I’ve said it before but I’ll repeat it. In my opinion, Silicon Valley is the most vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in the world. The sheer amount of venture capital available helps but there’s a lot more than money that you can’t quantify and makes it unique. It’s hard to replicate the dozens of tech meetups happening everyday where people discuss any startup-related subject you can imagine. It’s even harder to replicate the collaborative culture you can find here. Everyone openly discusses their future plans and you feel like anyone you stop on the street can give you extensive and valuable feedback for your business.

This is what I call the “insider bias”. Just by being here, you’re exposed to ideas and concepts that others don’t have access to, but you hear them so many times that at some point you think everyone knows it. Everyone knows about the lean startup cycle, the 90/9/1 ratio, or the freemium conversion funnel, right? Wrong! One of the things that impressed me the most about Silicon Valley is the level of tech-related discussions you can get. With anyone! They might not know the difference between income and revenue but they can give you a half hour talk about how UI is different than UX.

You can’t replicate that, but you can immerse yourself in this ecosystem even without being here. How? Connecting to the Silicon Valley information hubs, attending virtual events, reading, interacting with local people, even working for people in Silicon Valley. It’s an organic process and can take its time, but slowly you can start feeling as if you were here. Here is how I did it.

1. Twitter. First, I started following relevant people on Twitter. The particular list of names is personal and debatable (the list of people I follow is public and you can check it at twitter.com/hugobernardo), and it will depend on the type of business you’re running. If you’re into tech, then you might want to check Techcrunch, Business Insider, or the newest Pandodaily. If you’re going to be a founder, you should follow some VCs and angels. You can check “The Most Respected Venture Capitalists” to start with. If you’re in the wine business, like I am, follow the most relevant wine bloggers and reviewers. You don’t have to be checking every single tweet, and you should definitely curate your list, but Twitter has this strange effect that makes you feel like you’re best friends with the people you follow, which makes you a little more of an insider. Even if you and I know you’re not ;)
2. Hacker News. I find Hacker News, Y Combinator’s news and discussion forum, is an invaluable source of help and information, in a way I don’t find anywhere else (except maybe attending live events). The name says it all - most people hanging out there are hackers, a lot from outside Silicon Valley. Try to contribute whenever you can, but even if you don’t, you can read about the latest in technology, and learn from people who are the real deal.
3. eMeetings & classes. Meetups are an incredible way of learning and receiving feedback. The problem, of course, is that you need to be here to attend. However, a lot of events now stream live, and the number is increasing. Of course, you don’t get to network but you’ll learn a lot. Go to meetup.com and find the groups that interest you the most, then check which events stream live. Also, Stanford has a lot of online resources (classes, conferences, etc), and attendance is free. Here’s the link.

Do these 3 things and you’ll quickly feel as if you were here. That way, whenever you decide to come to Silicon Valley, you won’t sound as if you’re alien. Plus, you’ll likely establish useful connections in the process that will make the transition a lot easier.

I’m going to take a break from being a bitter motherfu**er who criticizes everything to actually complement an idea I recently heard about. Disclaimer: I was not asked to promote this nor do I have any sort of participation on this idea.

Talking to a friend sometime ago, I heard of this program that was sponsoring Portuguese early stage ventures to come to Silicon Valley for 3 months and learn something new. I thought the idea was smart but I lacked more detail and finally a few days ago I managed to talk to Torben Rankine, who runs the show here in the Bay Area.

The program is called Global Strategic Innovation Accelerators (I’m out of breath!) and the URL is longer than my Firefox address bar. Otherwise the idea is fairly simple. Every quarter, 3 companies are picked to come to Silicon Valley to spend 3 months at the Plug & Play Tech Center and interact with the Bay Area’s entrepreneurial community and ecosystem. The companies can have different goals but they do have a goal they’re trying to accomplish during the 3 months. The program sponsors part of the expenses although companies have to pay a small fee and living expenses.

The application form is short and to the point and the whole process is fairly transparent. As you can guess, I would change a bunch of the program’s details but overall this is a great idea for a number of reasons:

1. Companies have to pay. Everything free is deemed worthless so the fact that companies actually have to pay, even a small amount, ensures that whoever is applying is serious about it.

2.  Immersion in the Silicon Valley community. If you want to learn entrepreneurship, you have to live it, talk to founders and investors, see it with your own eyes, and the SF Bay Area is arguably the best place to learn entrepreneurship.

3. No bullshit. This is not an academic program – it’s not about listening to a bunch of people telling you how to do stuff. There’s a small training component but this is you, your idea and your goal, and it’s up to you to take the most out of it.

In brief, what I like about this idea is that it’s simple yet powerful and can produce long-term impact. It’s not the typical government-run ultra-bureaucratic free program that treats you like you’re 5 years old and makes you fill 100-page application forms and in the end requires a 50-page report. As I said, I would still change a few things and make it leaner, less formal and find a shorter name and URL. But that’s me.

Putting it together and running it is a great achievement and I hope this gets some deserved publicity back home. And of course, it’s always good to meet interesting countrymen and discuss ideas in Portuguese. If you’re around, there are enough buttons around this website that will allow you to reach me.