Recently I got the opportunity to do some work with Grubwithus, the social meals startup that allows people to meet and get to know each other over great food. The company has a unique business model and service that may be the future of how people socialize together (in real life), which is one of the reasons I decided to apply for a position with the hot startup.

Since Grubwithus is more service-based than other startups, it doesn’t require the company to be based in San Francisco like most early-stage companies. The founders Eddy and Daishin are from Los Angeles, and with some of the team members already residing there it made sense to base the company in LA.

It’’s 10pm and I just got kicked out of Red Rock Coffee in Mountain View. I’m suppose to roadtrip down to LA with Eddy, Daishin, and Nikhel this evening. They’re an hour late as I loiter on the corner with my bags and get weird stares by passersbys. I start to wonder if maybe this is all a cruel prank. They’re probably watching me from the building across and laughing at this well-groomed looking homeless person.

Luckily it’s not and an event they were speaking at ran a bit late. They roll up and we’re off for a late night drive to La La Land.

The guys are developers so they are semi-nocturnal which means no one needs to sleep on the car ride. Instead, with the same innocence of preteen girls gossiping about their latest crushes, the guys chit-chat about the hottest startups and what trends they see in tech. Y Combinator is an early-stage startup mentoring program, and the abbreviation YC was probably used 400 times during the ride. I recommend anyone who’s interested in starting their own company to get locked in a car for awhile with YC founders. It’s Startup Lessons Learned in a concentrated road trip edition.

We arrive at 4am and no one sleeps. There’s work to be done with the launching of Grubwithus Boston that day.

The next day we realize that we need to eat. This calls for a Costco run. Apparently YC reminded the founders on the importance of eating healthy, so a 40 pound bag of carrots were thrown into the lasagna-filled shopping carts.

Grubwithus is headquartered at a modern work-live space in Venice, but the team’s scrapiness still shines through. Everyone sleeps in sleeping bags, bread is toasted in the oven, and jelly beans supplement as nutritional snacks before the frozen dinner meal of the night.

It’s been fun getting to know the Grubwithus team. Everyone is constantly working hard, but the atmosphere is more light-hearted than stressful. The team genuinely enjoys what it is creating, which makes working 16 hour days seem more like a constant slumber party than a work grind.

The startup lifestyle is not for everyone, but when executed correctly around the right people, it makes for a fulfilling work environment. Or at worst, a blog post to keep fans updated on what’s going on at Grubwithus.