

Ask HN: YC interviewees coming from outside US - samcollins

We're getting on a plane from Edinburgh in about 24 hours and flying over for our YC interview this week. We want to make the most of our time out there and meet other startups, angels, find out about meetups etc. I thought it might be useful if I did a public shoutout for:<p>1) Anyone with a couch or floor to put up YC interviewees
2) Recommendations for which coffee shops are good to work in
3) Recommendations for good meetups over the next week
4) Anyone who wants to play tourguide or chill and work together.<p>--
edit: from jkaljundi: 5) Also any of the other teams for YC want to meetup?<p>email me at 'sam at getbloop dot com' and I'll try and coordinate something between us if there's demand.
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iamelgringo
Crap, interviews are this weekend? Sigh. I'm flying out to NYC to visit the
Hackers and Founders NYC this Thursday night, otherwise, I'd schedule
something this Thursday for you guys. If you're around, there's a Hackers and
Founders meetup Monday night in Mountain view: www.hackersandfounders.com.

Otherwise, any place on Castro Street in Mountain View is a decent bet,
especially the Red Rock cafe. Any place on University Ave in Palo Alto is also
a pretty safe bet.

And, if you're just visiting for a couple of days, I always suggest visiting
the Computer History Museum. They give great 1.5 hour tours, and it's pretty
amazing to see the history of computing, and realize that a great bit of it
happened in the neighborhood. At times, you can hang out with some of the
original engineers that build machines like the PDP 10 as they restore one to
get it working. Did I mention tha they have a working Difference Engine? It's
amazing.

Aside from that, as to event lists, email Chris of Brendan over at the Startup
Digest: <http://thestartupdigest.com/> keep good tabs on what's going on. It
would be worth pinging them and letting them know what you're doing. I'm sure
they could make a great bunch of suggestions.

There's always a bunch of stuff going on in San Francisco, as well. Pick a
coffee shop or pub, and you're bound to run in to someone working in the biz.

Also, I'd suggest you put your email in your profile so people can ping you.
Offering to take people out for a pint will often get you quality time with
other founders. :)

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jkaljundi
The interviews BTW are Friday to Monday, 4 days. Many teams probably stay
until Tuesday. Hackers and Founders sounds interesting, might drop by, thanks
for the suggestion.

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rgrieselhuber
I'm flying in from Japan, would love to meetup. Just sent you an email.

Also, I found a place to stay on CouchSurfing.com if you're still looking for
somewhere to crash.

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jkaljundi
Same for me, flying there from Estonia in a few days, most probably staying
March 26-31 (interview on 29th). In addition to above, would love to meet
other teams during those days. Our project is <http://Emp.ly/> (still in very
early prototype phase, just starting serious development). My e-mail is on my
HN profile page.

~~~
needadvice
check out localbacon - aka jibe.com - they seem to be doing the same thing as
you want to do with emp.ly

i think they completely revamped their initial model and just publicly
relaunched today.

~~~
jkaljundi
Yes, it is somewhat similar, but there are many ways to approach this market.
It's the same like any recruitment business: although you should ideally cater
equally for job seekers and employers, at the end of the day you tend to focus
more on one side of it. Same for functionality, which side uses it more
actively and for whom it is more casual. It will take years for social
recruiting to formalize and to see, what actually works and what not. There
will be a lot of experimenting in the nearest future.

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Cmccann7
if your in palo alto coffee shops - university cafe, coupa cafe, cafe del
doge, satura cakes couch/chill/work - hit me up chris@thestartupdigest.com
might be able to help meetups - sign up for thestartupdigest.com! if you miss
the issue this monday email me and I will fwd it to you

~~~
zackattack
+1 for Coupa Cafe, try the Chai :)

~~~
Alex3917
I discovered last week that their Chai is made by this company:

<http://davidrio.com/>

I haven't tried making it on my own without an espresso machine yet, but it
definitely is the best chai out there at least the way they make it.

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dschobel
I don't know if it even needs to be said but if you don't have any luck
finding a free couch/floor, check <http://www.airbnb.com/>

Plenty of couches on there for $20/night in SF

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wheels
The canonical coffee shop answer is Red Rock:

<http://www.redrockcoffee.org/>

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iamelgringo
I forgot to mention in my earlier comment about Hacker Dojo:
<http://wiki.hackerdojo.com/>. The people there are really cool, and it's just
a couple of blocks away from the YC office.

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dannyr
Several teams who were interviewed for the Winter 2010 Session stopped by at
the HackerDojo. A meetup can actually be held there.

