So, the WebMission trip to take 20 startups to visit Silicon Valley got off to a flying start. All 29 of our party turned up on time for the flight, which took off on time as planned. Astounding.
The ten hour flight to San Francisco was notable only for the vaguely 1970s feel of the 747, helped by those overhead TV screens which have seen better days. But moving around to avoid deep vein thrombosis was a great excuses to chat to fellow WebMissioners (more info on them from CrunchBase).
Browsing through the on-board “Sky Mall” catalogue reminded us that America is the innovative land of the gadget, where you can get a custom made insole kit (whatever that is) or an inflatable screen for projecting movies in your garden. Useful.
Tonight we step out for ‘open invite‘ drinks at the Clift Hotel to meet other US startups and investors. Or at least, that’s the plan…
Update: Here’s Oli Barretts take on things so far.
The best & brightest of our community headed to SF to take the place by storm — wish I was with you!
Good luck all – keep us updated on how things go! BTW, what airline were you flying – 747s with overhead screens?? I didnt know those still existed!
Shafqat – FYI – The airline was United Airlines.
Just a quick question , was looking at the attending companies. Is dothomes simply a search engine that scraps from home sale/rental sites or is there more to them ?
I see Zebtab!
Esi – Answer is yes, it doesn’t just do that.
I like Paul Walsh’s hat.
Were there any women on this trip. If not why not?
So Web Mission isn’t just a grand excuse for a boys on tour sponsored pissup. Well read this unofficial blog http://alljustwords.blogspot.com/ by Paul Carr. So far we have Robert Loch telling dirty jokes and getting drunk with his co-founder Scott.
Most of the focus seems to be which party to go to next and which singles event can they attend. I am sure the stripbar trips will not be broadcast by Paul Walsh using Qik.
I think what Ollie Barrett has done is a good initiative, so well done chap but I will wait and see what the outcome of this taxpayer jolly will be. My bet is a big fat zero.
Frances Style – Skimbit CEO Alicia Navarro is on the trip (just not visible on the bus) and Cary Marsh Co-founder of Mydeo was invited but couldn’t come so Co-founder Iain Millar came instead.
Paul Williams – The Saturday and Sunday were understandably light on business meetings for the group as it’s… the weekend. FYI Robert Loch / Paul Carr etc are not part of this trip and are not attending any official meetings or tours. If you’d like to peruse the agenda, you’ll see it’s all open and transparent (and I’d ask to you name a similar tour with as much openness) http://webmission08.com/agenda.html