San Francisco, and the Bay Area in general, is so much cooler than Southern California. Even though I was born and raised in Long Beach, I just feel like people have a better idea of what’s really going on up there.
I arrived for Noise Pop late on Tuesday night then on Wednesday I pondered what I’d do with my days in town. I was a bit under the weather and needed to make sure I got rest after slinging cream at the Noise Pop shows at night but I don’t get up to San Fran with cream enough and figured I should hit some places up.
The first stop was Wednesday and I headed down to Palo Alto to meet with Rachel and Charles at Ning to see about possibly integrating their social network platform with our new site. Afterwards the whole office was having a birthday celebration in the main dining area and I rolled the truck around playing my tunes then hooked everyone up with some frozen goodness.
I was drawing a blank about who we knew up north so on Thursday morn I searched my inbox for San Francisco and started sending out emails to all the friends I found. First was Enid who used to work at Bimbo’s 365 and officially bought the first ICM shirt from our site. Next was Tom at SPIN, then Shane at Imeem and the list went on. Replies started rolling in and I lined up a few stops. For Thursday the plan was to hit SPIN then Imeem for starters. Enid mentioned her husband, Jason, worked at Pixar just on the other side of the Bay Bridge and that we had a lot of fans over there. We talked about stopping by but there’s over 800 people at the headquarters. I told him to do some research and check on the possibility but not to mention it to anyone because, until I got to the city, I wouldn’t know if I’d be able to make it over by 4.
After hitting up the SPIN office I walked outside and saw Justine standing next to the truck. We’d met once before and exchanged a few emails and I asked her what she was up to for the next few hours. She said nothing and I told her to hop on in, we’re going to Pixar. Before we headed across the bridge, we stopped by Imeem and everyone came out to the truck and filled up. They have a great office by the ballpark downtown and they even had a ping pong table and a couple ice cream man stickers plastered around.
Justine and I were extremely excited about the opportunity of throwing a huge ice cream social at Pixar. The security guards ushered us in and parked us directly in front of the main entrance. The building is roughly the size of a football field with two stories and we were parked right on the fifty yard line. We had a few minutes to spare and I told Jason, Ok… you need to help on the truck and take all the credit for getting us to come by. That way if you have any favors you need done, you’ll have some brownie points built up.
It was a beautiful day and everything went off without a hitch. (Check a vid here) After an hour-and-a-half of slinging Jason brought us inside for a tour. As of 5 hours ago, I had NO idea I’d be here. And now we were getting a full tour. It’d take me days to rattle off all the cool stuff we saw. Sketches and sculptures from Ratatouille and a bunch of other art and work-in-progress collectibles from previous Pixar films. We even lucked out and got the extended tour and got to see John Lasseter’s office and toy collection that stretchs from celling to floor, and then some. The highlight came when we went into the animators work area and they had a full band from Chuck E. Cheese’s. You know… the stuffed animated band that used to play during your birthday party? Well… they have a full set up. The list go on and on too. It was extremely inspiring to see a business that was so unconventionally put together yet so successful. If someone woulda said 15 years ago that they wanted to make $200 million dollar cartoons, or animated features, there’d be very few people who’d be itching to invest. They’ve done it their way and look where it’s gotten them. Congrats to everyone.
On Friday morning I headed by Wonder Ice Cream in Newark to restock on Big Dipper cones then south to Milipitas to meet with Sean at SanDisk and sling some cream there. We chatted for a bit about some different ideas and our plans for 2008 then headed over to the cafeteria area to do our thing. SanDisk has over 3000 employees so we had to stealth it a bit and not send out a company-wide email blast. The security guards were super friendly and helped get people turned on to the free cream. Eventually the line grew to over a dozen people and I knew I had to make a break for it before things got out of hand. I filled up a box of mixed treats, handed it to Sean to give away then skipped off. After finishing some grub at In and Out Burger, I had three groups of people stop by in 10 minutes and say they saw me on Rob and Big. Damn… a lot of people must watch that show.
Bessie and I were hoping to stop by Facebook but apparently they weren’t down. I had been in touch with Forrest Glick who is the Project Director of the Standford Technology Ventures Program Educators Corner. They have videos and podcasts from past entrepreneurs who have spoke at Stanford and I highly recommend checking some of them out if you’re starting your own business. We didn’t really have a set place to park so I just drove as close to the center of campus as possible then parked and turned my chimes on. It was slow going but eventually Paige and her two sons stopped by and we hung out and chatted while slinging away. Forrest came by for a bit and we touched base and as the sun started to set, I called it a day. Wow.. it’s amazing what you can accomplish in two days with little notice and and ice cream truck.
