My name is Tyler Wilson and I am the new intern at Coffee & Power for this summer! My first day was Monday last week and I’ve had a great time so far. I got in from Boston a week and a half ago and since then everything has been moving pretty quickly. It is quite refreshing to be in a new city, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how friendly and outgoing the people in San Francisco are, whether you are buying a coffee or looking for directions everyone seems to be very receptive to conversation.

First Day

Monday was a great first day. I first made the decision that I would be making the 25 minute walk to work instead of taking public transportation, as it would help me get a better feel for the city and give me some time to think. I quickly realized my route would take me through Buena Vista Park, and the name did not disappoint. Here’s the view from my walk and one from the top of the hill:

I spent my whole first day reading up on the brief history of the company, as well as the future goals and working culture that Coffee and Power seeks to create. I am fascinated by some of the ideas this company is run on, including the new take on employee rewarding and stock options described earlier in the blog. I left work with a feeling of great anticipation of what is to come later this summer.

Digging In…

On my second day I headed to the Mercury Café on Octavia Boulevard with the iPhone app in hand with the goal of getting to know where the app is today from the perspective of a real user. I watched as people came in, plugged in, ordered coffee, and sat down to do their work. I also noticed a very limited amount of collaboration between them. Is someone who is wearing headphones really receptive to helping me or not, and what is he or she working on? These are the type of questions can be answered through an app like C&P. I wrote up a page or so on the parts of the app I enjoyed working with as well as those that were less satisfying, and coming from someone who had not really used the app before I hope my impressions and suggestions were useful to the development team.

Solar Powered

On Wednesday, I sat in as our co-founder Philip explained  our app to Amber at the pariSoma coworking space just a couple of blocks away. It was cool to see how the app could apply to an established space like pariSoma, and it seemed like Amber was really psyched about what the app might be able to bring to her business in the future. I spent the rest of the day with Philip working on the mobile, solar-powered  WiFi and power station that we hope to set up in a park some in the coming weeks (see picture below). We were able to get some actual power flowing through the charge controller as a solid proof of concept, and as a mechanical engineer I am really looking forward to further developments on the system.

Getting Feedback

Thursday morning I headed over to pariSoma for a pilot of how C&P could work in an established coworking location. By offering a free lunch we were able to get a bunch of new sign ups as well as find a couple of bugs and get some really good feedback on the app in general. It was really interesting to see the different types of people who work in a space like this and to see the different ways that they wanted to use the app. I feel we gained some very valuable insight from this trip and I hope people at pariSoma will continue to spread the app so that we can continue to get feedback from them.

It was an awesome first week and I cant wait to see what’s in store for me the rest of the summer!