We're getting on a plane from Edinburgh in about 24 hours and flying over for our YC interview this week. We want to make the most of our time out there and meet other startups, angels, find out about meetups etc. I thought it might be useful if I did a public shoutout for:
1) Anyone with a couch or floor to put up YC interviewees
2) Recommendations for which coffee shops are good to work in
3) Recommendations for good meetups over the next week
4) Anyone who wants to play tourguide or chill and work together.
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edit: from jkaljundi: 5) Also any of the other teams for YC want to meetup?
email me at 'sam at getbloop dot com' and I'll try and coordinate something between us if there's demand.
Otherwise, any place on Castro Street in Mountain View is a decent bet, especially the Red Rock cafe. Any place on University Ave in Palo Alto is also a pretty safe bet.
And, if you're just visiting for a couple of days, I always suggest visiting the Computer History Museum. They give great 1.5 hour tours, and it's pretty amazing to see the history of computing, and realize that a great bit of it happened in the neighborhood. At times, you can hang out with some of the original engineers that build machines like the PDP 10 as they restore one to get it working. Did I mention tha they have a working Difference Engine? It's amazing.
Aside from that, as to event lists, email Chris of Brendan over at the Startup Digest: http://thestartupdigest.com/ keep good tabs on what's going on. It would be worth pinging them and letting them know what you're doing. I'm sure they could make a great bunch of suggestions.
There's always a bunch of stuff going on in San Francisco, as well. Pick a coffee shop or pub, and you're bound to run in to someone working in the biz.
Also, I'd suggest you put your email in your profile so people can ping you. Offering to take people out for a pint will often get you quality time with other founders. :)