Woke up nice and early this morning to try and sort out as much as possible before starting work next week. Bought my most expensive chai latte ever and I didn’t even get free wifi. Some funny things I noticed about SF include:

• Most cafes apparently don’t have WiFi, most people work on their hotspots

• Almost everyone wears a helmet on their bicycles

• I saw someone on an electric scooter (step) wearing a full on motor cycle helmet and a neon vest

• Traffic lights here work differently, they count down to stop, not to go (it’s the opposite in NL)

• Cars can drive through red if they want to go to the right

In case you’re also moving to SF or the US, it might be good to know some of the practical things I had to arrange. Things I need to sort out this week/ASAP include:

• Find a house

  • You will need references, bank statements, proof of income and try to make sure you have 3 months rent (around $4,500) on your bank account to pay the deposit and first month rent (you might need more depending on the conditions)

• Social Security Number (SSN)

  • Bring your passport, SEVIS form an I94

• Bank account (apparently you can do this without an SSN, only found this out in hindsight)

  • Best to do this before you start working as they’re open during office hours

• Get a Simcard

  • I got MintMobile, great prepaid plan, 6 months unlimited internet and calling for $90)

Mission

If you’re not watching my vlogs, what I mentioned is that Mission is known as a more hip area, but it is also the Latina/Mexican area of SF that has been highly gentrified over the last years. According to someone I spoke to, Mission is one of the lowest parts of the city, which is why it attracts homeless people as it is warmer (since it’s in a valley, there’s less wind). While I have seen some tents, I didn’t see as many as I thought there would be.

Financial district

To get to my meeting at 12:30 I had to head towards the Financial District with the BART and got out at Embarcadero. The difference between Mission and the Financial District was huge.

Craft ventures

In the afternoon I joined DutchTechSF, founded by Oliver Binkhorst, who organised a trip for around 10-15 founders based in the Netherlands to visit different start-ups and venture capital companies in the Bay Area. He was nice enough to invite me to join the group for the next two days.

The first company I visited with them was Craft Ventures, a venture capital firm that focusses on Saas and marketplace start-ups. They position themselves as a founder centric VC with two sides, one that really focusses on the financial aspects (investing) and the other that specialises in business development and execution for the portfolio companies, which they call the platform side.

They have a really impressive office, unlike anything I have ever seen before so I wanted to share it with you in the vlog below.

In the evening I had another viewing at a house in Castro with Joe and Caro, will share more about that tomorrow but it was loads of fun! The 4 people I met so far have been great!