Going to Silicon Valley without YC, is it a good idea?

[LWCARAB]

This idea all started off from reading the article below:

http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/04/07/you-didnt-make-it-to-y-combinator-or-techstars-now-what/

In my opinion it is true that the best part of YC is the contacts you make and it got me thinking can you really get these yourself?

I didn't get accepted into this years YC like many other people here but still really want to develop my idea, it's a site for storing contact information, just like a web based address book but one you can access from various different platforms.

I live in the UK and am six weeks from the end of my computing degree, my bank balance reflets that. It's got me thinking if I really could just book a flight over to SF and see what happens, do you really think anyone could find contacts and develop their project with as much ease as the article states? Here is the UK it is very much a closed door policy and talking about your ideas is a no no.

Richard

[e-mail]

[jlees]

Visa problems as already hinted, plus how will you fund yourself while there?

There are quite a few schemes over here that will support starving students starting businesses, then when you have a little more of a solid footing you can hop over to SF and go crazy.

Not sure why you think it's a closed door policy here, I've had great success and loads of feedback from throwing my idea out there; it's undergone a lot of transformation in the last 8 months or so, to the point where I think I'll now get the most out of it going abroad. If I'd gone to SF last summer I don't think it would actually have helped that much because I wouldn't have been able to stick around, and meeting people once with a bright idea only has so much impact.

On the flipside I'm sure if you have the resources to stay in SF for a while you can get some great feedback, maybe find people to team up with, etc. I'd just be really wary of the financials and visa situation.

[davidw]

> In my opinion it is true that the best part of YC is the contacts you make and it got me thinking can you really get these yourself?

If it were that easy, YC would be less valuable. I think it's still probably doable, but harder.

> live in the UK

Staying for more than the 3 months you get as a tourist might be a problem, if you are not originally from the US (you just said 'live', not where you're from). OTOH, 3 months might be the right amount of time to see if you can swing something more permanent and if you want to stay.

[LWCARAB]

As for the visa issue, I believe you can get a lot done in 3 months and I needed longer, I could just go home and come back again to get another 3 months (I believe the rule of thumb is that you should stay longer in your home country than the US which would limit it to 6 months). I believe that if create a successful business in the US then you will find some way of staying, the Auctomatic guys managed it somehow.

As for the comments about the UK (I am British) I don't really know I just find that there is very little support for web startups generaly, we have an enterprise centre which I am part of but they don't really know what to say when they find out that you don't plan on selling anything. Everyone I know is very secretive about things, it's all about NDAs rather than actually learning from talking.

I'm based in Sheffield and my skills are most likely pretty basic comapared to most people on here but I enjoy designiing and creating asp.net sites which is how I want to do my contact site, probably not the best way but I think it's doable.

Richard

[rms]

It's hard to find the angels by yourself. The deferred legal services are easy to find though (just go to meetups and ask), and the legal services alone make Silicon Valley worth it compared to any other place to start a startup.

[alain94040]

I wrote that blog post. Actually, one of my next posts will be about which meetings to attend in Silicon Valley.

My advice (been there, done that): you don't need to show up for more than a few weeks at a time. You can find cheap tickets currently from Europe for no more than $600.

Step 1: make a friend online who can host you for a week

Step 2: fly over

Step 3: network like crazy while in the Valley

Step 4: repeat a few times

Does that make sense?

[trevelyan]

You're building a website that stores contact information? That's a server running a database and some software. Why exactly do you need VC?

[pclark]

Where in the UK are you? What are your skills?