PSFK Conference SF Recap: SF Snapshot

What makes the Bay Area tick? Bay Area locals Colin Nagy (Attention), Kevin Allison (Financial Times), Liz Dunn (Funny or Die), Jeremy Townsend (Ghetto Gourmet), and Amit Gupta (Photojojo, Jelly) discussed what is unique to the SF/Bay Area and what aspects of local culture inspire them the most. Some key points:

How does SF compare to other cities?

- It holds its own against a London or New York, even though it’s much smaller. It punches above its weight. Not the center of traditional power gives it room to be more innovative.

- New York is always trying to be agile, SF has less to loose. It’s less in the spotlight = freedom to freestyle and “get it done”.

- It’s on more of a pedestrian/human scale.

- “Our celebrities aren’t beautiful, they’re big time nerds”

- There is a prevalence of really interesting side gigs outside of people’s main source of earnings. These things that people play around with in their spare time could turn out to be huge.

Observations in their own projects?

- SF hits on a number of themes all at once. The landscape, climate, and physical nature of the city make it a great place for people interested in food. It makes people more interested in food and socializing. Dining is important and being with people is important.

- The city opens the door and makes it easier to trust people and get out of the box.

- SF almost doesn’t need coworking - people are naturally creative on their own time, it’s less pocketed than in other cities.

How is SF different business-wise?

- People are running as fast as they can to make all these cool things. Don’t dick around with law suits; just build something awesome. NDAs aren’t necessary: if I make it better than you I will be successful.

- There’s an attitude of “we don’t know where we’re going but we’re on our way”. Like Twitter, [founder] Evan Williams started it with no real idea of how or why people would use it. It still doesn’t have a business model. They’ll figure it out later.

- We are encouraged to follow where we are naturally inclined to go. “Sure I work at Google but that isn’t really what I do. Hopefully Google won’t take over my whole life.”

What did the dotcom boom do to city?

- Here, you don’t need mounds of VC funding to start something.

- It’s like a forest fire: the most resilient survive.

- It’s totally fine to fail here. Everyone has worked at some failures by now and we all learned from them.

- And, here you fail really fast, which is really really good. Lots of companies fail, it’s just not as loud. You don’t have a F*edCompany anymore.

- Entrepreneurs are working on simultaneous ideas and following the one that works. Shotgun style entrepreneurship.

- We don’t have to start it from scratch. We can stand on the shoulders of the code than came before it.

- Quality of life is much more important this time around.

- If you are spending 14 hours a day at your job, you’re probably not very good at it. We burned ourselves out the last time around and what did we get for it

- There is a nod to the the history of “we’re trying to make the world a better place.” Its an ethic as we’re building ideas.

- Our chief export is start-ups and ideas and that’s what we should keep doing.

What is the coolest part about SF?

- Bay to Breakers used to be a real running race, now it’s just a bunch of craziness.

– Coworking. A lot of ideas are spreading from it.

– Critical Mass. If you need to feel subversive and edgy, you can ride your bike.

– Delfina. Its the best restaurant on earth. They started small and now people come from all over the world to eat there.