Yes, but not even close to reasons I expected.

I went to event after event after event and while they were usually fun they didn’t really provide the value I was hoping to get.  I met a ton of people but the conversations were superficial at best and a waste of time if it was some wannabe investor.  You see what I discovered standing in line for the bathroom at the bar, at a “Welcome to SF” party and literally on the sidewalk in front of the house, is that the magic is not the hyped up events that attract the SF Douchebags (yes, there are some outside of Scottsdale) it is the random meetings and conversations when you least expect them.  There are smart people here and a lot of them, but they have already figured out those events aren’t the places to they claim to be.

Then there is the city itself.  I have lived outside the city in my early 20s but spent many nights and weekends here so I knew what to expect from that point of view, but the public transportation for those living in the city was great.  I wish more cities had this kind of network.  However, it was cold!  I can’t stand the weather up here.  I could never live up here.  I love my 115 degree summers in Phoenix and after this trip I craved the heat and sun of home.

Now to what actually disappointed me.  It seems that the scene up here is pretty different that I expected.  Yes they have cool tech, smart people and put in the work to get things done.  By the goals seem misaligned with what I would want.  Everyone wants to get funded (I can live with that), but then they seem to immediately think of how they can get acquired.  I can appreciate making a quick buck and being the next big acquisition, but steering your company with that as the main goal seems destine to failure.  And the VC’s and investors only perpetuate this attitude looking to recoup their money and profit as quickly impossible, even if it means neutering what could be a game changing company.

I leave having made some great contacts that I hope will continue into friendships and excited to continue the conversations even if over Skype.  I will be back and look forward to meeting more intelligent people, even if it means spending more time in the line for the bathroom.

But come tomorrow, We are all heading back to dry and hot Arizona, yes that retarded state that is currently trying to protect the English language from the taint of illegals and their Spanish. I have a long form post in my head I will write soon but for now here is my summation on our month in San Francisco.

Would we live here? Probably not. Maybe down in the Valley.. I am a suburb guy, I want my 3 car garage and some privacy on my front porch. SF is a wicked nice place, but it is also dirty, smells like urine at times and something unclassified by science at others, seems overrun by deranged homeless and hipster’s posing as deranged homeless to be ironic. It also had amazing weather, excellent food, great public trans, culture, great museums and my personal car service @uber. The people we know here are fantastic and really did a great job welcoming us in and showing us around. As for meeting new people; we hit our share of tech events and conversations seemed to be motivated by superficial tech name dropping; but everyone seemed like good people.

Would we move Page.ly here? Maybe. Although I actually think the vibe here is antithetical to our Work ethic.  In SF it is: Idea > Funding > Pivot > Funding > Pivot > Funding > Maybe Profit  > Maybe exit.  Out in the desert, every plant or cactus you see had to endure the elements and scarcity for years to stake a claim, and will be around long after the spring flowers burn up in the summer sun. With no access to capital we had to actually test and build our business, a real business that made revenue on customer #1 and customer #1000 to survive. I think overall it has made us a much better business with staying power. Now that we have built a solid foundation, perhaps moving the company to SF to accelerate it makes sense, but for now we will just keep our office here.

Is SF better then PHX? Yes in about 1000 ways. But that backasswards red state that forgot it used to be part of Mexico doesn’t suck all that bad, especially when folks like us choose to change it for the better vs. abandoning it and moving to SF.

I have prodded Chase, Benner, Sally, and Chavez to all write a post about their time here, we’ll see if they do.

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After being here for 2.5 weeks, I have seen some of what the author is sharing.

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Rocking my @zendesk tee next to cool guy at SFMOMA

our 35 friends on phxsf deserve some love #

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