Jun 15
Below is the To Do list for Paddy’s Valley. There is a lot we need to cover so suggestions, reviews, tips and anything else is welcomed. We can’t do all of it on our own (and remain sane).
Things we need to do:
- Create shortlist of hotels to stay in that are central but also cheap.
- Create shortlist of venues for a showcase event. (A big room with connectivity and projector).
- Create shortlist of people to meet.
- Create shortlist of companies to visit both large and small.
- Create a list of potential companies.
- Cost of showcase.
- What can EI pay for or other Govt groups?
So, please leave suggestions for all of the above in the comments. Or go off and create your own post and stick all the suggestions there in a single place and ask others to help.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:22 am
[...] If you’ve been to Silicon Valley or know someone who might be able to help these poor Irishmen in their quest to improve the state of inward capital investment in Ireland then it would be really cool to make your mark and help out with the Paddy’s Valley To Do List [...]
June 18th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Cheap hotels might be a problem. Look in Fremont, which is a short drive away but will probably be cheaper. Sunnyvale also. Skip Palo Alto or Mountain View, as hotels there are stoopid expensive.
There’s an excellent sushi place (yeah, I know, but it’s amazing) called Sushi Tei. It’s on Castro, just north of El Camino, in Mountain View. We used to live 2 blocks from it, and it is the best sushi in the world.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:13 am
[...] looks to be a trip to the Silicone Valley of California at Paddy’s Valley. Having spent a few years in the ‘Valley’, I wish them well, in the land of fruit and [...]
June 18th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Thanks for the tips Elana. I checked a place I stayed in near Stanford 8 years ago. They are coming in around $137 a night before any group discounts. High?
I know Sunnyvale pretty well, so we’ll check there too. Big advantage of Palo Alto is that there is an actual “town centre” you can walk around rather than just a mall like Sunnyvale.
June 18th, 2007 at 10:37 am
See here for Sunnyvale suggestions – http://www.boo.com/sunnyvale
June 18th, 2007 at 10:44 am
As someone who’s never been to the Valley I need to map out the locations being mentioned in order to build up a picture of the place. As such can I make the suggestion that we each pinpoint the locations we discuss in our own Google MyMaps and then I can compile a single KML (for Google Earth) from each of the individual maps later on. For instance I’ve just mapped out the locations mentioned by Elana (with notes) here – http://tinyurl.com/2z6tut
June 18th, 2007 at 10:58 am
I’d rather spend my time finding the best hotels and trying to make contacts than playing with maps in Google.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
To be honest I’m in the same boat as James as I’ve never been there either. No point trying to find the best hotels if you don’t know where to look.
For example, having looked myself the main locations of the VC’s and companies are either near the Bay Bridge in SF or out in Menlo Park/Sunnyvale. Personally I was tending towards Bay Bridge area because lots of smaller companies (Citizen Agency, Twitter, Metaweb, Technorati, Six Apart, Powerset) are there and as are more VC’s that invest in earlier stage/international companies. The VC’s out in Sandhill road (my VC map http://tinyurl.com/38lbpe) nearly all have minimum investments of $2M or more (of the ones I came across).
Left to my own devices I was looking at hotels in a completely different area..
June 18th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
“I’d rather spend my time finding the best hotels and trying to make contacts than playing with maps in Google.”
Er,.. it took me all of three minutes to build that map. Are we that caught for time? Once all the various suggestions have been plotted it might also be easier to work out the logistics involved, and what can be covered day by day.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Here’s the deal. Right now Conor and I are breaking our asses to try and get momentum on this going. There’s a “To do” list up there and we’d appreciate people lightening our workload to tackle that. A google map doesn’t find us a venue, doesn’t make connections with others and doesn’t organise a networking evening where Irish companies can proudly display their technologies. So yeah “we” are that caught for time.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Hi guys,
I’ve stayed in the Cardinal in Palo Alto before and its quite reasonable for being right on University Ave. Once you have more of an idea of where you want to be and how much you’re willing to spend I might be able to help you out more.
Let me know if you have any specific questions about the area. I’m in Europe for the next few weeks but once I get back I’ll talk to the Powerset folks to see if they’re interested in meeting with you lot.
Rowan
June 18th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Damien, I can understand the frustration – it’s a typical 20% of the people doing 80% of the work situation. I’m going to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in but personally speaking, there’s no point me trying to tackle most of the shortlist items before I have a clue as regards the ‘lay of the land’ in the Valley, what places are within feasible distance of each other, etc.
For instance, how can I create a “list of hotels to stay in that are central” when I’ve no idea where central is?
David’s map helps greatly and the picture is starting to fill in. So now I can move on…
June 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I’ve compiled David’s and my own Google Maps into a single KML file – http://tinyurl.com/3dp39t – to get some bearings. I’ve included flags for some of the companies/organisations previously discussed – Technorati, Six Apart, Riya, Enterprise Ireland, etc. Seems to me like Rowan’s suggestion for the Cardinal looks good (just up the road from the EI office) so I’ve emailed them about package/group rates. I’ve also contacted Enterprise Ireland.
June 18th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I don’t know if anyone’s planning on staying in San Francisco, but I did http://www.andrewshotel.com/ the Andrews Hotel which was quite good and something like $120 a night or so.
Surely the lists from the Wiki should be a good place to start with shortlists for both people and companies.
I’m sure Chris and Tara from Citizen Agency will be very welcoming as they welcomed me.
Twitter, Magnolia, Facebook, Digg would all be companies I’d love to at least see if we can get involved, whether it be presentations or visits.
June 18th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
[...] over there and help out if you can, or maybe even put your name down if it’s something you’d like to take part [...]
June 18th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Actually I saw Fremont mentioned, I’ll counter, knowing the traffic there, I’d pay the difference and look around Stanford, or Menlo Park. It’s more central, and you could use the locations as a feature of meeting with you. Set the table, then invite the company.
June 18th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I’d recommend looking in Redwood City near highway 280 for hotels. You’ll be one freeway exit north of Sand Hill Rd. but likely find cheaper pricing than Menlo Park or Palo Alto. You almost certainly do not want anything in Redwood City that’s logical east (ie bay side) of El Camino Real, or you could find that the reason it’s so cheap is it’s in a nasty neighborhood. Logical west of El Camino you’ll be pretty fine. As for Sand Hill vs SF VCs, yes the Sand hill guys will probably generally want to put more money to work — their funds tend to be larger. But that’s not a bad thing — they’ll also be more willing to consider non-local deals; small funds won’t want to have to be supervising a startup company on the far side of the world; larger funds might even have Irish or UK (or at least somewhere in Europe) offices and be willing to do deals there.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Where do we want to base ourselves? San Franciso City is cool, but all the action is outside. Palo Alto is pretty central as is Mountain View.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
This might need a wiki? Using comments to accumulate valuable information is a bit Web 1.0.
June 19th, 2007 at 9:03 am
No, Think Web 3.0
June 19th, 2007 at 10:33 am
There’s already a wiki lads – http://paddysvalley.pbwiki.com/
Password is ’silicon’. Feel free to add new pages, re-index, re-arrange, etc.
June 19th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Great information Craig, thanks! I’m finding Trip Advisor an excellent resource for comparing hotels in the area. Here’s the link for Redwood City comparisons -
http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocalMaps-g32956-Redwood_City-Area.html#a_reset:geo_32956:detail_32956:mw_639:mh_562:page_0:mt_h:mz_12:mc_37.48611,-122.23333:cat_1:currency_EUR:minrate_0:maxrate_9999999:umaxrate_9999999:class_:inMonth_12/2007:inDay_2:outMonth_12/2007:outDay_9:adults_1:currency_EUR:showall_false:from_LocalMaps:results_20
I’m finding that most hotels seem to be along El Camino Real. So far Pacific Inn of Redwood city looks like one of the best candidates to me. Five miles from Standford Univ. All rooms provide complimentary wireless Internet access. Availability from e45/night. Best Western Inn seems like good value too, though perhaps a little out of the way.
June 19th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Guys
I recommend Campbell – between Cupertino and San Jose. They call it a city but i think Bandon is bigger. Very nice wee place, very friendly, and right on top of the eBay campus if anybody wants to network there. They even have a great farmers market and a pub run by a Yorkshire man that has good music sessions. Some links http://www.ci.campbell.ca.us/ (for general info) and http://www.campbell.net/ (for accommodation info).
June 19th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
They seem pretty good James. I have asked on a couple of forums frequented by SV locals. Hopefully they have some suggestions.What about trying to get this mentioned on techcrunch?
June 19th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
By the way i have a great idea for a publicity image. Everyone would need to send in a front full body photo mid walk in a suit and a plain background. And their logo. Anyone interested?
June 19th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
10. Easy Damien. On this blog there is a post dated the 9th of June “Make sure you are signed up” with the following line “If you’ve been wondering about the arrangements, we should be letting people know the basic plan in the coming weeks.” Nobody was publicly asked to help until this post. We’re trying to help now.
11. Cheers Rowan, I for one would like to meetup with the Powerset guys.
13. Thanks James (for creating the .kml file).
17. Thanks for the advice Craig.
18. Joe, I’ll go with the group on where to base ourselves. I was just highlighting the fact that as a complete stranger to SF/SV I didn’t know where to look. I was looking at where the companies I was personally interested in were based.
19./21. Joe, James – I agree we need something. How about Conor or Damien let us know what they prefer to use? Why don’t we just use the wiki James setup?
22. I rang a few places last night that were on El Camino about a mile (logical west) from Stanford Uni and they were going for around e100 a night (assuming a group of 20). I tried a few places that have venues a few miles (logical) East. They were charging e190 – e240 a night! I didn’t ask about the venue rates since I don’t know how many people we think will attend?
25. Sure Alan, sounds like a laugh..
June 19th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Interesting suggestion Triona, I’ve added it to the map (KML).
Would be great to get a writeup on TechCrunch Alan – anybody have special influence on Mr. Arrington? BTW, will dust off my suit & tie for the photo, sounds like a fun idea. Anyone else with cool marketing ideas?
Joe/David I’ve archived the old wiki homepage now so we can start using the homepage for planning, along with this blog. I think blog-based discussion also serves a useful purpose. Anyone have experience of using Basecamp or similar for project management? Or is that overkill? Personally I prefer to keep it simple (ie. blog + wiki).
June 19th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I love Basecamp and can provide a free project but i am fine with what ever the majority are happiest with.
June 19th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Also would we be better timing press coverage to closer to the event or build a continous stream?
June 19th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
[...] still plenty to do but if you’re in business in the Valley, and want to build up a relationship with business in [...]
June 21st, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Ok, folks, I will ask my mom, who lives in Menlo Park and is the source of All Knowledge on cheap hotels. I will also ask someone who might be able to swing something.
For a venue: surely EI or the IDA could help you out there? EI/IDA are pretty central in the Valley in Campbell. I’d ask them; sorting those kinds of things is what they do.
I would not go East Bay — no public transport. If you base yourself in PA or Redwood City you can get down to the Caltrain and zip right up to the are near all the SF companies you are talking about — walking distance to SoMa (drops you right into SoMa as a matter of fact). Alternatively if you base in the City you can zip down by Caltrain or car. But it is easier to keep a car down around the Valley than at a hotel in SF and driving in SF can be a bit scary even for folks who live here.
Definitely set an afternoon aside for the Computer History Museum in Mountain View but check their website for tour times as it isn’t open admission.
June 23rd, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Sorry people, looks like I can’t commit to going anymore so I’ll have to pullout from the trip. Really looking forward to seeing the trip generating some buzz. Best of luck!
June 27th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Talked to mom (aka Cybermom) and she is checking a few things out. LOL. Talking to some contacts too on other items on your list.
June 29th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
It looks like there’s a new ‘must see’ for the geek pilgrimage part of the journey – the Apple store in Palo Alto where Scoble et al, are camping out for the iPhone launch. Don’t ya just love the Valley!
June 29th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Oh yeah def go see it; nice store and mere blocks away from Jobs’ PA house… if you go to the nearby WholeFoods Market you can see all the well-heeled geeks buying their organic hummus and strawberries and Fair Trade coffee. You should also go to Buck’s in Woodside for lunch as it is THE geek and VC haunt. http://www.buckswoodside.com/
June 30th, 2007 at 11:35 am
[...] A bunch of Irish people and others are travelling to Silicon Valley on 2nd December 2007 to try and build some long-term relationships and friendships with the people over there (so it’s good for the Valley and good for the Paddys!). You can be a company, a sole trader or just a nosy person who wants to meet up with people over there… More information at paddysvalley.org. [...]
July 1st, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Guys, there are a few things I would like to get moving on but don’t want to go into detail publicly. Can we bring some of this discussion off list? Any objections if I set up a Basecamp project for it? Or I am happy with other off list options.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:48 am
I would be inclined to say go ahead Alan. I think I detect a certain amount of fear about “stepping on toes” from people who maybe haven’t yet been involved much in the project but I don’t think Conor and Damien would mind me calling PaddysValley an ‘unproject’ [recalling that "an unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers". From Wikipedia]
The thing we need to do most now though I think is actually put in the groundwork pf finding hotels, companies we want to visit etc.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I’d like to throw my hat into the ring for helping out and glad to volunteer.
Have been to Silicon Valley 3 times is last 8 months. My main focus has been on Investment firms (VCs) and mp3 device manufacturers (Apple, Creative, Palm) etc. so here’s my tuppence worth -
1. Accomodation – each time I’ve visited Silicon Valley I have stayed in San Francisco. All the areas talked about in the above comments (SunnyVale, Palo Alto, Mountain View) in my view are exactly that – areas – with no real heart or central point. They are very distributed – think of San Francisco to San Jose as Dublin to PortLaoise on the N7 with all these ares as branches off it. Hence they can be quite deserted at night time and you get no real sense of the place. Personality Hotels around Union Square have a number of properties, with decent enough room rates and free WiFi – http://www.personalityhotels.com/. San Fracisco to anywhere else in Silicon Valley is about an hour drive – we could rent a “Paddy’s Valley” bus…
2. VC’s – The well know VC’s in the area – Sequoia, BenchMark etc. tend to shy away from pure “seed” funding which I feel is most suitable for many of the Paddy’s valley participants. Hence, focus should not be on the main players primarily, but on the community of what’s known as the “Googleites and Ebayers” – high net worth individuals, usually very young, who were early into many companies, pre-IPO and have subsequently become very wealthy. The are a good source of seed funding, and indeed connections. These guys prefer to attend less formal “events” as opposed to official presentations etc..
3. Enterprise Ireland – Enterprise Ireland can, and should, help us out here. They have nice offices in Palo Alto to use as a focal/meeting point perhaps and should be able to leverage their network to drum up some interest. A VC, or investor, or reporters indeed, would rather visit one venue to hear 12 business ideas of say 3 hours, than to have 12 companies take an hour each personally. Hence, some sort of showcase event would be ideal.
Glad to help out (if i can/have) – more thoughts to come…
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Great comment Shane, thanks for getting onboard.
Karlin, I noticed that Scoble was talking Tom Foremski’s new show on Podtech where he speaks with “Jamis MacNiven, the guy who owns Bucks, the famous (Jamis says infamous) eatery in Woodside where lots of deals are done (Netscape was incorporated there).”
http://scobleizer.com/2007/07/03/a-fun-look-at-the-goofiness-in-silicon-valley/
July 5th, 2007 at 10:12 am
I am sure you can get anyone from the san fran peeps to help you throw a little get together, there was for example something like that for ‘germans’ as a webmonday during the expo, citizen agency was so nice to provide the space.
as said above, you need to make your plan where to go and after this you map your hotel stays. once you know like “2 days in san jose, one here rest in sfo” it will fall into place.
A tip from me: my flights always arrived in the early / later afternoon and I will physically crash in the early evening, no matter how much I slept during the flight.
Of course I will get up early the next morning, but still. If you make up another posting thread for travel comments, I am sure other Europeans can offer some information as well, especially on flights and such.
July 7th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Thanks Nicole, good advice.
July 7th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Guys,
you might consider making contact with Myles Dungan, who is out there on a Fulbright to Berkeley. He has a series of Radio programmes on Saturday mornings called Highway 101 (for the summer).
He still plugs into RTE occasionally for radio pieces, so would imagine he might be interested (e.g. get a few of you into a studio in Berkeley, as part of 5-7 live, etc etc)…
July 18th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Good point Kevin re Myles Dungan – certainly worth chasing up. I have a contact in RTE – will tap them for his details. Myles is over in the US ‘cos RTE caned “rattlebag”…and he’s still on contract to them as far as I know..
July 20th, 2007 at 12:20 am
Lads,
Stay in the city (aka SF). You can rent a car or get the train down to Palo Alto.
Enterprise Ireland are definetly worth a call. They may be able to open some doors, especially in Palo Alto. Ask for Diane Roberts when you call them, i think she is still running the show down there.
Also, you might be able to give some demos at some the local venture meets like sfbeta.com or http://newtech.meetup.com/15/. I havent been to either yet but they are supposed to be great events. You might even be able to take over one of their events and make it an Irish Entrpreneurs night.
Fire me an email if you have any other specific questions
ian: blog at pumperknickel.com
July 20th, 2007 at 12:22 am
Just one other thing, I doubt you will get into any of the VCs unless you have a pitch or Enteprise Ireland can organize something. I’d focus on the venture meets to scout out the angel investors
good luck!