. Without a
really good reason, I wouldn't want anyone spending money I'd invested in that
way.

------
exolymph
I hope this isn't obnoxious to suggest, but: give up equity. No free lunch.

------
karlcoelho1
Rent is the last thing fellowships want to pay for. They'll give up a living
stipend but they certainly want the money to be used on technical resources.

~~~
anishathalye
Well, the reasoning is that we all want to be in the same physical location
(because working together remotely is ineffective).

And SF is a nice place to be :)

(Yeah, I agree that it's not critical that we spend the summer in SF. But
that's where everything is - it's a good place to be, if possible.)

