Russ Fradin co-founded Adify with Larry Braitman and Rick Thompson.
Most recently, Fradin was the SVP of business development for Wine.com, the internet’s largest seller of wine, where he was responsible for creating new revenue channels for the business.
Before joining Wine.com, Fradin was the EVP of corporate development for comScore Networks. He began at comScore in 2000 before comScore signed its first customer and was responsible for starting many of the company’s businesses as well as structuring strategic alliances.
Fradin began his career at Flycast Communications and had a number of roles during his four-year tenure, finally serving as Flycast/Engage’s VP of business development.
He holds a BS from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
The presentation notes:
Inability to recruit & retain talent is one of the main reasons startups fail.
Company changes due to better people, not you.
Working at a start-up:
It’s a lifestyle decision.
Don’t hire assholes – it gets harder to close good talent.
Exits are great but nothing beats March 9.
Be more intellectually fulfilled.
Best way to close talented people
Be organised, diligent and respectful on every touch point. Make sure that when you close that person they will want to work with you.
Design a labour hire process that encourages a “yes”.
Transparency on timing, compensation and equity.
Look for the right person (recall March 9) rather than filling head count.
Your selling a growth plan – use your examples of growth.
Make your jobs sound cool.
Remember hiring someone great BEGINS the process.
The more information you give people the better since both parties need to find the right fit. Therefore find out what “they” need and want in life. Find a match between your and their career growth.
Sell vision, team and culture.
Great employees are worth your company. That’s what these company acquisition are, talent acquisitions.
Post-offer
Remember, people work for people. They do not work for companies.
Networking helps by attending social events.
Hire 1st a couple of great people and look after them well. They will help you drive forward and get more like-minded people on board.
The hardest thing to do is get someone great with their own great idea to work on your great idea. Give them time and try again.
Happy hiring!
Other StartupDigest Seminars covered by Ernest Semerda:
Dan brings recruiting experience and vision to JobScore. Dan spent seven years with OTEC, the recruiting firm that spun off Hotjobs.com.
Dan co-founded OTEC’s Silicon Valley search practice, training a team of recruiters and placing personnel at early stage enterprise software, internet services, media and content companies.
Dan holds a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University.
Dan runs a very informative and professional blog called “The Art and Science of Recruiting” located here: http://blog.jobscore.com/
The presentation notes:
Only hiring friends = FAIL.
A great startup hiring process is where the candidate doesn’t know you.
“We Start With the Customer and We Work Backward.” ~ Jeff Bezos on Amazon’s success.
Work backwards using 3 month milestones.
Change is the only constant in startups.
You will constantly iterate and rework plans.
Create a Plan to get from A to B. This means Goal setting – Today, 3 months to 6 months. As shown below in the picture.
Hiring Plan
Getting it right
Set clear goals and time-lines.
Sequence and Prioritize.
Assess existing talent skills & expertise inc. throughput.
Job Description – 90% effort spend is required on the first 2 and 10% effort on the last. However most spend on the last 2 (points 3 & 4). Make sure you cover:
What we do (commonly forgotten)
What you’ll do (commonly forgotten)
Need to have (most time spent)
Nice to have (most time spent)
Interviews
Interviewing
Interviewing takes time. Therefore write down all learnings and how-to’s so you can iterate and improve.
Establish “core values” and a plan how you will interview people to match those.
Drive, Personality & Talent TRUMPS over Skills.
To reduce stress on the candidate, explain to them the full interview process e.g. what’s going to happen, who will interview them, how to get to the firm etc. Remember that normally people are not stressed during their day job and so will always perform differently under stress.
Document feedback and meet immediately after with the interview team to evaluate the candidate against multiple criteria. Make this a habit early in the company so that everyone follows it.
Sample feedback form:
Sample feedback form
Engineer your questions, then iterate on failure to spend more time on qualified candidates.
Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions upfront if you can close a candidate eg. wage, last time bonus, figure out what they want.
People should not flip out if rejected. If they do, hang up on them. Life is too short.
Only send written offer letter once the candidate has verbally accepted the offer. If they don’t verbally accept, talk to them until they do or stay in-touch until they accept and only then send the job offer.
Referrals are exceptions – Just Sell, do not assess.
Hiring requires focus – 10 at once, not 10 in 3 months. Choice is good!
Turn interviewees into advocates. Turn your company into a magnet so everyone talks about it. Pitch these. Candidates should come to you.
How to pitch a job – mission (where you are going), status, team, pain (customer problem you are solving) and opportunity (goals – see above).
The people: prompt, prepared, fun, engaging and smart.
The office: cool, light filled, modern, comfortable and big monitors!
Sell you – what you can teach, your personality, your resume and your vision.
Hiring Hacks
Express a problem, not skills, to get to candidates. e.g. instead of asking for python developer ask for someone who developed high scalable open source cloud solutions.
Be specific when wanting to hire someone so that you can generate stronger referrals.
Ask for referrals (and you get advice), Ask for advice (and you get referrals).
Your company is your people. Get the right ones. Even if it means moving heaven and earth to hire proven commodities.
Hire like an investor. Equity is your currency. Get it. Spend it.
Be hyper aggressive in the 1st year.
Hire for TALENT vs Skills.
Talent is the ability to learn new things.
Skills is the stuff you already know how to do.
Skills get outdated fast in this fast changing landscape while talent is something which stays with you forever.
If you don’t believe your special. Quit. Since you need to believe you will change the world in order to compete with the likes of Facebook et al.
Job market doesn’t matter since it’s never of a recessive nature. There is always a market for smart people.
Make bets – cliffs and vesting are you friends.
“Fire Fast” – create a culture where that’s possible.
Happy hiring!
Other StartupDigest Seminars covered by Ernest Semerda:
Nathan graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania where he double-majored in Economics and International Relations.
Nathan gained experience in marketing while working at Arnold Worldwide and in the environmental community after completing internships at both the National Audubon Society and the National Parks Conservation Association.
Seeking adventure and the outdoors, Nathan spent his summer before graduation sailing the Labrador coast of NE Canada in a crew of six and with no prior sailing experience. This trip furthered Nathan’s interest in the environment, confronting challenges, and learning in new situations.
Currently Nathan enjoys working on InternMatch and meeting new people as the platform grows.
The presentation notes:
1. How interns add value
Interns can be experienced – especially in the current economy there is a lot of highly skilled individuals both young and senior. Some benefits of hiring an intern include:
It’s a back door of hiring top talent.
Get part-time help at a discount.
Fill in gaps on the founding team.
Gain early evangelists.
Hear an outside perspective.
2. How to Recruit top interns
Places to look:
Internship sites like InternMatch.com.
Direct from colleagues.
Craigslist – however you wont find the upper echelon there.
Pitching:
Pitch what you do well – sell the vision of the company.
Promote your investors, press coverage and the team talent to illustrate a great environment.
Let the intern know what they will learn especially the stuff that they cannot from a school.
3. Tips and tricks for intern management
Assign a dedicated manager to the intern.
Grab coffee with them once a week.
Explain the intern’s work in the context of the bigger company picture.
Give really clear deadlines on projects like at school eg. iterations with feedback.
Use Non-Monetary Rewards to motivate them. 99% of them are not there for the money. They are there for the culture, experience, networking and knowledge to set them apart in the marketplace.
Other StartupDigest Seminars covered by Ernest Semerda:
Gain wisdom of the world. As the famous Jim Rohn stated ~ “All Leaders Are Readers”. If you are a book worm and also on Facebook then you should grab this free awesome Facebook Application I developed called ReadingList.
What is ReadingList?
ReadingList allows you to share the books you are reading or have read with your friends on Facebook. It also acts as your online library to store the list of your books. Simple, easy to use and it works! What better way to inspire your Facebook friends then by sharing the great books in your books library. Be a leader and start inspiring your friends on Facebook today and make a difference in their life.
The product is simple. Both from ease of use to functionality.
Fig 1 screen shot below illustrates how your Facebook Wall will look when you add / update a book in the ReadingList application. Now your friends can see the cool book you are reading along with whether you recommend it and your personal comments about this book – cool hey!
Fig1. Your book activity gets posted to your Facebook wall to inspire your friends
Fig 2 screen shot below is of the main page where you search for a book you are reading or have read. The search mechanism automatically looks up Amazon books repository and presents the findings in a horizontally scrollable pane. When you locate the book you want to add click “Select book” button beneath the book image.
Fig2. Find a book and share it with your Facebook friends
Fig 3 screen shot below is of the community page where you can see what your friends and other users of ReadingList application are reading. This is a great page to learn about other new cool and exciting books.
Fig3. See what the ReadingList community is reading
Here’s a breakdown of the technology behind this Facebook Application ReadingList:
ReadingList was built on a LAMP stack – Linux (CentOS 5.5), Apache, MySQL 5 and PHP 5.2.
ReadingList runs through a powerful open source PHP web application Framework with a small footprint called CodeIgniter 1.7. (update: as of Feb 8, 2010 it is now upgraded to the better & faster 2.0)
On the front-end, latest version of jQuery is used to achieve UI behaviors.
Future performance (and fun) enhancements on the cards are Memcache, Apache Cassandra (NoSQL) and Facebook’s HipHop.
Toby Beresford did an informative presentation in London on CodeIgniter as a great framework for rapid application development. See it on Slideshare here.
“Right now there is a war on talent. The entire technology sector is hiring, virtually every startup (alive) is hiring, and VC’s are even creating newsletters to help their startups hire. Hiring is the most important function of a startup founder/CEO. With the talent war raging, it is clear that finding and hiring the best people is one of the most challenging aspects of an entrepreneur’s job. Developers are elusive and expensive, and it’s hard to find a business or marketing person among the noise.” ~ StartupDigest
This evening had 2 great speakers which filled the event with tactical knowledge and inspiration rather than just inspirational rhetoric. There was no bullshit. The folks in the room were A-players, smart and were thirsty for education which would serve as the arsenal of hiring tips and tricks. For more on handling your employees better, you might want to read on about some of the best payroll solutions for small businesses.
Here’s what happened.
Brian Helmick, Founder & Managing Partner at Algentis
Brian Helmick, Founder & Managing Partner at Algentis
About Brian:
Brian Helmick is the founder of Algentis, an HR Software & Services firm that simplifies operations for small and medium-sized businesses by assuming the burden of HR administration.
Algentis provides a technology-enabled service offering which seamlessly integrates HR compliance, payroll, benefits, and insurance.
Algentis helps startup clients with all the headaches associated with HR, so entrepreneurs can focus on the core aspects of their business.
There are strict IRS guidelines and the choice isnt yours. Learn those guidelines or speak to a specialist.
Most startups break this law.
If an employee is made to work strict 9-5 hours on a computer provided by the employer then they are labelled as an “employee”. Else, a contractor. Some employers get around this label by adding computer expense into employee’s salary vs providing them the tool/s.
Handling a toxic work atmosphere, especially when faced with employment classification challenges, is crucial for preserving employee well-being and fostering a healthier workplace environment.
2. Errors in Hiring
Improper interview questions – personal type like age, race, state etc. this can lead to being sued should the unsuccessful candidate believe it was due to these personal questions they were not hired.
Hiring for skills and not fit. Companies change so hire for fit to make sure to retain great employees.
Ask for candidate references and then ask the references for another degree of references. You need to really know how this person is and not what their friend (reference) scripted.
3. Improper Documentation
Don’t use your friends legal documents. They are not fit for your purpose.
Average cost to defend against an employee claim is $150K.
On average, most HR issues are not seen until the company hits the magic 20 employees.
Poor documentation of performance, attendance & misconduct. When you document make sure it is stored in a safe & secure place.
Wrongful termination award is $125K.
Do quarterly reviews – to speed up the process get the employee to do self reviews and no more than 3 questions with a scale.
4. Errors with Employee Terminations
Too slow to fire – always. Nobody ever complains about firing somebody too quickly.
An under-performer is incredibly costly financially, your time and morale.
A lot of this is due to the “termination discussion” which is not fin and mostly emotional.
Start with the conclusion and keep it short.
Make it clear that the decision has already been made.
Be sensitive of the other person’s feeling – do not let it get personal.
Severance is highly recommended to minimize getting sued especially if the employee is volatile. But do not make this a policy since it can be used against you.
Finally, always give the final paycheck on the employee’s last day. Make sure as well to conduct exit interviews. You may visit sites like https://www.qualtrics.com/employee-experience/exit-interviews/ if you want to learn more about exit interviews.
5. Unsuitable Benefits & Insurance
Workers compensation insurance of at least $100K is legally required.
Choosing benefits:
Basic = Medical only
Basic plus = Dental, Vision and FSA
Premium = Medical, Vision, FSA, Transportation, Unexpected life events and 401K.
Before you begin, always work out your strategy e.g. low cash and high equity reward or high cash and low equity. Don’t shy away on spending if you find the perfect person.
There are 3 components:
Cash
Easiest for both to value.
Cash bonuses have mixed review – they are not properly valued by employees if at 10-15% of their base salary. Best to give this as merit instead.
Studies have shown that behavior changes at 25%+ of base salary. Which is why it works so well in Sales and Financial Services industry.
Benefits & Rewards
Small personal incentives like a restaurant / theater voucher or a letter to spouse are most powerful.
They help build the company culture and show that the employer cares. Yet are cheaper to implement then a 10K bonus.
Equity
Common terms:
Vesting
3-5 years
Cliff
1 year
Expiration
90 days after employee leaves
Buy back
Company to buy back the options
Equity split for non-founders:
COO
2-5%
Cxx
1-3%
VP of Eng.
2-4%
Other VPs
1-3%
Directors
2-5%
COO
0.75-1.5%
Key Eng. Roles
0.25-1.5%
Taso Du Val, Co-Founder and CEO of TopTal
Taso Du Val, Co-Founder and CEO of TopTal
About Taso:
As an early and lead engineer at Fotolog (Acquired by Hi-Media for $100m), Slide (Acquired by Google for $224m), and his own companies, Taso brings unprecedented top management and engineering experience to TopTal.
While running a small consulting firm, he recognized that while many of his co-workers overseas were just as good as his friends and colleagues at Google, Facebook, and other companies with notable top engineering talent, it was simply impossible to find them.
TopTal was created as a solution to the sky-rocketing demand for top engineers in Silicon Valley, US, and Europe despite the shrinking local graduate rates of such engineers.
Democratized outsourcing – providers of a virtual marketplace for freelancers and freelance agencies to negotiate work contracts with businesses that hire independent professionals and agencies.
Companies in this space include: elance, odesk etc.
Crowdsourcing – Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.
Companies in this space include: crowdflower, mechturk etc.
Top sourcing – sourcing company full of expertise and knowledge to help businesses cut procurement costs.
Companies in this space include: toptal etc.
Managing remote labor:
Learn to manage your local staff well before managing remote staff.
Communication is VERY important.
Product is the most important thing. Period.
When your remote talent is better than your best developer, you know you’re doing it right.
Use Skype excessively (24/7).
If 2 days go by without communication, fire instantly.
Expose them to Silicon Valley (TechCrunch, Quora etc).
Use PivotalTracker or similar Project Management tools.
Daily Scrum (development) works very well.
A note on communication with foreign hires:
Proper English != Communication
Bad English != Bad Communication
Isnt this educational and inspirational! Great content from great founders that know what it takes to hire the best people. So this was part 2 of 3 and I will be posting links to full videos of the event later in the week – so come back to check this blog for more updates.
So recently I was invited to a 3 evening course at StartupDigest University via Hacker Dojo on Attracting, Hiring, and Retaining the Best People. Today was day 1. More to come over the next 2 weeks. StartupDigest is the insider’s guide to the startup world and the evening was hosted by Gagan Biyani, Co-Founder of Udemy, where all the videos of the presentations will be hosted later on.
Gagan Biyani, Co-Founder of Udemy
Right now there is a war on talent. The entire technology sector is hiring, virtually every startup (alive) is hiring, and VC’s are even creating newsletters to help their startups hire. Hiring is the most important function of a startup founder/CEO. With the talent war raging, it is clear that getting skilled labour hire Perth is one of the most challenging aspects of an entrepreneur’s job. Developers are elusive and expensive, and it’s hard to find a business or marketing person among the noise.
This evening had 2 great speakers which filled the event with tactical knowledge and inspiration rather than just inspirational rhetoric. There was no bullshit. The folks in the room were A-players, smart and were thirsty for education which would serve as the arsenal of hiring tips and tricks.
Here’s what happened.
Immad Akhund, Co-Founder and CEO of HeyZap
Immad Akhund ~ Co-Founder and CEO of HeyZap
About Immad:
Immad Akhund is the CEO of HeyZap and an engineer.
Having studied Computer Science at Cambridge University and co-founded 3 successful start-ups.
He was previously a co-founder and the CTO of Clickpass.com (acquired by Yola.com).
Clickpass partnered with Plaxo, Scribd, Disqus and others to power their sign-on through OpenID.
The presentation notes:
Recruitment is a Marketing Exercise. You must market yourself and your company over and over so it gets into people’s head that you are a good company.
Ask yourself “Why should this hire give several years of their life to your vision?”. Remember that you aren’t the only making favors here.
Hire Generalists over Specialists.
Spend time on your jobs page to make it Marketable. It should lure talent in. See http://www.heyzap.com/jobs
Use all the available channels to get talent. Being: Internal, Online, Offline, Campus and New clever ways like running random competitions for others in the social space to re-tweet your job ads.
Give employees a hiring bonus $2-10K to show you care.
Good people have at least 5 friends that are like them. If you find an A-player tap into their social grid since there is a high chance their 5 close friends will also be A-players.
Organize “open house” like Startup Crawl to allow A-players to come and have an open chat with you.
Auren Hoffman, Founder and CEO of Rapleaf
Auren Hoffman ~ Auren Hoffman, Founder and CEO of Rapleaf
About Auren:
Auren Hoffman is the CEO of Rapleaf and an angel investor.
Rapleaf helps B2C companies give their consumers a better experience by providing automated search services for each consumer.
Auren is also a non-employee cofounder of BrightRoll and a co-founder of AdRocket.
From 2003-2006, Auren served as Chairman of Stonebrick Group and Chairman of the Connector Group (Silicon Valley 100).
Previously, he founded and sold three Internet companies before age 30: BridgePath (sold in 2002), Kyber Systems (sold in 1997), and GetRelevant (sold in 2002).
Resumes are bad since they are nothing more than marketing and act as a selling document.
As the interviewee, you should always show up on time. Be respectful of the candidates time too.
Once you get comfortable about their specific skill there is no need to further drill it. Move onto other questions.
Get the candidate to teach you something. If you see they have a specific interest / hobby like chess, or cash my apps out, and ask them to teach it to you (crash course) in the interview. Few people can “simply” explain complex concepts. Yet being able to explain a complex concept in simple understandable terms by breaking it down and even drawing it on the board is an important quality of an A-player. Every complex concept can be explained easily by an A-player.
Ask insightful and hard questions which are interesting for the candidate. Ask about:
Their thesis,
Current events like WikiLeaks and the ethical dilemmas created,
Drill into something they stipulated they are good at and see if their depth of knowledge reflects it,
Ask curious questions like: “How do you think LinkedIn generates the n-th degree contact/s?” Even if you don’t have the answer observe how they tackle the problem.
Don’t ask typical questions most interviewees ask. Come up with something clever that is specific to the candidate and see the fire it ignites in their desire to get to the answer. If you get a call or email after the interview with the answer then this is a great indication of the desire and fire that burns in A-players.
Don’t talk more than 25% of the interview. You want them to do the talking since you need to get the answers to your single question – “is this an A-player”.
Try to determine how Smart the person is by accessing:
Are they curious?
Do they ask the right questions?
Do they engage in further deeper discussions?
How well do they take feedback?
Are they unsatisfied with mediocre answers?
You can even get the candidate to do a presentation on their topic of choice and see how they can explain and simplify it enough so it’s crystal clear and educational. Make sure the topic is hard so you can see their thought processes. Then ask yourself the questions above whether this candidate is smart. If you still can’t find a suitable candidate, PrincePerelson can help hire a project manager for your business.
Overall, you need to determine whether you would enjoy working with this person. At the beginning stages of your company you are the company culture and bringing in a new employee may change or enhance it.
You get to choose the people at your company. Therefore choose wisely.
Choose 3 key criteria you want in the people you hire and stick to them.
Rapleaf has the following:
A. Scary smart
B. Gets things done
C. Nice & friendly
Notice how there is no technical skills listed. Remember, top 3 only since in a Venn diagram too many circles creates too many overlaps which are too small. You want a nice chunky even spread.
Finding a Co-founder is always hard. So when you think you found one do something together to determine “compatibility” – something like a blog post together or running an event. This will help you see whether this person is trustworthy, follows up with their word and has passion for their work. The try before you buy approach. But always remember, that no matter what, even the 1st employee should be called a “co-founder”, looked after with good equity and be treated as such to help your vision come to life and ultimately success.
Isnt this educational and inspirational! Great content from great founders that know what it takes to hire the best people.
So this was part 1 of 3 and I will be posting links to full videos of the event later in the week – so come back to check this blog for more updates.
Facebook has introduced a lot of changes in 2011 to how Facebook applications are being developed. I’m sure similar changes will be coming to the Fan Pages since they still use FBML instead of iFrame approach like in Facebook Apps.
Here is a a set of code snippets which have helped me with customizing my Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/TheRoadtoSiliconValley/) and building my own Facebook App with “Page Tab” capability.
The following assumes you are the “administrator” of a Fan Page.
Welcome Tab using Static FBML
You don’t need to be a programmer to do this quick hack.
2. Check out the previous post on how to customize this page as a Welcome page with any content you require. This will give you an idea of the power this simple free app provides.
Show Content to Fans – Hide from Non-Fans
So you’ve added the Static FBML and now want to add some dynamic content based on whether the user is a fan or not. i.e. has hit the “Like” button or not. One place you can use this is to control incentives based on user behavior.
Put that code into your Static FBML container to test.
Note: You cannot be logged in as an admin for the Fan Page you’re adding this to, or you’ll see both the content for fans and for non-fans. Use a test account (or friends) which is not an admin of this Fan Page.
Get Facebook UserID on Fan Page
There may be time when you developed your own Fan Page “Tab” and want to retrieve the User’s FacebookID. By default you can only retrieve the Fan Page ID.
November 2010 and another fellow Aussie touched down in the high tech land known as Silicon Valley. Last week I had the pleasure meeting this Aussie who arrived from Sydney, Australia. His name is Vincent Turner and he is the founder of Pisces Communication. To find out what his experience has been like so far in Silicon Valley and what his plans are, I decided to pick his brains. Here’s what happened.
What service / product does your company provide?
Qualification & Pricing Software to banks and brokers.
What role do you play?
CEO
How long have you been running / working on your product / service?
I originally founded the company in 2000 in Perth as a messaging company however evolved to software for banks in the last 5 years. We changed strategy from a platform to a services model 2 years ago and redeveloped our capability to underpin that model which has allowed us to look at new markets, hence why I am in the US now setting up our operations here (since Nov 2010).
Technology
What personal hardware are you using?
I use Apple personally, I’m sick of Windows and seeing as my work is email, word, excel and Powerpoint and Mac Office 2011 is out (and good) I have no need for Windows. Macbook 11-inch is my current laptop.
What Solution Stack is your business built on?
We have a very strong philosophy of choosing the technology that is right, not simply what we know. Our current market positioning (enterprise end users) means we have both Java & .Net in the stack. We also use GWT for our user front end. We have very little reliance on the database as we dont’ store customer data within our services. We run everything on the cloud, Amazon is our current provider. As part of our business we also work with CRM packages including Dynamics and Salesforce but do little to no development on these components. As we move more into the consumer facing aspects of the business we expect to take on Ruby on Rails, but early days on that for the moment.
What decision(s) lead you to go with that Solution Stack?
We want to have an each way bet with Java and .Net and like to provide our developers with the opportunity to know and work with both. We have customers who are running both and although our architecture is all services based, certain aspects of integration are simplified when you’re running the same stack so this was part of the thinking.
In terms of front end, GWT was the obvious choice for RIA for us when we started our redevelopment 2 years ago as the libraries were extensive and well road tested and as it is basically Java meant our guys could easily get hands on within eclipse etc. I don’t see us using GWT for our next breed of consumer facing interfaces however.
Top 3 Favourite online services you couldn’t live without?
Xero.com – online accounting, with real-time bank data feeds.
URL: http://www.xero.com/
Skype – I’d go sans phone if I could, but Skype need to sort their chat out something chronic.
URL: http://www.skype.com/
Silicon Valley
What made you come to Silicon Valley?
If you’re an actor, you go to Hollywood. If you’re in IT you come to Silicon Valley.
What are 3 Top Challenges you faced upon arrival in Silicon Valley?
Probably too early for me on this but to date:
Sorting out the wheat from the chaff in terms of who can help you in this city and who is just going to waste your time.
Domain expertise and industry terminology for our market (lending) – hard to have meaningful conversations when you’re not sure of the right word to describe your approach.
Roles & Titles – seems like everyone here is the VP of something. Makes it hard to know if you’re talking to the right person.
How about Visa or finding a place to live?
I don’t think I’m having too many issues with the visa process or finding places to live. I found a good immigration lawyer early on.. and Craigslist for accommodation before I left.
What resources did you turn to overcome these challenges?
google.com
theroadtosiliconvalley.com
networking events
australian expats
Bay Area or San Francisco to settle?
I’d love to say this decision is made but far from it. I almost think that the Bay Area & SF need to sort it out!
Eventually I will end up back in or near the city. Probably Duboce triangle area as this is so central to the Muni and I think any regular car user in this day and age needs to seriously re-evaluate.
In terms of office, this will always be a decision to be made with the team as I think it is part of the culture of the business and something that is reached by the early team members. I’d ideally live nearish work.
Which part of San Francisco?
Duboce triangle and surrounds.
Why did you make this decision?
Central to everything (in SF).
1 word of advice for our Aussie entrepreneurs wanting to come to Silicon Valley and start their own business?
The best advice I got was ‘just come here’ .. get on the ground and work it out. I had the good fortune/planning/luck to be able to continue to work for my AU business while getting out here for 3 months on a travel visa, while setting up and I think this has allowed me the time to do things properly, meet people, walk around and consider my options in a measured & balanced way.
If you’re in IT, then to date in my travels I can safely say there is not place like the bay area. The level of activity here every week is amazing and it will motivate you and empower you. Also, get on meetup and find some networking groups that suit you.
Vincent & Ernest
Thank you for doing this interview Vincent. And for sharing these golden nuggets of experience with the readers of The Road to Silicon Valley.
Landed in the valley and not sure where to shop to get your groceries, electronics or grog? Here’s a small list to get you going. To find out locations of each stores just click on the Website links below to visit the store’s website.
American’s love coupons. It has always been a Sunday paper tradition to cut them out for the week ahead. With the advent of technology this changed and most coupons are now located online on sites like Raise… check out my previous blog post on saving money with free coupons located here before you start shopping!
This is a mega super-duper store for all your electronics needs. Nothing comes close to its sheer size, content and prices. Also keep an eye out for their “weekly” specials catalogue (also available online) where you will find pages of discounts for that week only. Some of the stores use cool themes and props like Ancient Egypt at Campbell, Wild West at Palo Alto etc.
Products: Software, consumer electronics, computer hardware, movies, music and household appliances.
Another big store but this one is more of a specialty retailer of consumer electronics. Best Buy is sometimes called the “big blue box” because of the prominent blue design on Best Buy stores. If you find something at Fry’s cheaper tell them at Best Buy and they will beat it by 5-10% – so carry your smart phone so you can compare prices.
Products: Software, consumer electronics, computer hardware and household appliances.
North America’s third largest supermarket chain. Their free loyalty membership program entitles you to cheaper purchase on 80% of the groceries. They also have a fantastic program called JustForU which basically allows you to load grocery coupons onto your loyalty card.
A healthier alternative to SafeWay. They house natural and organic groceries. Originally called SaferWay, the name being a spoof of Safeway. The downside is the groceries are around 20% more in price and there is no loyalty membership programs.
A specialty retail grocery store. They have a nice selection of healthy and organic produce at great prices. Trader Joe’s describes itself as “your neighborhood grocery store” or “your unique grocery store”. Their wines are also cheap – it’s the 1st place I bought my 1st wine in California and was impressed with quality and price.
Trader Joe’s in San Antonio
Products: Discount staple food, organic food, and Specialty products.
Chain of large discount department stores and a chain of warehouse stores. This is a great place to start when you 1st come to the Valley – I bought all my initial necessities here and they were cheap – dirt cheap!
Is a chain of mid-to-high range department stores. Its selection of clothing merchandise can vary significantly from location to location, resulting in the exclusive availability of certain brands in only higher end stores. The company produces the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a well-known parade which has been held on the streets of New York City annually since 1924. Like Safeway they also have a loyalty program via the Macy’s Credit Card star rewards. Make sure you have some credit history or your wont be able to get their card.
Is a chain of domestic merchandise retail stores feature mostly medium-ranged, but also a limited selection of high quality, domestic merchandise: items for the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and dining room. You can also find smart mirrors uk here.
Products: Bedding, bath towels, granite wholesale, kitchen electrics, cookware, window treatments, storage items, gifts and much more
You one stop shop for all beddings & mattress requirements. When it comes to buying a bed & mattress it’s like buying a used car. You need to negotiate and deal with pushy salesman but it’s always worth it since in the end you save plenty of money. Visit similar stores like Sleep Train so you get an idea about best deals and just haggle between the stores until you get a fantastic deal.
Products: Bedroom furniture, kids furniture, futons & sofas, massage chairs, daybeds and more.
Is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the United States. Costco focuses on selling products at low prices, often at very high volume. These goods are usually bulk-packaged and marketed primarily to large families and businesses. Great place to shop once you settle in and have identified what you can buy in bulk for the next few months.
REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.) sells outdoor recreation gear, sporting goods, and clothes. Their one-time fee of $20 for lifetime membership entitles you to an annual dividend check equal to 10% of what you spent at REI on regular-priced merchandise in the prior year.
Also knowns as Beverages & More! selling a HUGE range of alcoholic beverages. Some larger outlets house wine tasting sessions for $5. Every week they select a bunch of wines to go on special if you hold their free loyalty card – worth getting it. Every few months they hold a buy 1 get the 2nd for 2 pennies – even for wines which normally cost $30 each. Bargains here all the time!
Aussie version: Valore Cellars, Dan Murphys or BWS (Beer Wines Spirits)
Hope these help you get rolling. It’s a great start and I’m sure you will come across many smaller outlets. If you see something I missed or want me to add it to the list above please put it into the comments below and I will include it.
It’s always a funny experience when I run into a language barrier with my American friends and work colleagues. The problem is most commonly with my helping verbs. Today, over lunch the 3 of us Aussies shared some terms we ran into which our American friends have / had trouble recognizing. In spirit, I compiled a list to get us Aussies accustomed to the choice of words to use when speaking with our American friends.
The list – vocabulary comparison
The following list of words are angled from an Aussie wanting to convey a message. Use the American column as a guide to see what an American will understand, and adjust accordingly.
Word
American
Australia
Boot
Something that goes on your foot
The trunk of a car
Texta
{ confusion } Say: marker
A marker & also a brand
Thong
G-String (the underwear) & something Borat wears
A sandal held on the foot by a strip. For reference, a La Tribe Sandal.
Fortnight
{ confusion } Say: 2 weeks
A period of fourteen consecutive days
Soft drink
Say: soda/ pop / soda-pop
Nonalcoholic beverage (usually carbonated)
Takeaway
{ confusion } Say: to-go
Prepared food that is intended to be eaten off of the premises
Lemonade
Drink made from lemon juice, sugar, and water – not carbonated
Fizzy lemon drink
Arvo
{ confusion } Say: Afternoon
The hours after 12pm
Pissed
Very angry. Say: drunk
Some who is drunk
Chemist
{ confusion } Say: Pharmacy / Drug store
The place you buy medicine, shampoo, cough syrup and lotion
Ute
{ confusion } Say: Truck
An automotive vehicle suitable for hauling
Napkin
A piece of paper or cloth you use to wipe your face and hands when you eat
A women’s sanitary product
Barbie
It’s an anatomically incorrect female doll that comes in a pink box
What you put beef, shrimp and chicken on to grill it outside
Rubber
A contraceptive device
An eraser
Employment tip
If you are using British syntax/terms (non American spelling) in your LinkedIn resume, fix it up immediately or crowd source it to an American to correct the grammar for you. Recruiters in Silicon Valley use LinkedIn to “keyword search” for potential candidates using the American grammar. So you may miss out on potential offers if you are in the market for a new opportunity.
Keep these differences in mind next time chatting with an American
An America (SFFD) with an Aussie (me)
If you have other words which you ran into please share them below in the comments section and I will add to the list above.
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