We Are NY Tech

Sandeep Ayyappan - Founder & CEO, Delve News

2012-05-24T09:00:00-04:00

Sandeep Ayyappan

"I've never envied someone who led an easy life; I have envied many people who led difficult lives and led them well. - Teddy Roosevelt"

I'm the founder & CEO of Delve News, and we're building a tool to help organizations curate news internally. Previously, Delve was mycirQle, a news portal organized by key issues - energy, health, education. I started my career at RBC Capital Markets, where I spent a couple of years on the Energy Technology Equity Research team, covering solar, wind, and energy efficiency companies. After realizing I was really into energy but still didn't know what the industry actually looked like, I left RBC to spend five months on the road across North America researching a book. That idea ultimately became mycirQle and then Delve, and I instead created A Young Man Goes West, a coffee table book about my road trip.

Age: 26

Title: Founder & CEO, Delve News

Location: SoHo

Contact: @sayyappan

You recently changed mycirQle to Delve. What prompted that change and what are some of the key differences between mycirQle and Delve? What lessons have you learned from mycirQle that you are taking with you to Delve?

The core idea behind our pivot was the shift from doing curation around key verticals to enabling curation within organizations. We're passionate about the basic idea - that the conversations we have around quality news stories have incredible value when put in the right context, and we started by working more on the discovery problem - finding those great stories through editorial curation. As we launched mycirQle and collected feedback, we realized curation is contextual - it depends on who you're curating for, and we realized many of our users were organizations who'd asked for the ability to participate in the curation in some way. And our role was going to be in enabling that process - by helping teams build conversations and interaction and ultimately solve the problems they're working on by curating news.

What inspired you to leave RBC Capital to research your own book? What are some things you learned on your trip?

I worked in the Energy Tech Equity Research team at RBC, and I took that job because I wanted to better understand the energy industry. I think energy's a fascinating problem: it's something we all depend on and yet have little to no choice in our consumption of it. The industry itself is incredibly inefficient and resources are poorly distributed with no real concern for the long-term impact of our choices. I learned a ton about the space at RBC but realized that my learning curve was flattening out, and that I was also sick of a desk job at a big bank. I left to take a five-month road trip across North America, touring the energy industry - coal mines, dams, oil & gas fields, wind farms, the Canadian oil sands - and started working on a book, but realized it kept taking me back to news, and how we cover big problems and engage with them as individuals. That was my biggest takeaway from the trip - everyone I met was interested in what I was doing, and wanted an easier way to keep up with important issues like energy. In much of the country, news is limited to the local paper, and the web has really opened that up. Now we just need distribution tools that are capable of taking advantage of everything we can do with the internet and apply that to news, and that's what we're working on.

As a company that plans to be a tool to help better news curation within organizations, where do you see the future of the news industry? How do you see the intersection of tech and news/media evolving in the future?

I think the news industry will generally split along two lines: content creation, and content distribution. There will be a great variety of content creators - bloggers, slimmed down news organizations less worried about distribution, nonprofits, freelancers - and a bunch of content distribution platforms utilizing different product experiences (Flipboard, Zite, etc) and those taking content to specific audiences (people like us). Technology around content is moving at a faster pace than the media organizations can keep up with, and some may try to be acquisitive but most will just start pushing their content to more places. Those products will be responsible for monetizing that content - whether through advertising or subscription, and compensate the publisher through a rev share. That starts to look like other content areas - film, music - and that's my guess on where news is headed as well.

Jen Marie Robustelli - Marketing & Social Media Coordinator, Conductor

2012-05-16T09:00:00-04:00

Jen Marie Robustelli

"You don't say good luck/You say don't give up/It's the fire, inside her - the Roots"

I spent most of my high school and college years studying public policy and law, seeking to disrupt the political status quo. In practice, however, policy work as a field manager of a canvass team made me grow restless and frustrated. Though I loved studying politics/policy/law, I felt I'd hit a dead end and needed to shift gears. I moved from Portland, Maine to NYC in 2009 and haven't looked back.

Both tech and entrepreneurship were always topics of interest, but never presented as real career opportunities until I moved to NYC. I went to my first startup career fair in April 2011 at AOL Ventures, and followed up with every person who handed me a business card. Over the next few months, I said yes to every volunteering offer and networking event that crossed my radar. I booked free afternoons with coffee chats on oHours, and killed the time in between meetings studying tech news and thought leader blogs. Through those activities (and social media), I've been able to get involved with so many influential groups and people in NY Tech - the Silicon Alley Talent Fair (now Uncubed), NY Beta, Lean Startup Machine, Tech@NYU events, WeWork and Dogpatch Labs coworking spaces, as well as exposure to the VC/angel investors. In July of last year, I left my job as a nanny/tutor and spent a total of 6 days unemployed before I was offered a marketing research internship with Conductor, an enterprise SEO SaaS startup in Union Square. In January I was promoted to a full-time position at Conductor, and I'm proud to finally be a member of the NY Tech community. I think a lot about what kind of value I can give back - right now, it would be this: I feel very lucky to have had the opportunities I've had so far. If you're looking to get more involved with the NY Tech community, be proactive. Follow up with people. Look for opportunities to learn. And, work very hard.

Age: 26

Title: Marketing & Social Media Coordinator, Conductor

Location: Union Square

Contact: @jenastelli, LinkedIn

Coming from a public policy and law background, how was the transition into social media and marketing? Did you have any experience in social media or marketing before starting at Conductor or did you learn as you worked?

There really wasn't a transition - both policy/law and aspect of internet marketing/media were always of interest to me. I was actually a nanny/tutor (and a community organizer, a bartender, and a dog walker) before joining Conductor as a research intern. Luckily, my manager was an incredible mentor for me during my internship and I got the chance to experience nearly every aspect of how our marketing team runs. That drove me to learn as much as I could both on the job, and on my time off. I'm still learning - there's tons of great, free content out there about internet marketing, and I burn through a more academic book about once/month.

You call yourself a "Brooklyn enthusiast." Can you give those people that refuse to go out of Manhattan a couple of reasons to make the trek to Brooklyn?

Any must eat/drink sites in Brooklyn we should know about? Haha! Zocdoc asked me about this too. It's hard to give specific recommendations, but a plug for my 'hood: the Prospect Heights/Crown Heights neighborhood from Franklin Ave to Vanderbilt is the next big thing. I've lived there for 2 years and it's got the Brooklyn Museum, Botanic Gardens, the park (of course) and a sizable greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza. It's a beautiful area juxtaposed with both brownstones and modern architecture, and there's quite the burgeoning food and drink scene.

After experiencing the difficulties of changing the current political system through public policy and law, do you have any ideas of how tech can aid those efforts?

Working with our research about search engine trends and behavior at Conductor has made me a bit obsessed about how people find and absorb information, especially news. I also think a lot about big data - while it's a massively abused buzzword right now (and can mean 100s of things depending on context) I think we're entering an age where we're just starting to utilize this data we've been collecting. Using technology can unlock some insight and scale up data-driven decision making (see: CompStat in the NYPD), but will it change the way our current political system functions? There's a lot of moving parts here. But these (finding information online, and utilizing big data) are two soft-focus areas of interest I think about developing a better relationship between tech+ politics.

Mike Howe - Partner, Escape the City

2012-05-08T09:00:00-04:00

Mike Howe

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become - Steve Jobs"

I started off as a baby in NY, it was a great life and everything was free.

At 6 I started to earn my own keep selling rocks door-to-door, that was my first solid business.

At 8 I ran my lemonade stand, big money spinner.

At 10 I had the strength to start shovelling snow and mowing lawns, which funded my first big purchase, the Super Nintendo. This was the main reason for a 15 year gap in any serious entrepreneurial activities.

At 12 I was shipped off to school in the UK and i've lived a fairly transatlantic life ever since.

After graduating with a degree in Economics, I saved up some cash working in a miserable job and spent a year traveling around the world making bad decisions. A few near death experiences later I settled in London working for the British Foreign Office, which resulted in another year of traveling. Eventually I got sucked into Banking and 4 years later I managed to escape the corporate world to run my own startup, helping other disillusioned professionals "do something different". Running a business with friends, being creative, mixing with a more entrepreneurial crowd and helping people at the same time is so much more fulfilling.

So now i'm back back in NY running my own startup, liberating talented professionals from their boring corporate jobs and enjoying life.

When I have time to take a break away from www.escapethecity.org, you'll find me climbing mountains, scuba diving, skiing, cycling, reading a book or watching live music.

I'm passionate about social entrepreneurship, development, revolutionising education and inspiring people to follow their passions.

Age: 27

Title: Partner, Escape the City

Location: Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Contact: @escmikey

We read that Seth Godin's book, Tribes, was your bible when you were first starting out Escape the City. Are you still consulting Tribes as you grow Escape the City? Have you learned any lessons while building Escape the City that Tribes didn't prepare you for?

Tribes played a huge part in shaping our thinking as we built the foundations of Esc, so its almost ingrained in everything that we do. Standing out, having an opinion, being unique, different, even bizarre are essential traits if you want to create something remarkable. And remarkable businesses that have core beliefs and stick to them, develop followings that play a huge part in spreading ideas in a meaningful and enduring way.

However, Tribes probably didn't prepare us for how difficult building a business would be. The principles behind Tribes are so simple and effective, almost common sense really, so its easy to be naive to how much hard grind goes into "leading a tribe" and growing a business.

I suppose the lessons learned outside of Tribes have been more of an education in the mindset required to keep going. Everyone says it, but running a startup is genuinely a roller-coaster ride, there are big ups and very big downs. The downs always seem bigger than the ups, so its a resilience to this and the ability to keep moving forward thats so important. Knowing that I'm learning so much from every iteration, emotion and experience is what keeps me going.

You say you "made bad decisions" and had "near death experiences" (plural!). Please tell us an awesome story you have from your travels abroad.

I was climbing a mountain in Bolivia which is over 6,000m, so higher than Everest base camp. The climb took several gruelling days and on the final day we emerged from our tent in the pitch black of night to make our ascent to the summit. The cold was terrible and the wind was blistering as we made our way up. After 6 hours of trekking through deep snow and climbing ice walls in the darkness, we began our approach on the peak. We were literally 100 meters from the top, when the girl I was with (Amanda) started being sick from the altitude. There were only three of us in our group at that point including the guide. Several people had already turned back from frost bite or altitude sickness. We sat for a couple minutes while Amanda gathered herself, but stopping resulted in our body temperatures dropping fast. I started to feel the cold in my back from where I'd hurt myself only a week earlier after accidentally driving a quad bike off a cliff, destroying it and nearly killing myself (stupid I know). Amanda decided that despite how close we were, it was too difficult to carry on so we were forced to turn back.

On our descent of the mountain, we reached the top of a 100ft vertical ice wall that we had climbed earlier the previous evening. At that point the cold had killed the batteries in all our headlamps and the sun hadn't yet risen. It didn't occur to me at the time, but for some reason the guide directed us (in spanish) to climb down, rather than abseil. But assuming he'd tied us to the top, I don't remember thinking anything of it. So in the pitch black with 100ft drop below me onto solid ice, I gradually made my way down. I was probably a third of the way when I heard this deafening scream from above me. I couldn't quite make it out, but about 20 ft above me I could just about see Amanda climbing down. She wouldn't stop screaming and I had no idea what was going on, so I was forced to start climbing back up. When I got to her, she was clinging to the wall with her ice axe dug in, shaking in fear. It had turned out that the guide was also descending at the same time, we were all tied together with no ropes secured at the top. If one of us fell, we all would. Afraid that Amanda would panic further and lose her grip on the wall, I tried to calm her down. With the wind beating the cliff face and snow from the top blowing in our eyes, we had to get down quickly. So I climbed down and literally grabbed her boot with one free hand and talked her through each step. I don't know how long it took to get down, but it seemed like hours. One slip from any of us and we either would have died from the fall, or from injury and the cold. But, when the sun started to rise, the view was incredible and we'd earned it.

So far you have around 65,000 professionals looking to escape their corporate jobs. Do you see this number rising in the future? As someone who got "sucked into" a banking job, why do you think people stick with their corporate positions even if they are unhappy? Any advice for people who want to break out?

Absolutely, there is no shortage of people who want to do something exciting with their lives. Plus, we're growing faster than ever, and the new platform we're working on should make helping people discover what makes them tick, and also intelligently matching their aspirations with genuine opportunities a reality. We ran a survey recently on professionals in America, and 95% of them want to change careers in the next 2 years. That is an astounding figure and demonstrates the fact that there is a gross mis-allocation of human capital in the world. People are simply not doing what makes them happy.

There are a few fundamental things that stop people following something that they’re passionate about:

Having to take pay cuts or sacrificing salaries
Jumping off the corporate ladder with the worry of either having to start again, or fear that a change of course will look bad
Loss of “career progress” by starting something new
Peer/family pressure to follow the beaten path
Simply not knowing what they’re passionate about
From the moment we're born we're all pushed down the same path. We go from being creative, young and free, to being "standardized" by education. From there we're told which universities to go to and what degrees to get. Then we're told that success is defined by which bank or consulting firm you work for, and any less is a sign of failure.

So we follow the herd with our horse blinders on, oblivious to all the other opportunities in the world. And at no point have we been told to look inside ourselves and ask, "what do I really want to do with my life?!" How we've been steered away from answering that question, I just don't know. It’s a failure by the educational system and society itself really. It might sound dreamy, but if the 95% of people who plan on leaving their job in 2 years, were actually being productive in things they enjoyed, I’m sure the economy would be better for it.

If you don't know what you're passionate about, you won't figure it out by simply thinking about it. Our actions and experiences guide us and define who we are.

My advice:

Meet new people - Start surrounding yourself with open-minded, forward looking people, not just people who have followed the beaten path. Talk to people outside of your immediate friendship group. New perspectives help to steer your compass. Start going to meetups and lectures on topics that interest you.
Read more non-fiction - I digest "startup" books, and they help open my mind, trigger ideas and figure out what gets me excited and what doesn't.
Invest in yourself - Go to classes and learn new things. For $20 you can go to a Skillshare class and learn something new from someone who loves what they do enough to teach it in their spare time, and at the same time you'll meet a load of people who are also branching out and exploring new things. Allocate a certain amount of money each month to learning new things.

Once you begin to step outside of your routine surroundings, you'll realise there is a world of opportunity that you never new existed.

Jie Zheng - Co-Founder, Material Wrld

2012-05-03T09:00:00-04:00

Jie Zheng

"If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun - Katharine Hepburn"

I'm a Co-Founder of Material Wrld, a social marketplace for fashion that's stirring up the way we shop and refresh our closets. Made in China and hailing from the Midwest, I'm a lover of businesses that do good, all things pretty, and awesome dance parties (especially hip hop).

Age: 29

Title: Co-Founder, Material Wrld

Location: East Village

Contact: @jie_zheng

Material Wrld lets people shop the closets of curated tastemakers. How responsive have tastemakers been to selling on Material Wrld? Can you give us any hints as to who we can expect to see on Material Wrld?

It's been fun to connect with awesome creatives who have great individual styles. They're pumped to share pieces of their lifestyle and engage friends, fans, and the Material Wrld community to "virtual" raid their closets! And just like me, many of them shop like it's a sport and can be pretty fickle in their tastes. So they're excited that we are creating an easier and prettier solution than eBay and consignment stores that pays more than a pretty penny.

While we're starting with tastemakers, our vision for Material Wrld extends to every day fashion junkies like myself and my co-founder, Rie. We all have unique styles that should be celebrated on an online platform, where we can showcase our style and sell pre-owned fashion.

As for hints on who to expect in our next online Pop-up Store? A fashion blogger from France who rocks cat eyeliner, a global fashion editor who writes about the various antics of Ryan Gosling, and two hot girl DJs who are massive dance parties just waiting to happen!

Who's closet would you raid if you had access to anyone's?

My girl crush, Chloe Sevigny. She owns the effortlessly cool look. Love that she pushes the envelope on traditional beauty and always dominates the red carpet.

You and your cofounder and programmer seem to have a great rapport. Any secrets to the great relationship? Can you give other cofounders tips on how to maintain a good working relationship?

Startup life has been hands down the most sweat and fun I've ever had, and it's all because of the stellar people I'm working with, Rie and Jeremy. I think our strong shared work ethic and good chemistry provides a solid base. We've also created this open and relaxed culture that encourages joking, silliness, and impromptu dance breaks to unleash our creative energy! Bottom line: hustle hard and laugh a lot together.

Favorite tunes to dance around to?

Varies by mood but a recent favorite "rev up" song as I walk to work is Juvenile's dance anthem - you know which one I'm talking about. It's caffeine in audio form. Ummm "Rude Boy" - Rihanna, "Paper Planes" - M.I.A., "Empire State of Mind" - Jay Z, "Big Poppa" - Biggie, "PYT" - Michael Jackson, Snoop, Girl Talk, and vintage Madonna! Anything with a good beat gets me moving. Just can't help it.

Nick Balletta - CEO, TalkPoint

2012-04-30T09:00:00-04:00

Nick Balletta

"Think strategically. Plan tactically. Live urgently."

Nick is CEO of TalkPoint, an industry leader in global communications technology. With more than 25 years of experience in media and technology, he is a pioneer in the field of unified communications and interactive webcasting. Nick launched his first company – Voyager Data Networks – in 1996 and sold it two years later, at which time he had the foresight to invest in the burgeoning field of streaming media.

In 1998, he founded TalkPoint's predecessor -- NextVenue -- as an offshoot of CNBC/Dow Jones Desktop Video, a joint venture among Microsoft, NBC and Dow Jones. Here he led its global expansion and merger into streaming media company iBeam Broadcasting. At iBeam, he served as president of enterprise services and was a member of the board before buying back the company, now known as TalkPoint, in 2003. Nick holds an MBA from Rutgers Graduate School of Management and regularly competes in triathlons across the country.

Age: 47

Title: CEO, TalkPoint

Location: Financial District

Contact: @talkpointdotcom

You bought back what was to become TalkPoint from NBC. What are some of the key steps you took to restructure the company into the successful business it is today?

Some of the key steps involved setting up the proper capital structure for the business and then making sure it was well capitalized. Once the foundation was set, we then focused on our core competencies. By definition, if you have too many targets, you have none. We made sure we focused on webcasting and did not get sidetracked by tangential technologies and services.

I noticed that you enjoy running triathlons. How did you become interested in triathlons and how do manage to find time in your busy schedule to train? Are you planning on participating in this year's NYC Triathlon in July?

Triathlons are my answer to a mid-life crisis. A fellow Type A friend of mine dragged me to one as a cheerleader. I got the bug and have not looked back since. This year, I’ll be participating for the second time at the St. Anthony’s Triathlon in St. Petersburg Florida as a member of Team In Training to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It keeps me in shape and is cheaper than a sports car.

As an experienced entrepreneur, can you tell us how do you think the tech industry has changed throughout the years and do you have any advice for those that are just getting into the game?

The technology industry is changing more rapidly than it has in the past. My advice to anyone getting started is to make sure you have a singular focus, listen to your customers and always be a little paranoid.

Jaime Hoerbelt - Social Media Strategist

2012-04-26T09:00:00-04:00

Jaime Hoerbelt

"The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker"

Jaime has been a longtime social media enthusiast since the early days of Myspace and Livejournal. Now she brings her passion for social networking to the corporate world as a Social Media Strategist at Tenthwave, a full service digital marketing agency in NYC. She creates campaigns and manages community across a variety of industries, for brands including eBay, Pepperidge Farm, Aunt Jemima Frozen Breakfast, Birds Eye Voila!, Facebook, Zynga and Visa. She enjoys giving brands a voice on the Internet and increasing the social value of promotional campaigns.

You can find her blogging at JaimeHoerbelt.com, tumbling at Ohyeahparis.tumblr.com or IRL at Community Manager meetups. Her past experience includes being the Managing Editor of NY Creative Interns; working at Figment, an online young adult writing community and being a Solvate talent member. When she's not being "social" she likes to paint and drink tea.

Age: 23

Title: Social Media Strategist

Location: Brooklyn

Contact: @jahbelt

What's the most challenging part of your job? The most enjoyable?

Definitely, the most challenging part of my job is keeping up with the industry. Social media is one of those career paths that really require you to read several blogs every morning and attend industry events regularly to have a grasp on what brands and users are doing in the space. On the brand side, you always have to be the "expert" and everything can change at a moment's notice, requiring you to change strategies or tactics. On the user side, you have to keep a careful eye on what happens naturally - what people are doing and talking about. Knowing how consumers react on social networks is essential to coming up with the next big idea for clients.

I love how fast paced the industry is, but I also love working with a variety of clients. I'm never bound by one brand's objectives or challenges for an entire day. I get a holistic view of what's possible in the social media space. There's nothing to curb learning; one hour I'll be working with a high-caliber CPG, the next hour I'm focused on the entertainment industry, interior design or ecommerce. Things never get stale.

You speak French and have a blog about Paris, where you have weekly Macaroon Fridays. Besides Ladurée, can you let us in on the best places to find macaroons and other fine French food in the city?

I'm certainly not an expert; if you asked me about restaurants in Paris that I like I'd have a better answer. That said, I like MacarOn Café on W. 36th st. It has an intimate atmosphere that is SO Parisian. I'm also looking forward to exploring the French pastry shops in Park Slope in the future.

I noticed you went to SXSW and attended the SXBrandBack panel. Can you tell us a couple of things you learned from the panel? Any lessons on branding and social media you've personally learned from your work at Tenthwave?

One of the most important things I learned early on at Tenthwave, which was reinforced at the SXBrandBack panel, was how to steer a conversation through skillful community management. There are some situations where it's impossible to take back the conversation. If you're dealing with a PR crisis, you can't pretend it isn't happening and talk about how great your product or service is. You have to influence the conversation delicately, like focusing on how the brand is handling the situation. It is really important that any crisis management strategy involve the key stakeholders from the PR agency or department, the brand managers and the social media agency.

Then there are situations where it's just difficult to take back the conversation. For example, a lot of financial institutions have trouble managing the level of negative feedback related to bad credit or fraudulent charges. Some of these companies forego a social media presence entirely or maintain extremely strict control over consumer posts. Other companies sound like robots because the only things the brand is allowed to post has to be vetted through legal. There is a way for every company to make a brand sound human, while satisfying the legal department and letting consumers have a place to voice concerns and praise.

In every day circumstances, it's still an art form trying to determine whether the customer you're talking to will create a hate group if you can't help, or whether the customer will be satisfied just knowing his or her concerns were heard. There's a subtle way to do everything from talking down angry consumers to communicating a brand message one-on-one outside of a status update. A skilled community manager will be able to do all of this without the consumer knowing. A bad community manager sounds like a robotic cheerleader, repeating the same brand message over and over again.

Jared Cocken - Chief Product Officer at Fitocracy

2012-04-25T09:00:00-04:00

Jared Cocken

"There are few things in life as rewarding as a really fresh packet of Twizzlers."

Jared is an English designer living in New York. He's a self-confessed design and technology geek and has been creating things with computers since that fateful day in a sunny beer garden when his dad swapped a black and white portable television for a Sinclair ZX81* . He was recently appointed as Chief Product Officer at Fitocracy. He's very excited about it. Really. In fact, unless you enjoy three-hour long conversations about fitness, psychology and the importance of the quantified self for the betterment of a nation, you'd probably best avoid talking to him.

In former lives, Jared has been the Creative Director at top New York agency, The Wonderfactory (Time, National Geographic, Condé Nast, Google) and, back in the 90s, Co-Founder of London design shop WDM (MTV, Alexander McQueen, BBC, British Airways). WDM sold in 2001 with offices in London, Dublin, Portugal and Sydney. Some other career highlights include his job washing lorries (trucks) when he was 11 and a sandwich selling business he started with his neighbour when he was 15 so they could afford to buy tickets for Redding Festival to watch Public Enemy.

When Jared isn't wearing his tie, he dabbles in photography, film-making and is a keen collector of contemporary art and peanut butter.

He also has super hearing.

*Footnote: Your iPhone has 1 million times the RAM of a ZX81

Age: 36

Title: Chief Product Officer at Fitocracy

Location: Chelsea

Contact: cockenadoodledoo.com

What’s your favorite part about Fitocracy?

That we're trying to do something meaningful. The debate around Healthcare Reform continues, but very little emphasis is placed on fitness as preventative medicine, especially in the US.

As Chief Product Officer, where do you envision the product going over the next year?

To be successful at Fitness it takes knowledge, consistency, tracking and motivation. We're going to be addressing all four.

Knowledge: There's a paucity of effective fitness education and we'll be addressing that over the coming months. If you're a 40 year old mother looking to regain her pre-pregnancy shape, you're looking for different nutrition and exercise information to the skinny college kid who's trying to put on some muscle. The information needs to be contextual to your current fitness level and goals.

Consistency: The new app allows us to issue reminders to a user. If they missed a workout, Fred, our friendly robot, sends them increasingly sad messages to entice them to stay on track. We're also working with leading industry experts on building out routines that are easy to follow. If you remove the work of working out an effective routine, there's one less excuse.

Tracking: If you don't track, you don't improve. Tracking provides objective information about your progress. It will also allow us to match you with the right suggested friends, groups and routines.

Motivation: That happens two ways; the game mechanic, and the other players. First, on the game mechanic side, your effort is rewarded by a single attribute; points. Those points allow you to level up. For version 2.0, we'll enrich the experience by adding other (secret) attributes. Of course none of this works without other players. There's a reason that people work out with trainers, or partners. It's not just to show them how to perform a specific exercise, it's for the additional motivation, to be accountable to someone. We're introducing some fun new elements like 'Duels' that are going to help keep folks competitive and engaged.

Our success so far in the consumer market has garnered the attention of large corporations and the government. We want to work with them to bring Fitocracy to a wider audience. We want a fitter nation, and we're not going to stop until it happens.

What are three places that you’d like to go on vacation?

1. Big Sur - I just spent a few days in Monterey for Mike Hawley's amazing E.G. Conference. We took an afternoon hike down the coast, and I'm hooked.
2. Jake's in Jamaica - Simple, relaxed, unpretentious, friendly. I'd go back in a heartbeat.
3. Anywhere quiet. Suggestions welcome.

You recently joined the Fitocracy team as Chief Product Officer. How has the transition from working at an agency to a startup like Fitocracy? What have been the biggest adjustments you’ve had to make?

When you're working with an agency there are two points of contact for a team; the client and the users. Your time is split between working with the client and testing products with users. When you're working product-side, you take over the client's role. What are the business goals? Who are your target users? How will the product make money? What is your timeline? Your budget? The strategy? Of course, when you've answered those questions, you can get to the business of making the product more quickly. Need to make changes? Easy, your team is right there.

The only way you can effectively test a product is to ship it. You can user-test all you like with a small group, but nothing will let you know whether something is working effectively more than live data from your entire user base. Need to change something? You can. There are very few clients that would be willing, or able, to take that risk.

Another benefit of a startup is a flat organization structure. Everyone has their say, and information travels more quickly. Again, you can spend more time getting features out the door.

What is the hardest thing you ever had to do?

Move 3500 miles away from friends and family.

Joshua Ness - Social Strategy + Business Manager

2012-04-20T09:00:00-04:00

Joshua Ness

"Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas A. Edison"

Social media strategy with a human understanding. Giving personality to new brand ideas through influencer engagement and smart relationship management.

Age: 32

Title: Social Strategy + Business Manager

Location: Brooklyn

Contact: @jcness

What are some exciting projects that you've been working on these days? What were some of your favorite projects to work on?

Since my last project of developing a social strategy road map for a design representation agency, I've been picked up by an event management group out of the Pacific Northwest. I'm currently developing their new product marketing strategy and social strategy for the firm, as a whole. I also manage their east coast operations here in NYC.

My favorite project was building community engagement for a local liquor store in Texas. I got to shape their social marketing strategy and interact with the universities in the area. Building community engagement is something I enjoy.

We read a recent post on your Tumblr on dating in the city. What inspired that post? Have you gotten any negative feedback from people or have the reviews been mostly positive?

That post was inspired by several people, some friends and some followers, who were all lamenting their dating woes around the same time. I had some thoughts on the matter that I found myself repeating, so I decided to write it in a blog post where I could be more succinct and thorough.

So far, I haven't received any negative feedback. Several people have told me they liked it, both online and off. While some may not have agreed with my tone, they did agree with my analysis.

As a freelancer, is it difficult to find a steady stream of work? How do you market yourself? Do you have any advice for other freelancers in the city?

Freelancing, for me, has always necessitated a two-pronged attack. Networking and meeting people are key activities in order to stay busy. Maintaining a coherent and complete online profile is also necessary so people can see what they're getting into.

My advice for freelancers in the city is to attend as many Meetups and Eventbrite events as possible! Search the sites, talk to your friends, find out when and where people are getting together. Even if it's something as simple as a panel discussion on the effects of social media on modern politics, there's a high probability that you'll meet some fantastic people if you put yourself out there. They might not always turn into leads right away, but growing and maintaining your professional and social networks are vital for the modern freelancer.

Cassie Lancellotti-Young - VP Marketing, Savored.com

2012-04-19T09:00:00-04:00

Cassie Lancellotti-Young

"It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy. - Steve Jobs"

After graduating from Duke, I embarked upon an exciting career as an analyst on the media/tech coverage team at Citigroup...but it didn't take me very long to realize that I was far more interested in the nuts and bolts of the start-ups we were financing than whether or not they'd met their debt covenants that quarter. Eager to gain operational experience in the dot-come scene, I joined TheLadders.com as something of a "renaissance analyst;" I worked there for three years and had the amazing opportunity to take on a variety of marketing and business development roles and to help the company grow from 30 to 300 employees and to over 3 million members. Anxious to introduce bucolic New Hampshire to all the wonders of the Internet (and to improve my skiing), I left TheLadders in 2009 to pursue my MBA at Dartmouth; while I was studying at Tuck, I launched my own analytics consulting firm and supported supported SapientNitro on a number of its client engagements as well as a host of early-stage companies looking to get smart about data.

During my second year of business school, I met Ben McKean and Dan Leahy and was introduced to what was then VillageVines; the rest is history. I've watched our company take on VC investment, expand to 10 cities, re-brand to Savored.com, and hire the most passionate and committed team I've ever come across. When people ask me what I love most about my job, I say it's the fact that I've never thought so much as once about calling in sick.

My mom always tells people that she finds it bewildering that such a conservative person could be such an aggressive "risk taker" with her career (as it relates to joining early-stage ventures). I disagree completely - surrounding myself with the smartest and most passionate people I can find seems anything but risky to me.

Age: 29

Title: VP Marketing, Savored.com

Location: Flatiron District

Contact: @dukecass

What do you think makes Savored so successful amongst a sea of daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial?

Our key point of difference is definitely our emphasis on the merchant. We are very much a two-sided marketplace with both B2B and B2C customers, but the B2B customers (restaurants) always come first at Savored. We build ongoing andsolvent relationships with our merchant partners - we only want to help them when they need us. As such, our merchant partners have full control over the days and times when they offer discounted tables. In other words, whereas most of the daily deal sites out there are simply about inspiring trial in some short-tenor period, we are focused on incremental profitability for our businesses on an indefinite basis - if the restaurant is busier in the summer, they can dial back how many tables they give to Savored during those months and so on and so forth.

You said that you were a "conservative person" and that your mother never expected you to work in the tech industry. Did you think that you would be working in something "risky" like the startup world when you were younger, or did you imagine yourself doing something more mainstream?

I'm ashamed to admit that my career ambitions were very mainstream. I wanted to be an intellectual property attorney until the summer I actually worked for an IP attorney during college (turns out my boss was awesome - he's still a mentor to me to this day - but the work...eh). So logically, when that didn't work out, I figured a career in banking would open a lot of doors down the line. I ultimately decided to go the start-up route because while I was working as an analyst for media and tech companies, I found myself fascinated by the operational descriptions in their earnings reports and highly disinterested in analyzing things like their debt covenants. Interestingly, when I left Citigroup to join TheLadders in 2006, the start-up scene in NYC was very much in its early stages, and people thought I had legitimately lost my mind. It's been thrilling for me to watch the evolution of the scene here ever since and to watch our field become as coveted and sought after as it is today.

You've been teaching marketing classes through Skillshare since last year. What lead you to start teaching on Skillshare?

I love talking about data and more importantly, how to act on it, so the idea of hosting a whole room of people actually interested in hearing me deliver my tirades was very exciting to me! All kidding aside though, I am a huge believer of what I call the "Jason Goldberg School of Thought," or transparency, and I believe my Skillshare course is a great way to be transparent the critical importance about analytics and optimization. I trade notes with a lot of marketing people in the Internet space, and business analytics are a big, big problem for many of these companies, namely because they are either trying to plug a square peg into a round hole with "blanket" industry metrics that don't make sense for their businesses, or because they simply aren't tracking the right things. This is why I started teaching with Skillshare; the reason I've continued with it is because of the caliber of students that the program attracts - they are highly engaged and actually help craft the course in an iterative way through provocative questions and discussions. I could go on and on about this; Skillshare is my favorite start-up here in New York.

What are some of your favorite places to eat on the curated Savored list?

I make a point to try at least 1-2 new Savored spots each month so that I'm keeping on my toes, but I certainly also have my "go-to" favorites! For more casual meals with friends, I'm a big fan of Havana Alma de Cuba and Betel in the West Village as well as Almond (Flatiron). When I'm in the mood for a more sophisticated setting, I love Rouge Tomate.

Chitra Agrawal - Director of Marketing, Cinchcast/BlogTalkRadio; Founder, The ABCD's of Cooking

2012-04-18T09:00:00-04:00

Chitra Agrawal

"Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. It's where all the fruit is. - Shirley MacLaine"

I was raised by engineers who also share a passion for cooking, but it wasn’t until recently that I came back to these roots.

I studied Psychology & English at Berkeley and oddly fell into tech investment banking out of school - unfortunately right when the market tanked. At that point, I changed paths, and for the next 9 years worked in advertising and marketing, getting my MBA at NYU along the way.

2009 was the first of many turning points for me. I started writing The ABCD’s of Cooking, which chronicles my adventures cooking American Born Confused Desi recipes. The growth of this site led me to make cooking videos, sell Indian street foods at markets and events, teach cooking classes and host my own supper club. I now also contribute food writing to Gojee, Food+Tech Connect, The Daily Meal and Brooklyn Based and am currently in talks to partner on a restaurant.

Last year, I co-chaired a session at SXSW on the intersection of food and technology called "How Technology is Revolutionizing the Way We Eat,” which brought me to my current position at Cinchcast/BlogTalkRadio. BlogTalkRadio is the largest online live talk radio network, and Cinchcast is our white label audio broadcasting solution for companies that we launched last year. I work on marketing, content, social media and host a radio show on our network, educating 1,000s of our hosts on how to better market and produce their own shows.

Age: 32

Title: Director of Marketing, Cinchcast/BlogTalkRadio; Founder, The ABCD's of Cooking

Location: Brooklyn

Contact: @abcdsofcooking, about.me

You went from writing a food blog to working at BlogTalkRadio. How did you get involved in BlogTalkRadio? What are some of your favorite shows?

I actually found my way to BlogTalkRadio through a food blogging friend of mine, Emily Cavalier, who I got to know at SXSW. She knew the CEO & Founder, Alan Levy and connected us. As a blogger, who is covering a very specific niche in food, I was naturally drawn to BlogTalkRadio’s platform because it’s helping to democratize the medium of audio by allowing anyone to broadcast their point of view. I’ve worked in digital marketing since 2002 and was also fascinated by how BTR had transformed podcasting into a live and interactive format and was providing companies with a new way to create content and reach an audience.

It’s kind of difficult for me to pick out my favorite shows because our platform is so interview driven. For instance, I’m a big Chris Rock fan, and last week I found out that he was going to be a guest on one of our shows so I just listened in live. Some of my favorite interviews on the site have been with Ira Glass, Arianna Huffington, David Bowie and Salman Rushdie and now we’re starting to get some well-known hosts like Deepak Chopra and C.C. Chapman, which is pretty exciting. If I have to choose though, I’d say I listen to Columbia Journalism, Movie Geeks United, Intel’s MashUp Radio, Milling About and Small Business Roundtable most often.

You said that you recently "came back to your roots" when you started your food blog, The ABCD's of Cooking. What inspired you to start the food blog and come back to your roots? What's your go-to recipe?

I grew up in a household that was quite centered around food. Both of my parents are avid cooks and since they come from two different parts of India (Bangalore and Allahabad), they have worked hard to maintain the cooking traditions they grew up with.  I have always taken an interest in learning from both of them in the kitchen and I started my site to preserve, document and share our family recipes.

I've adapted many of them by using local ingredients that I have, but have stayed true to the original Indian cooking techniques that I was taught and am still learning from my family.  My parents actually cook very much in this same way. I remember when they first moved to Alabama from New Jersey even, they started incorporating many of the new types of vegetables they’d find at their local farmer’s market into their traditional home-style Indian dishes.

Writing this site has brought me closer to my parents and relatives across generations, which has been really nice.  It’s also created a mini-community for me where I get feedback, ideas, and involvement from others, including many people in my family who have also been motivated to exchange ideas and recipes. I also feel good when I hear that my little nephew likes a recipe from the site because maybe one day he'll want to learn how to make it:) I don't think these things would have been as possible without the blog and it’s motivated me to grow it further.

I’d have to say my go-to-recipe is chitranna (not because it has my name in it;) but because it was a favorite of mine growing up. It’s basically yellow (from turmeric) lemon peanut rice that is flavored with fried lentils and spices and fresh coconut and cilantro.  I can eat it for days and love to teach it to my students because it’s so easy and really colorful.

You host your own show about how to be a better marketer. What are some common marketing mistakes that you often come across? Can you give us any special marketing tricks and tips?

I’d say one common marketing mistake is that I see a lot of brands using social media for promotional messages, more than trying to connect or respond to their existing customers. I also find that a lot of brands are still sending me messages that I’m just not interested in or that are just not relevant to me, which tells me they are not doing enough research and vetting of content.

One tip is that I think more marketing strategy needs to be informed by customer service insights. I’ve been lucky to work at organizations like American Express and now BlogTalkRadio that support a strong relationship between marketing and customer service, which makes a huge difference in how effective you are at communicating with your audience.

When it comes to marketing your individual brand, one piece of advice that I often give to our hosts and realized firsthand from The ABCD’s of Cooking is to not underestimate the power of your personal network. I’ve found that those who are closest to you are often your strongest advocates and most helpful in spreading word of mouth when you’re starting to get things off the ground.

As someone who is involved in both food and tech, in what ways do you see the two communities working together and do you see further growth in the relationship between the two communities?

Currently, there is a lot happening in food and tech, most visibly in the consumer space with launches of many new apps and sites geared towards helping people shop for local produce, make healthier recipes, find customized restaurant recommendations, etc. I’m a contributor to Food+Tech Connect, a media company founded by my friend Danielle Gould, which covers and connects innovators at the intersection of food and information technology. The amount of content on the topic that lives on her site is a testament to how closely these two communities are already working and will definitely continue to work together. There is also a very active and growing Meetup group in NY that I’m a part of called Food+Tech that is organized by Lizzy Greene, which is also helping to bring the two communities together.

Danielle hosted a panel at SXSW this year called Better Food Through Open Data Standards, that I feel sums up where food and tech are going next, which is an open data standard for food that she is helping to build. Collecting and making all of this data accessible will help to tell a more complete story of the food system and drive innovations that will not only affect consumers, but inform policy and change the agricultural and food industry as a whole.

Zeb Dropkin - Founder & CEO of RentHackr

2012-04-06T09:00:00-04:00

Zeb Dropkin

"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory. Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. - Ralph Waldo Emerson"

Founder @RentHackr, bringing transparency and foresight to apt rentals. Love NYC, startups, life hacking, design, tech, and good coffee with great friends.

Age: 38

Title: Founder & CEO of RentHackr

Location: LES

Contact: @zeb

You mention that Renthackr aims to bring transparency and foresight to apartment rentals. How does the application do that? Where do you get your data? Where did the inspiration to start the company come from?

Instead of working with traditional real estate rental listings, we're turning the market on it's head by crowd-sourcing inventory. This gives us a unique dataset and opportunity. We deliver better pricing transparency than any other service. We’re working to provide a unique and actionable forecast of upcoming availability. And we’re building new tools for renters to acquire apartments in the exact places they aspire to live in.

I was inspired by my own frustration with the NY rental experience. That and the “rent is too damn high” guy :D

Where are some of your favorite coffee spots here in the City? Best place you’ve found with wifi to do work?

I have a kind of addiction to cortados, so I tend to hit places with experienced baristas. My favorite overall cafe is La Colombe on 4th and Lafayette. It's got great staff, sparkling water on tap, a great space, and it's a buck less for everything there. I started a 4sq list to track my favorite spots. I don't know a great wifi work spot right now, outside of WeWork Labs of course. I'd like to find one in the LES, though.

Prior to working on RentHackr fulltime you were working in advertising. What have you found to be the toughest challenges or problems thus far? How have you been able to overcome them?

The toughest challenge for me has been learning to be ok with making lots of mistakes. Out on your own, you have to try things you have no experience with, and you have to level up fast. You can only do this by getting your hands dirty. Fail at something, learn from it, and go again as soon as you can. Try not to beat yourself up about it. I was wasting a lot of energy beating myself up over failures. Now I try to recognize the learning value in a failure and move on.

What makes you bored?

Traditional TV news is the worst #cordcutter

Emily Miethner - Founder, President of NY Creative Interns, Community Manager at RecordSetter.com

2012-03-19T09:00:00-04:00

Emily Miethner

"Your smile is a messenger of your good will. - Dale Carnegie"

A lifetime lover of bringing creative people together, in December of 2010 Emily Miethner founded NY Creative Interns, the largest and most active Meetup for interns and recent grads in New York City. The group has organized over 25 events for more than 1,350 attendees and is producing their first-ever conference on April 21, Find and Follow Your Passion. The event will feature speakers from Etsy, Kickstarter, foursquare, MTV, Mashable, BBDO, The Guggenheim, Google, charity: water, and more. The organization's mission is to help creative college students and recent grads find internship and job opportunities through their events.

Emily also works full-time job as the Community Manager at RecordSetter.com, the new home for world records. The New Yorker calls it “a Web site that is to the Guinness World Records as Wikipedia is to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.” The RecordSetter database hosts over 13,000 world records submitted from 65+ countries, making it the largest collection of world record videos on the Internet.

Her past employers include Sterling Publishing, Gawker, Flavorpill, and Time Out New York Magazine. Emily is also a Skillshare teacher and on the board of Techies Give Back. She's also a huge fan of peanut butter and not wasting a moment on pessimism.

Age: 24

Title: Founder, President of NY Creative Interns, Community Manager at RecordSetter.com

Location: Astoria

Contact: @emilymiethner

What are the day-to-day responsibilities of a Community Manager at RecordSetter.com?

Some of my tasks at RecordSetter include managing outreach to communities who'd love our platform (like jugglers or gamers), managing communications with events we're involved in (like Comedy Central's "Match Game" where we set the record for Most People Dressed as Charles Nelson Riley), and increasing the amount of engagement on our site (like encouraging one time record setters to set another record). That all involves lots of emails, phone calls, and social media outreach. I'm also in the midst of planning our first ever RecordSetter World Record Day, taking place on April 28.

What do you think would be the hardest thing for you to give up on?

I'd have to say going out and meeting people. I make a lot of time to not only organize my own events through NY Creative Interns but to be involved in other communities and conferences. I'm a total conference geek. Some of my favorite Meetups and events have been through CM Meetup, Internet Week, and Columbia's Social Media Weekend.

What inspired you to found NY Creative Interns? What challenges have you run into setting up the first ever conference, Find and Follow Your Passion?

When I was still in college at Hofstra University I became a resource for my friends because of my internship experience, helping with resumes and giving networking advice. I also started the first ever career event for Fine Arts students at my school called "Not All Artists are Starving, A Night of Networking," which was definitely a baby version of NY Creative Interns. Once I graduated I knew I wanted to create something that would emphasize the importance of internships and mentorship before graduation; because those were things that helped ease my transition from college to the "real world."

Our biggest challenge with Find and Follow Your Passion is probably narrowing down our speaker list. There is an insane amount of amazing creative people with super inspirational stories in New York City, it's hard to only choose about 30. But we're thrilled with our line up and are already looking forward to planning the next Find and Follow Your Passion Conference so we can bring even more people on board.

Marny Smith - Community Manager for NY Creative Interns, Customer Support Manager for ChallengePost

2012-02-24T09:00:00-05:00

Marny Smith

"If you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. - Conan O'Brien"

Marny is the Community Manager for NY Creative Interns, the largest Meetup group for interns and recent grads in NYC. NY Creative Interns has organized more than 20 events for 1,250+ attendees and speakers have included professionals from Condé Nast, Etsy, Bravo TV, Mediabistro, Tumblr, and Google, to name a few. Through her work with NY Creative Interns Marny hopes to provide young people with the tools they need to transition into the “real world” and get the internship or job of their dreams.

Marny also works full-time as the Customer Support Manager for ChallengePost, a privately funded start-up that powers challenges to drive new ideas and foster participation around compelling goals. ChallengePost is probably most well-known for running the NYC BigApps competition and clients include First Lady Michelle Obama and the USDA, the City of New York, Thomson Reuters, Samsung, and more.

Born, raised, and rooted in New York City, Marny attended The Bronx High School of Science and went on to get her B.A. from The New School. Prior to her work with ChallengePost and NY Creative Interns, Marny worked as casting assistant on several feature ﬁlms including World Trade Center (dir. Oliver Stone) and Ché (dir. Steven Soderbergh) and also worked as the Publicity Manager for book publisher Ryland, Peters & Small. Marny is also proud to have be one of the organizers of Columbia’s Social Media Weekend. A few of Marny’s many loves include: Kraft singles, Peter Dinklage, and LinkedIn.

Age: 28

Title: Community Manager for NY Creative Interns, Customer Support Manager for ChallengePost

Location: West Village

Contact: @marnysmith, marnysmith.com

In your bio on the NY Creative Interns website you say, “Since entering the workforce I have found that the importance of networking, building relationships and developing industry contacts cannot be underestimated when you are looking to build a successful career." Do you have any tips for someone trying to work on networking and building relationships?

Write a sincere email to someone you admire and ask them to have coffee with you. (They will say yes.) Keep asking people to have coffee with you and ask the one you like best to be your mentor. Join Meetup.com. Go to meetups and introduce yourself to five people you don’t know, ten if you’re feeling ambitious. Keep your LinkedIn profile updated. Participate in Twitter chats. Here’s a crowdsourced list of every Twitter chat out there: http://bit.ly/massivetwitterchatlist Start Blogging. If you don’t want to blog, at least create an About.me page or a Flavors.me page. Always have business cards on hand. If you don’t have a job, create your own business card and include your name, email address, phone number, and website. Be findable: put your email address in your Twitter bio, your LinkedIn page, and on your website. Most of all, be kind and be genuine. Keep in mind that networking is about being authentic, building trust and relationships, and seeing how you can help others.

You were born, raised, and went to school here in NYC. Thoughts on Jeremy Lin?

I think it’s an amazing story, since he’s one of very few Asian-Americans or Ivy Leaguers to play in the NBA at this level. The outpouring of support from fans has been inspiring, and serves as a reminder that excellence should always be rewarded, regardless of race or background. I hope that many people will see him as a role model and that his example will help to bring more diversity into American sports.

What are some of the challenges that you face at your position working for ChallengePost?

I’m the Customer Support Manager for ChallengePost and I’m proud to say that our business and community are growing rapidly. The current challenge I’m facing is how we can scale while maintaining a high level of customer support. We really value our users and we try to respond to every query we get within 24 hours. That includes feedback, questions, bug reports, feature requests, and more. We don’t have millions of users like Twitter, Tumblr or Foursquare yet, but they’re showing that it is possible to provide good customer service at scale and we’re committed to doing the same.

Quinten Farmer - Operations, Taykey

2012-02-23T09:00:00-05:00

Quinten Farmer

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

In December of 2010, I dropped out of college in Raleigh, North Carolina and moved to New York. I knew no one, and had no idea what I was getting myself into- I had never even visited the city before. What brought me to New York was the opportunity to work for David Tisch and David Cohen during Techstars NY's inaugural class. The three months I spent working with eleven early stage startups was truly a life changing experience. I worked in a variety of different roles for the companies, and also built great relationships with many of the founders and mentors in the program.

As Techstars ended I transitioned into a full time job as employee number two at Onswipe. I started out on business development, driving launch partnerships with major publishers and advertisers. I then shifted to a more operations and product focused role, working to scale our tech team and manage product development.

In November of 2011 I left Onswipe and joined Taykey, a trends buying platform that helps Fortune 500 advertisers be more agile in their media spend. Taykey raised an $11 Million Series B a few months before I joined, and as a 35 person company the challenges are very different than those of a seed stage startup. My role is to work closely with our executive team on challenges like hiring, operational processes, and business development. Essentially, I get to take on any challenge inherent in growing a company from startup to profitable business.

As someone who has experienced the welcoming and open nature of the New York startup world firsthand, I cannot emphasize enough how grateful I am to all the amazing people in this community. I always love spending time with people in the industry, whether they are mentors, peers, or newcomers breaking in for the first time. If we haven't met already, get in touch!

Age: 21

Title: Operations, Taykey

Location: Greenwich Village

Contact: @quintendf

You mention that you dropped out of college and moved to New York to work at Techstars. Can you give a little background on how you got involved with Techstars and landed that opportunity? Any desire to go back to school to finish your degree?

I met the Techstars founders David Cohen and Brad Feld at a startup event while I was still a student. I was that guy who waited around the auditorium until no one else was left and I got the chance to talk with David and Brad. I loved the philosophy of mentorship and community behind Techstars, and I knew I wanted to get involved.

After several months of following up with David and Brad, they connected me with David Tisch here in NY.

Tisch was very hesitant to let me leave college to work for Techstars NY. He sees a lot of value in college education and didn’t want to encourage me to drop out. In true Tisch fashion I think he may have called me “F***** crazy” a few times, but in the end he relented and let me join the program. Tisch ended up being a truly incredible mentor, and being a part of the Techstars team during their first class in NYC was a life changing experience. I can’t speak highly enough of the group of founders and mentors that have had such a hugely positive impact on my life.

As far as going back to school in the future- I’m certainly open to the possibility. I was raised with a pretty unique perspective on education: My father essentially dropped out of high school at one point, but ended up with a Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering. I was taught from a young age that education doesn’t have to follow the traditional, linear path.

For me, dropping out of college was a specific step designed to seek out opportunity while I could afford to be highly risk tolerant. While I do have some sympathy for the Peter Thiel perspective that we are in a college “bubble”, I still see personal value in a traditional engineering or liberal arts education. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in 20 years I am teaching philosophy in a small college town and raising a family.

What’s on your personal music playlist?

Recently I’ve had the Gary Clark Jr. EP “Bright Lights” on repeat. As a Seattle native, I’m also a huge fan of Macklemore. Other than that, music discovery for me usually consists of checking out what Mark Bao and Erin Tao are listening to. Those two are pretty much my personal Pandora.

What have you found to be the biggest difference between working at an early stage startup such as Onswipe and a later stage one like Taykey?

At an early stage startup like Onswipe, much of your time is spent answering the most basic questions surrounding your business. Whether you want to call it “product-market fit” or whatever term is popular right now, the challenge of identifying, debating, and solving big problems can be really exciting. I started working with Onswipe right after they raised their seed round, and I was with the company through product launch and raising a Series A. Alongside the founding team I got to work on problems that were all over the map, from “what is our go-to-market strategy” to “how do we provide our employees with health insurance”.

At Taykey, the challenges are centered around scaling and maturing the organization. We have an incredibly talented research and development team in Israel that has been building the core technology behind our product for nearly three years. In New York, we are more focused on turning this technology into a scalable business.

In other words, there’s a huge difference between building a company and scaling an organization. At Onswipe, we were building an entire foundation for the first time. At Taykey, we are making sure that foundation is scalable and repeatable. The two processes are very different, but both are interesting and challenging in their own right.

Alex Binkley - Senior Associate at WilmerHale

2012-02-15T09:00:00-05:00

Alex Binkley

"Only a boring person is bored by himself."

I am an Amero-Canadian from Vancouver/Boston. I bike race and grow coffee plants for fun and I like to do things that are really hard (and usually painful): I once tried to hike the Appalachian Trail in a summer just to see if I could do 26.1 miles a day for 100 days straight (I ended up hitchhiking out of NC - think Deliverance). Another time I sat down to row 99,999 meters on a rowing machine, since that was as far as the machine could go. I have spent my entire life building things: boats, small businesses, buildings, etc, so when I went to law school it was only natural that I would graduate and want to focus on startups. I do a huge range of legal work, but whenever possible I spend my time working with startups, both formally as clients and informally as another member of the community who can try to provide useful advice.

Age: 29

Title: Senior Associate at WilmerHale

Location: Midtown

Contact: @bnkly

Why do you choose to spend your available time working with startups? Looking back - if you had the ability to do it over again, would you still go to law school?

Working with startups is different from practicing other kinds of law. Some of your time is spent as a lawyer, some of it is as a business
consultant and some of it is a therapist. I never wanted a degree in therapy, but for me it was a toss-up between law school and business
school, so this works out great!

In addition to loving the fact that the startup community is a young vibrant group that is just fun to work with, I get to see businesses go
from a small idea to a real company. Other lawyers in my firm will spend all day every day on one large client, while I frequently speak with ten clients a day on anything from their incorporation to their IPO.

This is something I have thought a lot about. I learned a lot in law school and practicing as a lawyer that I could not have learned anywhere else. At one point after college I considered not going to law school and instead coaching rowing and running a small business in Vancouver. A former coach of mine told me "Coaching will always be there if you want it to. You won't ever regret going to law school, but you may regret not going." I think there is a lot of truth to that. 

 Based upon your bio, you obviously like to challenge yourself. What do you consider the biggest challenge you´ve come across yet (either personal or professional)?

I think my biggest challenge is the same as a lot of peoples´ here - time in the day. Not surprisingly, being at a big law firm I work a huge amount, but I also bike race, am always working on side projects, and like spend time with my fiancée. Being relatively young and surrounded by a lot of energetic and exciting people makes doing all this easier, but every once in a while I need to wander out of the city to hibernate! 

 What have you found to be the most recurring issues or problems that you´ve come across while working with startups? Any general advice based upon these experiences?

The biggest issue I see over and over again is founders promising equity to all sorts of different people as they go, without incorporating a company or formalizing any arrangements. We have a lot of founders come in to incorporate who already have an immensely complicated capitalization structure or have 3 former "co-founders" spread across the country who may or may not have a claim to equity. When I am talking to founders pre-incorporation I generally suggest they incorporate sooner rather than later or that they keep their discussions regarding equity more vague, to be firmed up at the time the company is formed.

Farryn Weiner - Director of Media for Michael Kors

2012-01-23T09:00:00-05:00

Farryn Weiner

"U R what you URL."

Adventure Capitalist. Social Media Samurai. Photo Journalist. Badass Blogger. Monkey Connoisseur. Adrenaline Junkie. Asian Food Expert. Lover of 14-hour plane rides. Dance Fiend.

Age: 26

Title: Director of Media for Michael Kors

Location: West Village

Contact: @Jetsetfarryn, JetsetFarryn.com

You're quite busy. You’re currently the Director of Media for Michael Kors, corresponding for Huffington Post, Dubset.com and Jetsetter.com, developing your thesis at NYU on New Media in a Global Context, blogging at Jetsetfarryn.com, and managing the band Pink Cashmere. What's a typical day like for you and how do you manage your time between so many different projects?

Really? Do I do all that!? My day can range from your standard 9 to 5 (more like 9 to 9) – developing social campaigns, working on new digital initiatives, testing out the latest technology and platforms – to shooting a wedding in the middle of a village in India or covering the press pit at Coachella. No day is typical, and that’s the best part. Social Media is social – it's about transparency and flexibility, so interacting with the world comes with the territory.

You’re an avid traveler. Outside of Jetsetter, are there any apps that you use to plan for traveling or out while you’re traveling that you’d recommend to others?

I'm a big fan of TripIt. They alert you of flight delays at least 15 minutes before the airline announces it... every single time. Dropbox is the best invention of all time. I can access my files, images, documents from anywhere in the world. I also love Instagram, North Face Trailhead, Photosynth and Shazam (you'd be surprised, it's awesome at recognizing Hindi music).

You mention that you’re an adrenaline junkie. What kind of things get your adrenaline running?

Climbing a volcano in Chile, sleeping on the border of Pakistan, skydiving in South Africa... you know, the usual.

Annabel Acton - Founder, Never Liked It Anyway

2012-01-16T09:00:00-05:00

Annabel Acton

"Get it going. You can get it right later."

Worked as a brand consultant in Sydney, London and New York for six years before starting work as an innovation consultant in 2011. Knew very little about the world wide web until deciding to launch Never Liked It Anyway...a marketplace to sell all the stuff you're left with when a relationship ends.

Lover of ideas and words; the more abstract the better.

Age: 28

Title: Founder, Never Liked It Anyway

Location: East Village

Contact: @pseudologosbell

You mention that you knew little about the web until you decided to launch your site. What was the single biggest challenge that you had once deciding to start this company? How did you overcome it?

It's been tough managing the tech side as I often felt I was having conversations in another language. I found it hard to trust my own skills and have confidence in what I was bringing to the table; especially at the start when code feels like the most important bit. Initially, I spent a bit of time trying to find a techie to partner with, but for a whole host of reasons, the shoe just didn't fit. I ended up paying a developer (despite being told that forging ahead without a CTO was start-up suicide!!) and am really happy with how it worked out. Aside from some stellar advice from some friends at WeWorkLabs, I guess I overcame it by really believing in the idea. I know that sounds trite, but I was working on it half-heartedly for 6 months and just couldn't get it out of my head. I really believed there was something real and raw and big in the concept and that drove me to make it happen. At the end of the day, the cost of inaction was greater than the cost of failure so I went ahead.

Knowing where and what to sacrifice was also a big challenge. My original concept had all these whizz-bang features (that may one day happen!) but at the start, simplicity is key. I really had to pare it down and tell myself that the launch version was a way to prove the concept; and once I'd done that I could ramp up and build in other things in the future.

You currently work as an Inventor at ?What If! and run your own startup, Never Liked It Anyway. What do you like to do to relax and have fun when you’re not working?

I'll let you know when I find a minute!! Despite the oxymoron, having fun is something I take seriously! I love eating out, drinking out, being out, watching or performing in improv and seeing shows of any sort. And I love nothing more than sitting around and indulging in some good banter; preferably with a cup of tea.

In a recent interview on TEN News they mention that Never Liked it Anyway was already averaging over 15,000 hits per day. How did you go about getting the early traction for your site? Any tips for others looking to start a site of their own?

I made a list early on of people who I really wanted to write about the site. I contacted each of them with personal and relevant emails about why I thought my site was interesting to them. Once Mashable picked it up, a wave of press ensued. I've been really lucky in that department. I think if I had a bit of advice it would be to be thorough and diligent. Contact anyone and everyone and make sure you spell out why it's of interest to them rather than a generic 'here's my startup email'. And within that, be really clear on what the human story is - ask yourself why would people care about this? Technology is interesting but it's the human story that makes it truly fascinating.

Michael Mandel - co-founder + CEO, CompStak

2012-01-04T09:00:00-05:00

Michael Mandel

"Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it."

I'm a commercial real estate broker turned entrepreneur and a proud Babson College (e-tower) grad. I founded CompStak with Vadim, because commercial real estate information should be available and transparent, and because most commercial real estate technology is from the Flinstones era.

CompStak is a marketplace for commercial real estate lease deal information. This is information you can use to find out how much the tenant one floor above you pays in rent (and when their lease is up), which neighborhoods offer the best deals, where your competitors are moving, and which industries are growing and shrinking. We believe that transparency in information leads to fair and efficient deal making, and that's good for everyone.

Age: 29

Title: co-founder + CEO, CompStak

Location: Upper West Side

Contact: @compstak

Looking back at the year, what were some of the more memorable challenges that you ran into while starting CompStak back in April?

The biggest challenge I've faced at CompStak dates back before we really got started in April. Like many aspiring tech entrepreneurs, I spent months searching for a CTO and co-founder that really believed in the product and the company. I wanted a developer who would be a true partner and was in it for the long haul. I met Vadim at an ERoundtable event, and the rest is history.

Since then, our biggest hurdle has been creating a product that is intuitive and beautiful, while collecting and presenting a vast quantity of information. Most real estate technology is antiquated and clumsy. It's our mission to be the opposite of the status quo.

What do you do when you’re not working? What is a relaxing day to you?

I love chocolate chip cookies, brunch and my wife (not necessarily in that order). A day that involves one or all of these things is pretty awesome in my book. In the summer, a day at the beach with a good book and some Jimmy Buffett is just about the best thing ever. Otherwise, I spend a lot of weekends driving to Boston or Philly to see family and go to children's birthday parties (being the youngest of 5 children results in lots of nieces and nephews).

Your views of the real estate market have been featured in Crain’s New York Business, The Commercial Observer, Real Estate Weekly, and many other publications. How is 2012 looking for New York City? What are your thoughts on the raise of co-working spaces for tech startups?

When all the stats get tallied, 2011 may surpass the record number of square feet of office space transacted in NYC. With the instability in the national economy combined with the turmoil in European countries, I think it will be tough for 2012 to compete. The segment of NYC real estate that I'm most interested in, is office space for tech startups. Tech startup real estate has been one of the strongest drivers of NYC office space in the past year, and I think it will continue to make a big impact in 2012. Availability of office space in Midtown South (where most tech startups are located - roughly between Canal and 34th Street) is lower than Downtown and Midtown, and is the lowest it's been in three years. Finding cool creative loft space for startups is really tough right now, and the smaller the space you need, the harder it is to come by.

I think the increase in co-working space in NYC has been terrific for the startup community. I was a founding member of the e-tower, a live-in business incubator at Babson College, and experienced first hand how much value there is for an entrepreneur living and working with other entrepreneurs. Environments like this are invigorating, and the enthusiasm of everyone around you is contagious. Plus, you never know who you'll meet or be introduced to who can help you with your business. Combine the community itself with the classes and mentors that places like General Assembly and WeWork provide and you've got a platform that will really spur innovation in NYC. I think that established businesses in NYC could really stand to learn from the co-working culture.

Matt Smith - Director of New Products, Shutterstock

2011-12-08T09:00:00-05:00

Matt Smith

"It's easy to make things complicated, but incredibly difficult to simplify them."

I'm a business and strategy expert with a focus on product management, and have over ten years of experience building media and technology companies. I approach all challenges from the same angle: understand the long-term strategy, understand the value, and break things down to simple ideas.

Age: 32

Title: Director of New Products, Shutterstock

Location: Upper West Side

Contact: @mjordonsmith, about.me

Your current title at Shutterstock is Director of New Business. What are your day to day responsibilities? How does it compare to your last position there as Business Value Product Owner?

As the Director of New Business at Shutterstock, my main goals is to understand what's next and how it fits into the overall business. On a daily basis, I am doing research (talking with users, understanding their daily routines and what problems or issues they face, etc), prioritizing problems (taking the feedback from users and determining what the number one issue is), working with my teams to see if we can identify potential solutions, and ultimately bringing those ideas back to users so that we can test them and see if we are on to something. Previously, as the Business Value Product Owner, I was focused on helping the company grow from an operational standpoint; payment processing, how do we increase the efficiency of internal folks, etc. Both positions focus on taking the company to the next level, which is something that I love to do and something that I have done in the past.

Any personal new year’s resolution(s)?

Absolutely - build more. I'm making 2012 the year of testing some personal ideas that I have been working on and seeing what's out there. I think most of us in the NYC tech scene are entrepreneurs at heart; we are always looking at ways to solve problems, help people, and build businesses.

What do you think 2012 will be like for New York tech? Any predictions in trends at the start of the new year?

I think 2012 is just the beginning of big things. I expect the NYC tech scene to get even stronger and more personal over the next year or so. I've seen it already and am excited for it to continue; people in the community are willing to help each other out - everyone wants to see success, not just on a personal level, but on grander scale, on a community scale, and I think it's amazing. My biggest prediction, and I don't want to give too much away of course as it's one of my ideas, is a wave of summarizing/consolidation applications; specifically tools that allow you to manage and digest different pieces of content from various sources across the web in one place. It's going to be very tricky and will be a UX challenge above all else. I'm really excited about it!

Will Peng - VC at Raptor Ventures

2011-12-07T07:00:00-05:00

Will Peng

"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. - Haruki Murakami"

Venture investor at Raptor Ventures. Formerly: product (management, design/UX, analytics) at Hot Potato and drop.io; RRE Ventures; Princeton. Ice cream maker.

Age:

Title: VC at Raptor Ventures

Location: Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Contact: @wpeng

Back in 2009 you worked in VC at RRE Ventures and then worked on the product side at Hot Potato, Drop.io, and K2 Media before jumping back into VC at Raptor Ventures. Any particular reason that you decided to get back into VC this year? Do you ever miss working on product?

I do miss working on product. There is something intangible and wonderful about making something that people love. You can touch so many people through something you've created, and it's an amazing feeling knowing that they are sharing in your experiences and stories.

Looking forward, I think there is an opportunity to solve big problems in areas outside of the tech world as a silo. The consumerization of the internet and democratization of attention have shifted the focus back to what the consumer wants, and this is fundamentally changing the way that consumers interact with brands, celebrities, corporations, etc.

I think there is too much of an "us vs. them" mentality, and that people should work together in mutually beneficial ways to achieve their goals. This is why I decided to get back into venture capital. I think if I can help bring together people with mutual interests, great things can happen.

I also think that there is an opportunity to help startups grow in a different way. While it is true that it is cheaper and faster to iterate and get to product market fit, it is still difficult and expensive to find that business model market fit. Many times, entrepreneurs will just brute force the process, but this is expensive and time-consuming.

If we can help entrepreneurs get to both a product-market fit as well as a business model fit faster, that is the holy grail. The key qualifier is that entrepreneurs shouldn't try to monetize from day 1 if it doesn't fit with their execution strategy; rather, I believe that the best execution strategy is one where the product development cycles educate the business model development cycles, and vice versa.

Building a great product should always come first; the business model shouldn't feel disingenuous and take away from the experience of the product.

How did you get into ice cream making? What’s your favorite combination of flavors to put together?

I've always been a bit obsessed with ice cream. So when I found out about the Ice Cream Club on Kickstarter, I knew I had found my people. The club motivated me to buy my own ice cream machine off Amazon, and the rest is history.

My favorite is also probably the simplest to make. I like to make chai ice cream. You just steep the chai in the heavy cream. This works for any type of tea, or anything that has a flavor, for that matter. I've had a pork bun flavored ice cream before. It tasted exactly like a pork bun.

But let's just say there are some flavors better left out of ice cream.

Any predictions for 2012 in regards to the New York startup community?

A compression of startups across the "barbell" from seed to Series A financing. The top breakout startups will always get funded, but for the startups that have not made much progress or the startups that have made some progress but set future expectations so high in their seed round, they will have a tough time getting interest from true Series A investors.

And to balance out the doom and gloom, I truly believe that the most exciting days are ahead of us. In 2012, we will see something crazy that none of us expect. I believe that the technology and the means are out there, and that we are limited only by our own imaginations. There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur, so let your imagination run free.

I think everyone should be able to do what they love, and that's what I like most about being an entrepreneur. Anything is possible.