Melbourne-based entrepreneur Simon Walker has spent the last two months working his way through the countless hours of video interviews he recorded during a 20 day trip visiting 10 U.S. cities and interviewing local founders, VCs and policy-makers to show Australian startup founders what it’s really like to go abroad.
Walker organised the whirlwind trip in conjunction with Shoe String Startups and was sponsored by a number of startups and community members, including Yacket, Informly and The New Agency. He’s produced a series of short webisodes giving the down-low on cities such as San Francisco, Boston, L.A. and New York.
“It was an incredible trip although by the end it became a bit of an endurance race,” says Walker. “The entrepreneurs in every city were so willing to be involved.”
With little more than a camera, laptop and backpack, Walker organised meetings with well-known tech influencers including MySpace ex-CEO Mike Jones, the infamous Winklevosses, and Bob Metcalfe, a co-inventor of ethernet.
Here’s Simon Walker’s take on San Francisco:
It took several weeks to plan the trip — arranging interviews, organising places to stay and booking flights. Walker found the best way to meet people was by attending events listed on Meetup.com, or getting in touch with the big co-working spaces in each city before arriving.
“There are literally multiple events on every night of the week in San Francisco. Not just one meetup a week for a niche like cloud tech, but five or ten each week.”
StartupStay was a cheap and easy way to arrange accommodation. Walker stayed with local entrepreneurs in each city, found through the site. The people he stayed with often helped him get around their city, and introduced him to other people worth speaking to.
“I had so many people say ‘oh you should follow up with so-and-so’. In Seattle, I was couch-surfing with this girl who ended up taking two days off work to take me all over the city — she didn’t have to but she wanted to give me the best impression of the city she could.”
He found friendly people in every city. Inevitably, he says, one person introduces you to the next. It’s worth allowing some time to get around each city. Walker thinks the co-working spaces are always good connectors.
“With the co-working spaces, email three or four in each city, a couple weeks before going. Get them to give you advice on where to go, and who to see.”
Walker is not sure what 2013 might hold, following the wrap-up of his startup last year. Nonetheless, he’s glad to be finalising the last few videos. Perhaps he’ll pursue some consultancy work, or a full-time job to pay the bills.
“I have no idea what this year holds — it’s bloody terrifying, really. The Leeap project was insanely eye-opening, so we’ll see what happens.”
He’s not sure about become a fully-fledged documentary maker, despite having a few people asking when to expect a feature-length version. Walker sighs: “I’ve realised one thing. Video editing is ridiculously time-consuming.”
Check out all the videos from Walker’s trip over at Leeap.in.