Rough Draft

Startup School

I've got about an hour to kill in the Boston airport before my flight home. Unfortunately WiFi costs $8 a day, which isn't completely unreasonable but I'm cheap so I'm typing this entry now and I'll post it when I get home.

This was the first time I'd spent any significant amount of time in Boston (I spent half a day visiting MIT back during high school). Overall I really like the city. It's got good public transportation that can get you pretty much anywhere you need to go. Also, since there are so many colleges around you see lots of people my age around. If I weren't in California, there's a good chance I'd be up here in Boston.

Unfortunately, when from the time I arrived in Boston on Friday night until late on Saturday night it did nothing but rain...hard. Apparently it had been raining for 7 straight days. Crazy. So I spent Friday night and all of Saturday soaking wet, but Sunday and today have been really nice (if a bit windy).

Friday night
Both Jeff's and Josh's planes got delayed due to the heavy rain in Boston. This meant Jeff ended up arriving very shortly before I did, instead of 2 hours before. We called the hotel to have them send the free shuttle and met Josh back at the hotel. After dropping off our stuff we headed to the reception at the Y Combinator offices. We took the hotel shuttle to the T (Boston's subway) and got off at the Harvard Square stop. We had directions for walking to the reception, but the roads around Harvard Square are horribly confusing. We walked in the direction we thought was north and then stopped in a bookstore to ask for directions to Garden Street. After heading in what we thought was the right direction, we passed a van with "free medical services", after walking a bit more we passed the same van again, doh! Finally we figured out where we went wrong and made it onto Garden Street, where we began the 1 mile trek to the reception. Keep in mind it was absolutely pouring this entire time so it was a mixture of walking fast and avoiding large puddles.

After arriving we had some food and talked to several interesting people. We met the guy that runs LibraryThing as well as someone from the company which licensed the browser which would become Internet Explorer to Microsoft.

Around 11 we made the journey back to the subway and were joined by a fellow StartupSchooler from Seattle that works on Ning which is software for building social software (Marc Andreessen is the CEO so it's been getting a good bit of publicity recently).

Saturday
Saturday was the official Startup School. The speakers were all really good and provided lots of useful information. The most amusing slide of the day goes to Olin Shivers for his slide which said "VCs: soulless agents of Satan or just clumsy rapists?". Slides from the various speakers are available here and videos will be posted later in the week.

After the final speaker a bunch of us headed to John Harvard's Brew House. The staff were a bit overwhelmed as we all poured in, but they eventually found and set up several tables for us. After dinner a local StartupSchooler led us over to Algiers Coffee House. Again we kind of overwhelmed the staff, but we pulled a bunch of tables together and a small group of people left to go to a bar. We had several hours of excellent conversation discussing the day's speakers and tossing around various ideas for startups. All in all a great night.

After that Jeff and I headed out on what prove to be the most entertaining subway ride evar. The red line passes through Harvard, MIT, and UMass, so you end up seeing a wide array of people as you progress. After a couple stops, a bunch of drunk UMass students got on the bus and they were joined by this crazy older guy that made balloon animals. A few stops later this older Asian guy got on the bus and the college kids yell "Hey it's that guy again!" And the Asian guy gets up and goes and sits with them. In the meantime I had noticed this woman who had gotten on and looked incredibly pissed off. Eventually her cell phone rang and Jeff and I soon found out why she was so pissed. Apparently some guy she had gone to dinner with ditched her on the subway! Jeff and I were nearly cracking up at this as we picture some guy getting on the subway with her and then jumping off just as the doors close. The situation was also complicated by the fact that apparently this woman was staying at a hotel and she kept telling whoever she was talking to that "I"m going back to get my shit. And then I'm taking Amtrak to get my car. Don't come and get me". Strange stuff. The trip ended as only it could. We got off the subway and some guy was standing in the subway door deciding if this was the train he wanted to get on or not and then in an absolutely perfect Boston accent the conductor yells, "Hey, what are ya doin'?! The doors are closing." Needless to say I consider the $1.25 for that ride purely an entertainment fee.

Sunday
At noon on Sunday we met up with Amy Chan who Josh is good friends with. She went to Case, so Jeff and I both knew who she was. We went to this Middle Eastern restaurant. The food was quite good and you got a good bit of food for the price. I had the lamb kabobs. The other interesting thing about the restaurant was they were playing OK Go's new CD. Amy had been there a few times before and said they are always playing indie music. If I lived up here, I can guarantee I'd be going to that place often.

After lunch Jeff, Josh, and I headed downtown to catch a Duck Tour. The Duck Tour was fun, but unfortunately due to very high winds (apparently up to 30 mph) we did not get to go on the Charles River. We did get half our money back though.

After going back to the hotel to rest for a while, we went out to Legal Sea Foods near MIT for dinner. I highly recommend this restaurant. The food was excellent. I had a Surf and Turf meal which consisted of a tender filet mignon, grilled shrimp, scallops, mashed potatoes, and broccoli with cheese as well as a cup of clam chowder for an appetizer. It was all incredibly delicious. They had a good dessert menu, but I was too full to want anything.

Monday
After getting up and checking out of our hotel, we headed to Faneuil Hall to get some clam chowda in a bread bowl. After that it was time for me to head back to the hotel to catch the shuttle to the airport.

I had a really fun time on the trip. It was great to see Jeff and Josh again, and I picked up lots of good info and contacts related to startups. The trip definitely motivated me to begin brainstorming software ideas and seriously consider founding a company someday.