Get a job working at some other startup. You'll get
a) Experience in startups
b) Contacts with all sorts of startuppy people
c) Money
d) Stock, which could be worth a lot someday, if it pans out
e) Freedom and a bunch of contacts of good people recently out of work, if it doesn't.
Also, there are a few non-startup startuppy places. Google and Mozilla rank pretty highly up there. I hear Amazon is pretty good too, though the location isn't as good.
"Startup" conventions are pretty low on intellectual content. Startup School is the only one I'd go to. On the other hand, tech conventions are pretty good: Foocamp/barcamp/superhappydevhouse/pycon/ruby meetups are pretty good. Also, there are a lot of startuppy people in the bay area javascript meetups, if you're in the area. http://javascript.meetup.com/4/
Finally, contests in programming (ICFP, SPOJ, ACM, Topcoder) and math (contest in math modeling, the Putnam), and engineering (DARPA grand challenge, the solar car project, robotics contests) are a good place to find smart, project oriented people with a lot of technical depth, drive, and follow through, though you will often have to sell them on the idea of starting a company.
a) Experience in startups
b) Contacts with all sorts of startuppy people
c) Money
d) Stock, which could be worth a lot someday, if it pans out
e) Freedom and a bunch of contacts of good people recently out of work, if it doesn't.
Also, there are a few non-startup startuppy places. Google and Mozilla rank pretty highly up there. I hear Amazon is pretty good too, though the location isn't as good.
"Startup" conventions are pretty low on intellectual content. Startup School is the only one I'd go to. On the other hand, tech conventions are pretty good: Foocamp/barcamp/superhappydevhouse/pycon/ruby meetups are pretty good. Also, there are a lot of startuppy people in the bay area javascript meetups, if you're in the area. http://javascript.meetup.com/4/
Finally, contests in programming (ICFP, SPOJ, ACM, Topcoder) and math (contest in math modeling, the Putnam), and engineering (DARPA grand challenge, the solar car project, robotics contests) are a good place to find smart, project oriented people with a lot of technical depth, drive, and follow through, though you will often have to sell them on the idea of starting a company.
Good luck!