Murica! – Part 1 – Nadia Ismadi

Good morning guys! *look at watch* It’s 1.05pm. Well… I guess it’s morning somewhere.

Excuse my jetlag. Got back a couple of days ago from Istanbul. Yes, I owe you guys a post on that but now, let’s talk about my trip to the land of weed; San Francisco!

A lot of people asked why was I there, who did I meet, am I going to actually work for Google (I had a photo at Googleplex), what is my actual job and how come I get to travel so much?

Okay the simplest answer to all the above is our company got selected to pitch at YCombinator (which I blogged about here) and got rejected shortly after (which I blogged about here). So my co founder, Yingteng and I were in the US for that and to meet a couple of early stage investors in Silicon Valley.

It was quite an interesting experience for Yingteng and myself since it was our first ever time in America. Woohoo! We got to see the glitzy and the glam of the successful startups in the US, the venture capital area, the shady area (that smelled like weed and pee), met some interesting people and more importantly learnt a lot more about one another. For instance, I learnt that Yingteng can sleep INSTANTLY anywhere and everywhere (literally):

We just go in the train for like 2 mins. And she does this in the car, at the restaurant, while I went shopping but thankfully not during the interview and meetings.

Some people (who ceased to be trusted) told me that it’s not cold in SF. So the sweater seen here was the only warming piece I got. #baddecision #findingnewfriends

Aside from our YC interview, we visited so many places like Nordstrom, Sephora, eh? I meant tech companies like Google, Facebook, Survey Monkey, some other startups, Stanford University, the best crab restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf, etc.

Our trip to Google was really special. The President of MDEC America, Dato’ Dan was our tour guide! He’s such an impressive man with tons of experience building companies. Thanks for your advice and taking us around Dato’ Dan!