Startups and Community
My cofounder Kevin and I landed in Shenzhen, China on Monday, September 23, 2019 to participate in the HAX accelerator. Six days later, we took a weekend trip to Hong Kong with our other partners and other HAX founders. Six months later, the folks at HAX had turned into life-long allies, confidants, and most importantly, friends.
The startup community is a truly special fellowship. And in classic startup terminology, I think its uniqueness is a function of friction. Friction to trust, friction to assistance, friction to meaningful friendship. Once you wear the label “I build startups,” all of that friction evaporates much faster than you’d expect. We tend to trust people who share our passions and professions. I don’t know why that is, but through pain and victories, some sort of bond is formed. It creates a sense of connection - once you are one of us, our arms are open to you.
This phenomenon has been especially true of local startup communities. We started Sidework (back then, it was called Backbar) in an apartment in midtown Atlanta, and we immediately joined the Create-X community. There, Karthik Ramchandran taught us about pricing models. Rahul Saxena was one of my first calls when we had our first ever term sheet. Chase Brooks, then-CEO of Cheff, helped teach us about building in the hospitality space. Later, at HAX, I met my brother-from-another-mother, Noah Hill, and Garrett Winther, who remains a friend and trusted mentor to this day. The list goes on and on, but the theme is the same: genuine connection with minimal friction.
Another thing that’s unique about startup folks is our ability to optimistically identify faults, because we’re always just “one iteration away” from getting it right. Recently, Sidework was featured in the San Diego Business Journal, and it helped me recognize one of my missteps: when we got to San Diego, we just started building. We hit the ground running, and I didn’t spend time connecting with the local startup community. We’re iterating on that now, growing our home team with a bunch of recently-posted local jobs and building local relationships.
As an open offer, I’d love to grab coffee or a drink with anybody in the San Diego startup community. I’d be happy to host at our Morena office or meet you at your favorite spot! We’ll also be throwing a holiday party to test out the newest iteration of our automated beverage dispenser - more details to come on this. Our hands are out and our arms are open. Come visit our office, apply for one of our roles, grab a coffee, just send an email - whatever it is, I would love to connect and talk about the future of startups in San Diego.
Talk soon,
Rishabh Kewalramani • rishabh@sidework.co
