Shaan's SF Leap

Shaan tells a story about how he decided to move to San Francisco after realizing all the serious startup founders had left Australia.

"I was in Australia and there's not a lot of startups there. I asked the guy I was with, 'Hey, who's the most impressive founder you've met?' He's like, 'This guy.' I'm like, 'Cool, can I meet him?' 'No, he doesn't live here anymore.'

That happened three times. I asked, 'Where are all those guys? Where'd they move to?' 'Yeah, they moved to San Francisco.' Of course, that's where the people who are serious about startups go.

I thought, 'What the hell am I doing here?' It feels weird to move - gotta break a lease, I don't know anyone there, where am I gonna go? It's unknowns. But I asked myself, 'Am I serious about this or not?' I decided to be serious about it.

I literally changed my phone number to a San Francisco area code - mentally commit. I started telling people I'm moving to San Francisco. I had no plans yet, I didn't know anything, but I'm moving to San Francisco. I started job hunting only in San Francisco, started looking at places, signed a lease, found a place to live, and I just flew here on a one-way ticket. I said, 'This is where I want to be in order to make that happen.' That's the proximity's power principle."