I am in talks to do social media for a yoga studio out there in Dumbo. I hope the talks go through because I sure am interested. Dumbo just so happens to be New York City's own little tech hub. There is no Silicon Alley. There is Dumbo.
Looks can be deceiving. I am Indian, so sure, I do know my yoga, but not as much as you might think. But I will learn. More.
You get off the 6 train on Astor Place, and you just can't miss the Starbucks. It's right there. Thursday 9.15 AM. So that totally weeds out those who are just out for beer. Jobholders and entrepreneurs are two different species. If you should be at work at 9.15 in the morning, you probably don't belong here.
Nic Butterworth has the relaxed ways of someone who has already proven himself before. You feel easy around him. He is talking, then at the same time he is taking one step back and being his creative self. Parts of him keep churning what he is good at churning out even when he is very much with you.
I met him first on Tuesday evening at Scott's Tech MeetUp. (Scott 2.0, MeetUp.com 2.0) Nic's thing basically was that on YouTube you get lost. If you are into snowboarding, and you want many super clips of one particular move, you can't do that on YouTube. You come to Nic. This kind of vertical niche search has enormous value. He is definitely adding some serious value, and that is where the riches are.
That is the key question entrepreneurs have to ask themselves. Am I adding value?
I was the second person to sign up for it: The New York Open Coffee Meetup. So I am thinking, will it be just him and me? My train had a 20 minute delay, and so I was about five minutes late. And the place was full. It was crowded. How did he do it? How do you go from two on Tuesday midnight to 22 on Thursday morning? I am thinking, maybe the guy is famous.
Apparently most people had already introduced themselves. I got up, said my name, and talked up the IC for 20 seconds. The IC is a doughnut. It is not Nobel Prize for Physics material. It is meant to be a commodity.
The group broke into three, finance, real estate, and something else. I stuck with finance. The lead person had been in the Silicon Valley for 20 years. He made it sound like the East Coast, West Coast thing in tech and venture capital was no different than it is with rap music. New York is more conservative. Here people are not used to taking chances. You already should be churning some profit for them to pump money into you. Whereas in California, the idea sells.
I am not going anywhere. My market is right here. NYC is my number one market. Got contact info for one angel investor.
Met Christine, hardware Korean, software American. Cheerful. She was adopted by a South Dakota family when she was five months old. ("I have been to South Dakota.") She has worked at Microsoft in its XBox division. She is multicultural. She has lived in Paris a few years, for example. ("I have been to Wisconsin. It is like another planet.") She has that entrepreneur DNA, it is so obvious. Her company is called Mao Networks. And I am thinking Chairman Mao. She says it is an island off of Spain. Well then, that island must have been named after Chairman Mao.
And there was this London lady just passing through town. And three ladies around a table staying late. "Men don't change. Inside they are the same. Outside it looks different." Summary: it is a sexist world, and you feel that inside corporations, inside relationships.
There were so many good ideas floating around. It was so educational to get inside peeps into many startups at different stages of their growth. Frankly, I could not have enough of this. It could have gone on a few more hours, and I would still stick around.
Good thing this will happen every Thursday morning. Now I know what rush hour train rides are like.
It is important not to lose focus though. These meetings should not be the sharpening pencils sessions as a way to postpone actually doing the homework.
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