Up and running

Nearly a week in and things are going really well. We’ve spent the last few days brainstorming, prototyping and eating lots.

Pat’s helped us tick quite a few culinary boxes so far – I’m going to try and keep track of my new tongue-tingling taste adventures here. This week, I have been mostly eating:

• Burritos (al Pastor and carnitas style) – soft, thin wrap filled with diced meat, rice, guacamole, salsa, refried beans. Delicious, and not causing me any problems so far.
• Tamales (pork and beef) – steamed corn dough parcels filled with shredded meat and thick gravy. Not as good as burritos.
• Nachos like you’ve never seen before – actual deep-fried tortilla with spicy guacamole, sour cream, salsa, mince, cheese, …
• Mac and cheese – macaroni and cheese, but made from a packet. We’re on a budget.
• In-N-Out Burger – much, much better than the name suggests. The best takeaway burger I’ve ever had, and the “4×4 animal style” is four patties, eight slices of cheese plus extra fried onions.

I’m not sure what this diet is doing to me – I went to the gym with Pat yesterday and felt so rough I had to have a sit down after trying to bench the imperial equivalent of a litter of piglets.

On the work front, Justin and Mark (co-founders of another startup) are joining us in Pat’s house, staying in the flat downstairs, which is great as we’ll spur each other on and they’re good guys as well. Of the five of us, four are English and all of us went to Cambridge.

We just got back from Mountain View (the secret program we’re on is based here), where we had the first of our weekly Tuesday night dinners with all the other founders, investors and external guests. It was good fun and we’re all the more focussed and determined after hearing all the advice from previous years’ alums

The recommendation from all sides is to work as hard as you can manage for as long as you can take, so our provisional plans for a skiing trip up to Lake Tahoe this weekend have gone out the window. Power naps and regular tea breaks are this man’s secret weapons.

The plan for San Fran

My initial trip to the US will be from January 2nd to March 31st, which just about scrapes inside the 90-day limit of my tourist visa..

I’m flying out with one of my co-founders, Amir, and will be staying with the other co-founder, Pat, who has a house in San Francisco here.

The reason we’re going out to the west coast rather than staying here in England is that we’ve got backing from a group of investors out there, who run semiannual programs in which new companies fight it out to get further funding at the end of the three month period.

We think this will be really useful because:

• There’s a competitive aspect to it – we’re trying to be better than the other guys in order to get that funding
• We get regular exposure to the investor community out there, which, on our experience, is more lively and creative than the one over here (with exceptions, obviously…)
• The network of like-minded people we’ll make will be invaluable for cross-pollinating ideas, and help us develop this and any other future ideas we decide to pursue

At the moment, we’re at the stage where we have a vaguely functioning proof of the idea we pitched to the investors, which is a great start considering we really started part-time work about 4 weeks ago! What we are going to be doing in San Francisco to start with is get as much feedback as possible on what we have created, and what we plan to create, then once we’re sure what direction we want to go in, put our heads down and work as hard as we can manage for 10 weeks.

The culmination of the programme is a “demonstration day” where all the teams involved do a show and tell in front of investors and corporate development people from all the interesting tech companies in the bay area. Needless to say, we need to get that right!