I went to Startup school in 2012, and although the talks and event were good, is there a strong reason to go to the physical event over watching the live stream? I remember it being difficult to network, and not having much time to do so. I guess the "energy" was nice, lots of Stanford students and startup hopefuls that were really excited, but I didn't get any value out of being there. Was I just doing it wrong? Is it because there wasn't anyone there in my network to introduce me to people. Was it an age\experience or because I work in a tangential industry? Curious to see what people's thought are as to what they get out of going to the event outside of the talks.
I lol'd at Jessica Livingstone at the Women's conference telling attendees to not get distracted and do things like... go to conferences.
There is some networking but that has a pretty dubious cost\benefit. You can treat it as a day off that might help you view your startup from the outside. If you are in a very isolated place then a bit of startup buzz might be nice. However, if you've got shit to do, I wouldn't bother and just watch the talks on youtube at your own pace in your downtime.
I went to Startup School in 2014 (this was at De Anza, not Stanford) and made one good friend at the pre-Startup School BBQ. IMO that alone made the meet and greet cocktail party nature of the pre-event worthwhile. I don't think the "meet people" aspect was nearly as strong during the actual event.
The talks were "inspiring/motivational rather than practical/tactical", and I agree that you can get 95% of the value from the video streams. I think that being in the presence of "luminaries" will bring you back down to earth realizing that they're just ordinary folks at the end of the day.
Most of this stuff is noise, but Startup School is a notable exception. I found the combination of great talks and interesting attendees made it a decent use of time. Oh, and it's free. :)
As for networking, like most of these things your mileage will vary depending on your base networking-quotient * luck (who you happen to talk to).
There are definitely worse ways to invest a Saturday.
I've been several times. I think if you're from Northern California (you can drive to the event in < 90 minutes), it's worth it because there's a pretty good crowd of interesting people to talk to. But I don't think it's worth flying in just for the event. It would be worth it if part of a larger Bay Area vacation / business / touring trip.
I went a few years ago when it was at De Anza (2014?). There's a fun energy to the day and there are some networking opportunities during the lunch hour and breaks. It's worth checking out if you've never been and are nearby.
Fwiw: I came to startup school in 2012. One yc founder was kind enough to house me.
I bought a 1 way ticket to San Francisco.
I met someone who referred me to a startup hostel. I stayed there for about a month and met my co-founder. We decided what to focus on and got into yc 2 years later.
You never know what can happen. Startups school is what you make of it.
I went to this in 2014 (they didn't do it in 2015 I guess?)
The BBQ event night before was more awesome than the actual event! Although I was too shy to network, luckily I found some other introverts :D
Visiting the YC HQ was a dream come true for me.
Too bad I am away and won't be able to attend it this time.
My cofounder and I were hoping to attend startup school. Surprisingly, we don't have a name or a URL but we do have a prototype and interested customers! Is there any good way to batch our applications together?
Domains are cheap; why not just buy one and make up a working name for now?
Alternatively, you can get webhosting on subdomains for free on sites like tumblr, so at worst you could do that (but the former doesn't seem that much harder but seems a lot more professional.)
Another option would be to each put the same string in those fields; the grouping (assuming there is one; I haven't looked into it in depth) probably would be based on string matching rather an actual website existing.
A word of advice for anyone who hopes to use electronic devices at Startup School: Make sure they're fully charged before you arrive. There are very few power outlets in the Flint Center, and (unless they've changed their policy in the past two years) the staff won't even let you use those few that exist.
In my case I wanted to charge my laptop, but yes, extra batteries could have helped there too. There are a variety of solutions; I just wanted to alert people to a potential problem before they arrived.
