You step off the airplane/bus/train with your one way ticket. Your now in Silicon Valley, capital of the start-up world.<p>You have nothing except motivation to create something to change the world, a bit of technical knowledge to work your way around REST, and enough money for cheap motel room for a day or two.<p>Other than to look for a hidden park benches to sleep in and looking for the bus map, what do you do next? Where do you go next? Where do you stop by?
You go to the homeless shelter. You stop by the community colleges job office and construction sites looking for day labor jobs so that you can buy food. You go to the park all day and hang around the water fountain where you at least have water. Later you panhandle at the freeway exit ramp. After a few days you get chased out of a coffee shop due to your appearance and smell.
1. I would have highly recommended you work on whatever project on the side BEFORE moving to Silicon Valley. Get feedback, build a prototype, launch, fix bugs, etc, and go somewhere with it.<p>2. THEN I would have recommended moving at that point, finding other startup folks looking for roommates, and join in. Gives you like minded folks who hopefully will turn out to be good roommates.<p>3. Finally, I'd continue working on said project and start hitting up meetups/events to spread the word while getting feedback and making new friends along the way.<p>Given that isn't what you're asking and say you are in SV without a project or anything going on, first order is still to find a place to live and an income source. Then proceed to work on said idea (as mentioned above) and go mingle to get some friends.
You take that couple of days work of motel rooms and buy a plane ticket back to Iowa and you go back and stop being foolish and have something worthwhile before you move to the Valley. The Valley doesn't make or break you, what you bring with does.