A Honda Civic Bedroom in Silicon Valley

In 2013 Austen Allred, then a 23-year-old entrepreneur from Utah, was working on Grasswire, a news startup he described as the newsroom of the Internet. He was running out of money, and to save what he had while meeting investors in Silicon Valley, he lived out of his car for three months during a road trip to California.

The car was a 2002 Honda Civic coupe. At night he parked near a church and slept across the front and back seats in a sleeping bag. In the mornings he showered and got ready at a local YMCA, and during the day he worked at Hacker Dojo, a coworking space in Silicon Valley. He told NextShark that he was out of money, and the interview carries the title of being homeless for three months to find funding.

There were signs the idea had traction. After the Boston Marathon bombing, the Grasswire site drew more than 6,000 unique visitors on its first day and about 10,000 the next. By the time of the interview, thousands of people were on a waiting list and he had received investment offers, though he had not yet closed a funding round. He mentioned that the Secret Service had recently threatened to tow his car. He also lined up four job offers the day before his wedding, and took a job after returning from his honeymoon.

Allred later became co-founder and chief executive of Lambda School, now known as the Bloom Institute of Technology. Big Think notes he is a native of Springville, Utah, co-authored the growth marketing book Secret Sauce, and, during his time at the accelerator Y Combinator in 2017, lived again in his two-door Civic.