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A few weeks ago, I wrote about a challenge Darren Herman posted on his blog. The title of my post, and the challenge itself, was “What would you do with 750,000 users?”
Fast-forward a week, and Kevin Marshall sees my article in his RSS reader; but, because of some sort of error in Google Reader, all he sees is the question “What would you do with 750,000″ — full stop.
“What would you do with $750,000?” he wrote me? “What an interesting question!” (I’m paraphrasing)
That, of course, wasn’t the question, but the question so intrigued Kevin that we emailed back and forth for a while and then he followed up with this post titled “What to do… What to do…,” asking his readers:
Now I know the simple answer is to say you would invest it in growing the business…but what I’m looking for is more an answer along the lines of a quick bullet list, breaking down the distribution…
And he goes on to give a expense breakdown for a startup.
While I think that’s an interesting and useful way to answer the question, I think Kevin has generated question which deserves a broader set of answers.
You see, the question “what to do? what to do?” asked to an entrepreneur, will elicit an answer 100% dependent on everything from the day of the week and the type of company she’s operating — and especially sensitive to subtle (but seen only by visionaries) market trends.
Therefore, to one entrepreneur, the question about 750,000 users of a web portal is a much different question than that of 750,000 dollars (imagine the needs of an entrepreneur starting a green tech company), or 750,000 acres (consider the rancher).
Perhaps, then, the question should be, “What do you need 750,000 of to succeed?”
How would you jump-start your company? If you can unquestionably identify it, you probably deserve it.
You hear it every day by VCs, entrepreneurs, and strategists…
“It’s not about the idea… it’s about the execution of it.”
Entrepreneurs who still need to learn this lesson should look no farther than this post from Paul Graham called “Startup Ideas We’d Like to Fund.”
In this post, Paul lists 30 ideas (more like concepts) which need to have real businesses behind them. “30 free business ideas from Paul Graham?!” you may ask, wondering if he’s gone crazy, giving away such valuable information.
But the ideas are not the point, it’s how and whether or not you execute on them.
For example, the following bullets (click through to read Paul’s details on each) are ideas which I’ve had detailed and explicit business ideas for:
3. New news.
7. Something your company needs that doesn’t exist.
12. Fix advertising.
17. New payment methods.
23. More open alternatives to Wikipedia.
29. Easy site builders for specific markets.
30. Startups for startups.
So, of course these are problems, and of course I would have had specific and plausible ideas for how to address each one of them; however, that’s not the point. The point is what I or you or anyone else ends up doing.
The real signs of an entrepreneur, therefore, is someone who does. You don’t have to do right, but you have to do — and your fabulous idea… well, that’s not enough.
I’ve been increddibly deliquent in writing more BricaBox post-mortems, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t learn from others’ mistakes.
Check out Roger Ehrenberg’s post-mortem for Monitor110, which was one of his first early stage investments (and a company he was opperationally involved in).
Roger’s an extrememly thoughtful and insightful guy, so all “7 deadly sins” should be taken to heart.
Every so often, there’s an event I have to tell you about, and Ignite NYC is one of those. Founded by Brady Forest and Bre Pettis, this event is like a traveling TED Conference. I’ve seen Ignite in San Francisco, and let me tell you: it’s quite an event.
The first Ignite NYC is going to happen 7/29 at M1-5. We are going to feature 16 speakers. Each speaker will get 20 slides that auto-advance after 15 seconds for a total of five-minutes. Ignite is free and open to the public — you’re on your own for drinks. We’re also going to be joined by Ignite co-creator, Bre Pettis. Bre is going to lead us in a creative soldering contest.
The night will begin with:
7:00 PM - Doors Open
7:30 PM - NYC Soldering Championship
8:30 PM Ignite Talks:
Jessica Bruder (author) - How to be an Undercover Hooker (reprising her talk on taking an NYPD course)
Tony Bacigalupo (New Work City, CoWorkingNY) - NYC’s Startup Scene: Where are the geeks?
Karen McGrane (Bond Arts + Science) - From Typing to Swiping: Interaction Design has come a long way!
Rose White (Yarnivore) - Weird and wonderful knitting — graffiti and science and art combined!
Audacia Ray (Village Voice) - Porn as a front runner in technology innovations
Charlie O’Donnell (Path 101, This Is Going To Be Big) - Shaving your head: When to start, how to maintain, and to BIC or not to BIC?
Charles Forman (ImInLikeWithYou) - How to date celebrichauns with founder fetish
Natalie Jeremijenko (NYU XDesign) - A bomb shelter for the climate crisis
Pat Allan - So you’re a kick-arse coder…
Joel Johnson (Boingboing) - Indie Games: At Least They’re Free!
Nick Bilton (NY Times, NYC Resistor) - The Future of News
Dustyn Roberts (NYU’s ITP, Honeybee Robotics) - Flying High with Engineers Without Borders (on building a Kite Aerial Photography rig for mapping in Kenya)
Nate Westheimer (Rose Tech Ventures, Sparkspace) - The Charisma Economy: Success in the age of authenticity
David Rose (Rose Tech Ventures, Sparkspace) - How to get your startup funded
As you can see from where I bolded, I’m especially excited for this event because I’ll be debuting a talk I’ve been working on for some time. The talk is titled “The Charisma Economy: Success in the age of authenticity,” and it’s inspired by a lot of the theory I used to study and included in my college thesis on Leadership.
Anyway, it will be great if you can make it. A lot of my friends are also presenting and I just think this is an awesome opportunity to show off the New York tech scene leading up to the Web 2.0 Expo in New York this September (which will be accompanied by the Web2Open, which I’m organizing and will write about next week).
The challenge to entrepreneurs is to solve this problem:
I’d like to pose a challenge to all entrepreneurs or established companies who are looking to increase their distribution (and business) in the digital media world. I’m friendly advising someone/company that has legal access to over 750,000 US Internet users and we are trying to come up with new ways to monetize the audience.
Distribution will come from access to a ‘portal’ like page and thru email announcements. How can we monetize these better and/or release a new product/service/solution to this audience.
So, do you have an idea for what you would do with 750,000 users? Fill out this form and you could win!
Now, this is no ordinary personality test… this is a career-oriented personality test. So, as a newly minted “Entrepreneur in Residence” I was curious to see what what kind of personality I had. Here are my results compared with someone in Law:
So, for all you folks asking me “how to be an entrepreneur,” take one heap of “confidence” (you’ll need this to beat the odds), a bucket of “love of thinking,” a hearty scoop of “extrovertedness” (get the kind mixed with “openness”), and top it off with “idealism.”
Of course it helps to be “agreeable,” “empathetic” and to be a “relativist,” so put those things in there if you can.
A lot of people reach out to me when they move to New York City and ask about the New York tech community. In the past, I’ve sent them a nice long email of information. But I’m getting tired of that, so in the future, I’m just going to send them a link to this article.
If you’re in the web tech industry, and you’re new to New York City, here’s everything I think you need to know:
The first thing you should do when you move to New York City to work in web technology is join the nextNY community and get a Meetup.com account.
nextNY
nextNY was my first introduction to the New York Tech scene. It’s a wonderful group of 1,700+ people who self-organize using just a wiki and a Google Group email list. While there are old-timers who hold the passwords, the beauty of nextNY is its lack of hierarchy. Join the group tomorrow and you can be posting away.
The best part of nextNY, though, is just how high level the discussion is. On many lists, you find people posting random bits of unrelated info, typing IN ALL CAPS and self-promoting like crazy. nextNY is different. You’re more likely to read threads featuring advice about hiring for startups or how to get Angel and VC financing.
Finally, nextNY is great because when discussions show enough interest, someone eventually organizes an event where the topics are discusses in more detail. In the last year, the nextNY community has self-organized events on hiring, getting investment, new advertising strategies, sports marketing on the web, financial startups, and more.
Tech Meetups
Clear your calendar every first Tuesday of the month becayse the Original NY Tech Meetup is the must attend event in Silicon Alley. Month after month, 500 or so technologist pack IAC or Cooper Union and sit through 6 (hopefully) interesting demos of new, local technology. Afterward, folks inevitably find themselves in a nearby bar and talk about what they just saw, or about anything else that gets discussed in a bar. It’s one of the best ways to meet people in your industry in your new City.
Among other important Meetups are the NextWeb Web 2.0 Meetup and the NY Video 2.0 Meetup (web for video enthusiats). Both are super high quality and have a great mix of attendees.
Who’s who in Silicon Alley? Check out the Silicon Alley 100 for a list of everyone you need to know. Notable people missing from the list: David S. Rose (Chairman of the New York Angels, among other things) and Clay Shirky (esteemed NYU professor and author of Here Comes Everybody).
Geography
So, where is Silicon Alley?
Silicon Alley 2.0 is much like back in the Web 1.0 days, with most entrepreneurial activity centered around Broadway and stretching from 23rd Street and the Flatiron District down to Canal Street and SoHo.
Now, you’ll find companies all over, including DUMBO in Brooklyn, where the rent is cheaper, the spaces are bigger, and there’s easy access to Manhattan.
Money
Money, ahh, money. The New York Angels is the largest, most active angel network in town. However, with as many rich people in town as there are, it’s not the only game in town. For a list of others, check this list.
It’s a great place to work and colllaborate with other entrepreneurs.
Recently, Mary Kathleen Flynn, of TheDeal.com’s Tech Confidential, came by our space, took a tour, and interviewed David Rose about the space. She also got to chat with some of the residents, like Alex Baydin, CEO of PerformLine, Paul Sciabica, Director of the New York Angels, and Josh Green, CEO of Panjiva.
Soon, we’ll have an “official” launch of SparkSpace with a proper party and all; however, we’re already showing the space to interested startups and taking applications. For more information, visit rose.vc/sparkspace and fill out an application.
If you’d like to schedule a time to check out the space, contact me and we can set that up too.
So, where is Silicon Alley?
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