Nitro

Nitro in the Cloud @ The New Office

November 15th, 6:00pm-9:00pm

There was quite the security at Nitro.
I made it in though and was approached by an Australian man who turned out to be the CEO, Sam Chandler.  Sam and I chatted for a bit before taking this awkward photo by the bathroom.  I had heard about this place, and Nitro's new home base so I told him I was there to scope out the scene. He told me he had a feeling that I may have done this before, which makes me think that either I've gotten really good at crashing company events, or he's just got a really good intuition about things. I want to say it's the combination because this is Sam's third startup and they're now up to 100 employees and this is my 33rd company crash and I'm up to over 3,500 views.

Nitro was built with this idea of driving the digital document revolution. Milo, the wombat, is the company mascot that has a turbine strapped to his back. Even with an obvious Australian undertone, Nitro felt very San Francisco. They had a ping pong table, a well stocked snack bar, no cubicles, 2 DJ booths, and too many booze fridges to count -and they even invited me back the next evening for their "Club Nitro Friday Night."

Nitro is an opportunity for people to build or create something really special, kind of like this blog... No bullshit -crashed it!

Allied Technical Services

ATS Client Appreciation @ Thirsty Bear

Nov 15th 6:00-9:00pm 

ATS was hosting an event which was the second stop on my "three company crashings in three hours" tour. This was the invitation I got my hands on and in conjunction with the Green Expo, it inspired me be more green myself by recycling this paper invitation that I received for it. While crashing this event with Allied Technical Services, I couldn't find a single person that worked there. On their homepage they say, "We're there when you need us, where you need us" so I assume they're just that dedicated to what they do that they all left their own party to work on some plumbing emergency. ATS is frequently called upon to assist designers with the preparation of plumbing specification packages and this was their client appreciation event. I have to admit, that I'm not a client but I did appreciate the flash drive they provided me with. I also appreciate that more people have been asking how I crash all these company events, so I've decided to share how to do it in three simple steps.

1. You get a hold of the invite details.
2. You figure out how to crash it.
3. You crash it.

That's pretty much all there is to it.

Crashed it, with the ATS crew (wherever they were).

Blend

Blend Networking Reception @ The Hub

November 15th, 6:00-9:00pm

I crashed the Blend Networking Reception by getting a Greenbuild Conference pass. I wanted to see what the green guys were up to these days and ended up in a hammock at the Hub.   I mingled with the B Corporation Community while I tasted Veev, the world's first Acai Spirit. Acai (pronounced ah-sigh-ee) is the exotic tasting Brazilian national fruit thought to be the healthiest fruit on the planet. Their green thing is that 1% of sales go to rainforest preservation and environmental causes. 

Somehow I ended up with Santiago Halty's business card, the Founder & CEO of Senda. I don't remember ever meeting him though, but I did see his balls. This fair trade soccer ball company is based in Berkely and they believe fairness is a game changer, so I decided to be more fair by clarifying something. When I tell you I'm not "the party crasher" -it's true... because I'm actually a company event crasher (which is a lot more professional and underground).

Slideshare

SlideShare & The Costume Party 
November 1st 6:00-9:00pm

This is what I would classify as a confusing company crash. 

I walked into this business event and everyone was in costume. Although I clearly didn't get that memo, it was now November and that wasn't even the confusing part. It turns out that this was in fact a different company event then I was intending to crash. There were two business events going on in the same building at the same time. This was not the SlideShare event, but a different company party... SlideShare was on the third floor. 

I did make it to SlideShare that night and celebrated this event crash with a few people from LinkedIn. Earlier this year LinkedIn acquired SlideShare so I grabbed myself a product analyst there and attempted to re-create the logo, but with beer. SlideShare allows you to upload presentations, documents and videos. It's essentially a YouTube for PowerPoints. 

SlideShare allows for more sharing experiences, knowledge and creme brulee.
It's so obvious, SF loves to share. 

Crashed it.

Shared it.

Total Heliski

Total Heliski's Launch Party @ One Market St. Restaurant

November 6:00-8:00pm 

This is me crashing the launch of the Heliski tour, with Hayley Melidonis (CEO of Toal Heliski) and Patric Maloney (President of Snowwater).  All three of us appreciate good skiing and good wine so we came together to talk about a place that has both.  Total Heliski was set up by heli skiers, for heli skiers and boarders and to be honest here, I didn't even know what heliskiing was until I crashed this event. It turns out, this niche adventure is popping up all around the world in order access untouched terrain. By flying there in a helicopter it's a luxurious adventure and pretty much the best possible ski experience you can have. The video footage looked as if these skiers were gliding down clouds and you literally could see the weightlessness while watching it. With guaranteed fresh powder tracks and no lift lines by helicopter, heliskiing takes skiing to a higher level of appreciation -putting the ski lift in the sky.

This other photo is a moment caught of me talking about something interesting to Ari Tulla (CEO & Co-Founder of Better Doctor). http://betterdoctor.com Better Doctor is a new app that is committed to simplifying healthcare and helping every American find the right doctor. It solves the problem of discovering and booking doctors by putting great effort towards simplicity and transparency. Now having helped 6 million consumers find doctors including me, quoting Ari, "Ideas matter, but execution rules" and I support that, because if I didn't execute on my idea I would never have landed me this Heli hat.

Citizen Space

The Future of Work  @ Citizen Space

October 29th 6:00-9:00pm

I strolled into this Citizen Space event to see if it really was what they claimed as a "nicer place to work." SOMA has become a hub for start-ups, and with that, came a growth of co-working spaces because people in SF love to share -even ideas. I also knew Philip Rosedale (the Founder of Second Life) would be there. I value his thoughts and with a "don't ask, just do it mentality," I knew he would understand why I crashed his event.

There's an inordinate amount of innovation here, and I can confirm this because I sat in a room full of entrepreneurs that evening. Philip recently debuted his new app, Coffee & Power -a marketplace for skill-based jobs. This new platform was inspired by Second Life and the value that people were getting from each others skills and capabilities. In Philip's talk about his new venture he brought up the fact that there's still only a 20% success rate for any single start-up, yet San Francisco thrives on start-ups because this city is full of risk takers. Which explains why I was inspired to try out out the whole start-up thing too. I created a hand sanitizer for the dog leash.  www.CleanPetHands.com

This talk highlighted how impactful sharing can be, so I thought I'd share three points that I took away from crashing this event.
1. If we fail, we will be OK.
2. Capitalize on the constant serendipitous encounters.
3. Crazy ideas succeed... so feel free to share them at Citizen Space.