Moved to San Francisco: Impressions from first 2 weeks
👋 If you're in the Bay area looking for fellow indiehackers to grab coffee + chat about projects, wanna form a mini support group?
Thirteen months ago, I decided to start saving towards a small sabbatical from work & life. Four months ago settled on San Francisco (vs Seattle / New York / Tulsa). One month ago had going-away-drinks with coworkers. Three weeks ago started driving across Pennsylvania encountering epic gust snow storms in South Dakota, perfect coffee in Salt Lake City, a head full of anxiety regretting this decision, and a slew of audiobooks for the much-needed distraction.
I came here to address a point of personal curiosity - how different is it really to launch a consumer startup in the Bay area, instead of simply actively participating across various online community discord / slack groups.
Looking forward to following up once there's better insight; in the meantime, some early impressions & unexpected findings if helpful for anyone who might be moving here as well:
- Daily cost is ~$140 [1]; prices are 1.5x - 2x relative to Central Pennsylvania.
- Surprisingly difficult to find early-stage founders; most people met so far are either comfortably working at a tech company, or raised $1M+ and fundraising for more.
- App to day-hop various co-working spaces around the Bay area.
- Co-working spaces enhanced with social-club features (eg. event organizer on staff, coordinating lunch, discord server).
- Co-living places resembling a hostel, targeting people in tech.
- Lots of discord servers for San Francisco, San Jose, game developers.
- Some taqueria spots have $1 tacos during 2pm-5pm.
- Coffee shop with goat milk as an alternative-milk option.
- Commuters who board MUNI buses through the back-door rarely pay the fare.
- Locals recommend saving parking costs by parking car in residential area + getting ticket, than pay for monthly garage.
- Locals recommend minimizing car break-in chance by removing everything from interior and parking with armrest + glove compartment open.
- Unlike Manhattan which all kinda feels like the same city, there's huge contrast in neighborhoods that are five miles apart; for example, Mission (infinite social and foodie options, with garbage everywhere) vs Sunset (beautiful and super suburban, probably need a car to avoid a 60min public transportation commute).
Happy to go into more details if helpful; in the meantime, will be collecting more hidden gem suggestions from Bay area veterans 💯
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[1] Expenses encountered so far: AirBnB month $1400. Co-working membership month $200. Parking ticket $96. Average restaurant meal with tip $25. To-go meals like sandwich or burrito $15. Renting scooter to zoom the equivalent of a 20min walk $9. Simple snack like bagel w/ cream cheese or ice cream w/ one flavor $6. Gas per gallon $6. Laundromat $5. Cappuccino $5. Bus fare $3.
