Why are markets for people horrifically bad?

Finding the right hire? Extremely difficult.

Finding someone reasonable to date? Darn near impossible.

The market makers--job sites, dating sites, extract a lot of value in the middle and never really seem to come through.

I think part of the reason is the lack of data and how to understand it. I want to throw my blog at a dating site and have it understand the semantics: The food I eat, the sports teams I follow, the career I'm in, and the places I frequent. But why stop at my blog? Throw in Twitter, last.fm, del.icio.us, and Flickr, too.

Sites like Spoke, Naymz, and Rapleaf will just point to people and their digital footprints, but no one really takes the time to understand them across various services.

It's pretty obvious that I'm a Met fan, regardless of what I list in any prepopulated field on a social networking site. I've talked about the Mets on my blog and I have Flickr pics of Shea Stadium.

Careerwise, it's also pretty obvious that I know something about social media from my digital presence...but the search that people really want is who in NYC has 4-8 years experience and just talks about "users" the most.

Its not just more data, but also understanding the data in its context.

In his "Getting the UnParty Started" post, Arrington announced that Seesmic, a company that raised $12 million with no business plan whatsoever, is laying off seven people--more than a third of the company.

And I'm not being unfair when I say they have no business model...  that comes straight from the founder, Loic LeMuir, who commented on Mark Evans' blog by saying that even though his traffic is growing, "It does not mean I have a business model."

Are we supposed to believe this is environmental? 

It's not.  This is the specific case of a company that lacks a business model, isn't a new idea, and one that got overfunded.  It got funded by Valley VCs?  Really... you're kidding me? 

Let's compare Seesmic with New York City-based Paltalk to show why we shouldn't act like Seesmic's layoffs are the End of Days...   Sure, there's definite trouble in the economy, but the extent to which people are telling that the sky is falling and the fact that "Silicon Valley woke up to the fact that something had changed," as John Borthwick put it, "...is a distraction."

Innovative new idea?

Hardly.  If you narrow the definition of your space to microscopic levels, anything can seem new, but rather than think of Seesmic as the first embedded video comment platform (how big is that industry?), let's just say that it's generally in the business of creating video communities.  That would make it about three and a half years late to the party, as Paltalk got its first round of funding back in 2004, comparied to late 2007 with Seesmic. 

Business Model and Financing

Like Loic said, Seesmic has no business model, and yet they raised $12 million in less than a year.  You can't even say, unlike what Hulu seems to be doing, that you could slap advertising in there to generate revenue, because these are conversations.  Who wants an ad for Chili's right before a blog comment? 

Paltalk, on the other hand, has been profitable for a couple of years on just a single round of $6 million in financing.  Their users pay for advanced functionality--the freemium model. 

Built for a Mass Audience

Paltalk took something that people have been doing on the web for years--talking on IM and in chat rooms, and made it more interesting with video technology.  It was clear that this was something that mainstream users were already interested in doing. 

Seesmic on the other hand, built around asynchronous video commenting, doesn't seem to be gaining traction at all--not surprising because commenting in general wasn't something that was really that prevalent on most blogs.  Plus, the audience of bloggers and blog commenters is much smaller than people who IM or chat.

Most posts get one or two comments, but you wouldn't know that if the only blogs you read are A-listers.   Disqus bucked that trend by making commenting easier and more responsive to the user--engaging listserv style discussions by e-mail to power blog comment conversation, but Seesmic makes leaving a comment more cumbersome  

Business Development

Most people encounter Seesmic on the blogs of A-listers--so it's not surprising that A-lister Valley types are the ones who funded it.  Paltalk, however, makes deals and works with media partners and groups that cater to the mainstream--like Opie and Anthony's morning talk radio show.  Have you ever sat in a random Paltalk chatroom?  You hear people from all across the country and the world--not Web 2.0 blog pundits, but just regular "Joe Six Packs" talking about their lives.  It's really fascinating, actually. 

I'm tired of the pundits and the VCs telling companies that the end of days is near, after those very same folks talked up and funded... over funded, rather, all of these companies that they're now shaking their fingers at telling to cut out unnecessary spending and work on getting to profitability.  Wasn't that what they were supposed to be doing in the first place??   Why do any of these companies have extra money to spend anyway?

My company is talking about a $2 million round that takes us from 4 people to 8 people and our marketing plan takes us pounding the pavement to professional societies, alumni associations--i.e. the mainstream--solving a mainstream painpoint by helping people with their careers.  It kind of makes me sick, actually, to see that so much of the capital in these overfunded, underfocused deals will go up in smoke, and unfortunately will lessen enthusiasm for solid ideas from conservative entrepreneurs with them in the cloud of uncertainty and fear that has now been cast. 

Seems like everytime I turn around, PBS is asked for cash and trying to give away some kind of totebag or DVD or something.  Well, they've been around forever and people seem to enjoy the totebags, so why don't I try giving something away to really kick up the fundraising for my Donor's Choose campaign?

Here's an idea.  I've been thinking lately that I haven't had much of an opportunity to try out new web services and could use the inspiration of other people's product ideas flowing through this blog.  One of my favorite things to do is give feedback and take the product side of my brain for a spin around a new web app.   At the same time, I get pinged by lots of PR people to link to their clients.

I also feel like all I've been doing lately is reblogging anti-Sarah Palin videos and writing fuzzy introspective posts, when the TIGTBB you all used to know was more full of "Web 2.0 with a grain of salt".

So here's what I'm going to do...

For any web service that contributes $200 to my Donor's Choose campaign, I'll review and link to your idea/service/company, etc on my blog, and if it's in NYC, I'll cc it to the nextNY blog.  If I get too many requests, next week I'll just up the req'd donation.

That doesn't mean you get a positive review, and it's going to be limited to one per day. (I figure I blog once a day anyway, so it's not going to take me any more time than usual...)   So, if I don't like what you're up to, I'll try to be super constructive, and I'll definitely take into consideration what stage you're at, but either way, you'll get feedback and hopefully some users.

So e-mail me at charlie dot odonnell at gmail dot com with a one pager and a link, I'll respond back with a "Sounds good" and then you toss your cash in.  I'll get to it within a day or two.

Here's an example...  I did this one for a friend the other day at no cost:

This is about MyJambi, which is a marketplace for services--good idea, big market, definite need...  but certainly not an easy execution problem.  This is what I sent over:

"Finally getting around to spending some time here... 

First impressions...

First thing it asks me to join.  People don't want to "join" anything... they want to get things done--either to get or give services...  joining is a distraction and kind of a played out task on the web.

The tougher person to sign up is the person who needs the service, I think.  If I offer resume help, and I want to promote myself, I'll go the extra mile b/c I'm trying to promote my business and ultimately I think I'll make money.  As the person requiring the service, though, I'm the one who needs to be impressed, so I think the site should be all about me.  myjambi.com should be offering services, while myjambi.com/vendors or something like that should be all about getting more people offering, and that's a separate marketing effort.

In terms of the profile pages, I think your titles and URL structure need more info...

When I Google "introduction to microfinance", I get teachstreet, but not your page.   Partly, I think that's because teachstreet also puts geo information in the URL, making it more likely to come up in various types of searches.  You should additionally have this guy's name in the URL, because that's another key term people will search on.   They also have the location in the title.

http://www.teachstreet.com/seattle-wa/finance/introduction-to-microfinance/cl-zu54lo6sg

http://www.myjambi.com/users/11549/economics-tutors/6620-introduction-to-microfinance

If I were you, I'd go strike biz deals with teachstreet and any other niche place that offers tutoring or other types of services.  If there's a social network for masseuses, it should be a one click effort to create a myjambi page to market yourself.... and you just strike some kind of affiliate deal with them.
In terms of how to get people on board to offer services, how about helping me out with how much to charge?  If you have enough data on hourly rates, both from service people and customers, you'd be able to tell me what the going rate for resume writers in NYC is.

One other idea...  build out pages for various services in different cities that are empty...  like Meetup does.  If you search pugs in Wasilla, Meetup won't come up empty... they'll allow you to setup a holding page of some sort that says you've indicated an interest in this... and it allows you to get notified if there's a critical mass of other people what want to meet up and talk about pugs. If I search for resume writers in NYC... and you don't have any yet...  you should create a page detailing how many people have been asking for this service.    Perhaps you should let me automatically create a craigslist ad or job post on various free job boards that takes me back to this page, so I can market the fact that I need this service.

One other thing I might consider is bundling these services.   For example, put together a character of a mom, and bundle all the services that a mom might need...  It makes it really easy for moms to know where to go on the site.  They may know they need a baby sitter, but then they might discover that other moms are also getting at home "mommy and me" workouts, which they didn't even know existed.
With bundle packages like this... groups of service people could work together to market, and you can better target your marketing.... otherwise you'll get an imbalance of different types of services.  Plus, that would be a differentiator for your site.   People really love those character types... they've been used a lot on Answerology and they're fun.

Logins...  pull back the logins!  When I click on a service provider's, I shouldn't have to login, because 1) They don't want anyone being prevented from seeing more info about them and 2) You haven't convinced me there's a reason for me to login yet.

Plus, what's weird is that I can google them and I get a public profile page that I don't need to login for.

Also, their name needs to be in that URL, like this:  http://www.myjambi.com//writers/first_last/6257-i-ll-help-you-write-your-essay

I'd even expose their availability, too...   but require a login to request a time...   and maybe not even a login... maybe just an e-mail address.... and then she can write back using a double blind match.com style listserv thingy to  talk to the person. "

Amazing. In the blink of an eye we've come from Web 2.0 mania to Limited Partner commitment defaults in VC funds. Wow... who turned on the lights in the club? Party's over, I guess.

"You don't have to go home, but ya can't stay here."

Anyway, Doomsday aside, the way venture capital works is that high net worth individuals and institutions (pension funds, endowments, insurance companies) make commitments to VC funds. Unlike hedge funds, however, they don't hand the money over day one--it gets drawn down as VCs find and fund deals. Some funds, like Accel, draw down chunks of their fund 5% at a time, just in case a deal needs some quick cash. Otherwise, Limited Partners generally have 10 business days from the day VCs request their money to pay up. If they don't, they can be in default, and lose their stake in the fund. If you really don't have the money, though, I guess that's not such a bad scenario.

From '00-'03, many dot com entrepreneurs and even some institutions (like banks) realized that, as a % of their shrinking wealth, they had overcommited to VC funds and either couldn't keep up with the capital calls or just didn't want half their savings tied up in VC funds.

Some of them had pieces of VC funds that had already been fully invested, others had relatively new commitments. Eiither way, they wanted out and that's where the VC secondaries market came into play.

How do I know this? When I was on the VC investment team at the GM Pension Fund (now PEQM), we were a major investor in secondaries. Not only did we back secondary funds, like Lexington Parters, who bought these commitments from others, but we did a number of transactions on our own, buying direct. One of our major purchases was a portfolio of VC funds sold after the crash, when VC funds seemed to b devaluing their portfolio and shutting down companies every quarter. It was a bloodbath and those who were newbie investors went running--right into the arms of long term institutional investors like ourselves that had been doing venture since 1979.

The most interesting portfolios we saw were the mostly unfunded ones, where investors had made big commitments to newly raised VC funds only to realize that they'd never be able to follow through.

So what's the going rate for an empty VC fund that has yet to draw down any capital? More than you think!

Some funds, like Kleiner, Sequioa, August, Accel, were seen as so attractive to investors and so difficult to get into, that people were paying money for completely unfunded commitments--just to get into the fund. The idea is that if you target a 15% return and you think a given fun will return 25%, then risks being equal, you'd actually pay up to put your money into it if you were limited in your access to other similar funds.

That was the exception, though. Most funds were sold at heavy discounts for the existing assets. The point is, there was never a shortage of investors looking for access to these funds. The idea was that if you bought in, made nice with the VC firm, and proved to be a stable source of capital, you could hopefully get into their next fund as well, plus make some money with your "value" bet on the existing assets.

Therefore, good firms with good LPs will always have someone waiting in the wings to take over their commitment. Also, some existing LPs have "ROFRs", which stands for right of first refusal. That means that before you think you're going to pick up a few pieces of the next Sequoia fund on the cheap, the existing investors will get a shot at it before you do.

If you do have a commitment to a top tier fund and you're looking to get out, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with some folks who would be willing to take it off your hands. Just remember, when I say top tier, I don't mean Joe's Auto Body Shop and VC Fund.

I was talking to my entreprenuership class the other day and made an important discovery--a lot of them lacked for inspiration from the people around them.  A lot of us have great friends--mostly people that life just put in our laps by geography or by shared interest--and they wind up being people you share a lot of history with.

However, those aren't always the people that get your brain stirring the most.  You know what I'm talking about--when you can actually feel, even hear, that little hamster spinning away on the wheel.  Your mind races faster than you can speak, and you trip over your words as you try and get them out into a verbal blueprint of some big mental breakthrough.

Marc Andreessen once quoted Dr. James Austin on the topic of luck, and how just getting your mind going increases the chances that you stumble upon something big:

"A certain [basic] level of action "stirs up the pot", brings in random ideas that will collide and stick together in fresh combinations, lets chance operate.

Motion yields a network of new experiences which, like a sieve, filter best when in constant up-and-down, side-to-side movement..."

I have a friend that is always coming up with big and sometimes ridiculous new ideas.  Once, he was going to get an aquarium for his apartment and populate it with agressive fish--"fish that eat other fish".  He was so psyched about it.  I couldn't help but be equally excited, but also somewhat suspect about the feasability of this endeavor.  Either way, it got my mind going.

Nate has a similar effect on me, too.  He has an idea a minute.  Perhaps one day he'll settle on something, but for the moment, he remains the Wile E. Coyote of Silicon Alley--always working up blueprints for something big.  You can't help but get the wheels turning when you talk to Nate, even if you totally disagree with him, because you're going to wind up exploring the idea and learn something along the way--or take something away from it that could help you with something completely different. 

These are the kinds of people I go out of my way to spend time with.  I probably take about three meetings a week with people who have inspiring ideas completely unrelated to what I'm up to, because it's a mental workout for me.  It helps me think better and gain perspective about my own ideas--a rigorous cerebral exercise.  What I was trying to explain to my students is that, if you're going to make a living off of your creativity and innovation, you need to set your life up in such a way that you spend more time with people who inspire you to think, as opposed to just spending your time with whoever lives on your floor, or the people next to you in class.

Along the way, we've all met pretty interesting people in passing, but we don't always stop them and demand more of their time.  That's active management--making a point to be more deliberate in our scheduling, and its something we all should do more of.  When's the last time you had a really inspiring conversation with someone?  Who was it?  What did they make you think about?  How likely is it that you'll talk to them again soon?   Perhaps you should ensure that happens sooner rather than later by asking them to grab coffee or something.  My life is filled with what I call "onesies"--people not really connected to the rest of my world but that I've pulled in because my interaction with them really lights a fire for me.

Who does it for you?  Why don't you drop them a line...

Yesterday, CNN's citizen journalism site called iReport featured a story that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack.  Within minutes, Apple's stock had plunged, wiping out millions of dollars in shareholder value.

While people are pointing fingers at the problems with citizen journalism, I think what this really indicates is a problem with corporate PR.  As soon as the story broke, someone should have called Steve up and said, "Steve, everyone thinks you had a heart attack, go post on the blog."  Within about 30 seconds, he could have had a video posted on the Apple corporate blog saying, "Hey everyone...   I'm ok, working hard as usual."   I don't care where he was--you know he's never far from a Mac with a built-in webcam.  Instead, the constant veil of secrecy around the guy makes it possible for a news forum where users have no ratings or ways to substaniate their claims can erase millions in market cap in minutes.

Hi folks...    I'm competing in the Donors Choose Blogger Challenge.  Basically, each blogger selects a set of educational projects they'd like to encourage donations to.  These are individual teachers and the projects are usually just a couple hundred bucks--like buying supplies, visual aids, etc. 

Check out the projects I've selected.  If half my blog readers give ten bucks each, we could easily fulfill all of these projects!

But most of all, I want to raise more than TechCrunch does.  Why?  Because by reading this blog, you're just a better person.  :)

Today, Oddcast announced their AvatarSpace product.  The idea for multiple avatars chatting in the same room was Adi's vision for quite a while now and it's cool to see it come to fruition, especially since I worked on some of the initial plans for it.

Check out my early wireframe for a gameshow with multiple avatars chatting in the same room:

I worked on that at the beginning of last summer, not long before I left.  Now, it's a real thing.  Rooms can be anything, I imagine...   places, shows, games, etc.

Check it out...

 From Mr. Jarvis...

"Instead, I want a page, a site, a thing that is created, curated, edited, and discussed. Its a blog that treats a topic as an ongoing and cumulative process of learning, digging, correcting, asking, answering. Its also a wiki that keeps a snapshot of the latest knowledge and background. Its an aggregator that provides annotated links to experts, coverage, opinion, perspective, source material. Its a discussion that doesnt just blather but that tries to accomplish something (an extension of an article like this one that asks what options there are to bailout a bailout). Its collaborative and distributed and open but organized."

From Healy Jones of Atlas Ventures, who writes "Startable" with an entrepreneur... 

"The bad news is that early stage VCs tend to have pretty non-defined processes - assuming that there ANY process at all. As such, Ive created this helpful diagram so that you can try to guess where your company is in its capital raise: Venture Capital Deal Process Diagram"

Ideas and Thoughts from Winter Street VC and Entrepreneur

Being out doing the venture capital dog and pony show now, there are a lot of things I'd tell you were pretty frustrating, despite the fact that our process is going pretty well.  When we do close our round, I'll post a lot more about it.  However, the one thing I would have to say has been the most bewildering has been the divergance among venture firms definition of what early stage is, and what they're willing to bet on.

Virtually all of the VCs we went to wanted to see that we had built a product, which we have, but then the question came to traction--and it wasn't at all clear what kind of traction was enough and what it proved.

When I was at Union Square Ventures, we used to say that we wouldn't invest in a consumer facing web application without any consumers.  In fact, to quote Fred, "I coined that phrase."  :)  The question, though, was what exactly that proved?

In my mind, it eliminated execution risk--that you wanted to back a team who was able to complete a functional product.  We didn't want to take the technological risk of whether or not the stuff worked--and that having a team who could get product out the door was a good filter.

What it did not prove, to me, and what a lot of firms seem to think, was that early traction somehow proves adoption and sustainable consumer interest.

This thinking falls down for two reasons.  First of all, there are lots of web applications that fail to get beyond the initial "TechCrunch bump", or as Josh Kopelman puts it, the 53,651.  That was the number of TechCrunch RSS subs back in May of '06.  The interesting thing is that number is almost twice the number of users del.icio.us had when we started talking about an investment.  You never know if that initial ferver of the digerati will transfer over to a mainstream crowd.  Even at 100,000 users, that could still flatten out and never get past the geeks, and mainstream adoption is absolutely critical to success. 

Look at Notchup.  Everyone signed up for it back in the beginning of the year, pushing it past 150,000 monthly users.  I mean, who wouldn't want to get paid to interview?  The only problem was that it wasn't sustainable, and traffic has nearly completely disappeared.

You could say that startups should then have at least six months of before being funded, but then you get into the question of who's supposed to be funding that path.  From conception to launch, it probably takes most companies 9-12 months.  Tack on another six months, and now you're talking almost 18 months of life--a lot to squeeze out of an angel round, no?  Perhaps angel rounds now need to be at least 500k to get a company anywhere useful, because just building a product won't be seen as enough.

This emphasis on initial traction also fails to take into consideration iteration and the idea that most companies will not get it right the first time.  Sure, there are a select few companies that get it right from the start, but that's not the case with most.  Take Flock, for example.

Now, I don't know what they consinder success, but certainly they're doing better now, and seemingly sustainably so, than they were when they first released.  Who knows, perhaps another big product release could push their monthly traffic to a half a million uniques.  Either way, they were able to have the flexibility to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to improve their product.  We saw that with the guys from InfoNGen, who nearly went back to square one to iterate on their information product in the financial services space, making it much more lightweight and feedbased.  Without the right funding, they wouldn't have been able to do that.  What helped them was that they had done it before (iterating on a product to make it successful) so that was part of their previous M.O.

Products will, and should, change over time based on the lessons learned from getting users in the door.  How many users do you need to learn those lessons?  At the moment we've had 3500 people take the Path 101 personality test, without really marketing it at all.  Everyday, we learn a lot more about what people expect from the results, and what makes it easier for them to take and complete the test.  We've seen completion rates double just based adjustments made after the first few hundred people took it--and we're running that same process with other features that we're testing to smaller audiences. 

What we know we really need, though, is a good user experience expert and front end developer to help fix things, and that takes financial resources.  That in itself is an interest bet, though.  You could imagine that there are sites, if made easier, would take off with a better experience, but without being able to envision what those experiences look like, it's difficult to really count on that. 

This theory also discounts the value of marketing and business development.  A central focus of our distribution strategy is to syndicate our career tools out to partner sites--like professional socities, alumni groups, etc.  A good marketing and business development person can make that happen--but it's just a matter time and good old fashion pounding the pavement.  However, if you're supposed to have deals done, product complete in partnership quality form, users in the door, can you really even call it early stage anymore?

We didn't even talk about business model.  I had one early stage firm want us to be 12 months away from revenue--and not just revenue driven by putting ads up on the site.  Can you imagine if those same demands were put on Google, Twitter, or LinkedIn?  They never would have gotten anywhere, because they never would have been given enough runway to iterate on the product and get to a critical mass of users to make revenue possible. 

Twelve months from revenue generation hardly seems "early stage" to me for a consumer application--because ultimately, in a consumer app, revenue is going to be driven by someone else.  That means that not only do you have to build your consumer application, but then you need to build the monetization engine, too--almost a completely new application for your paying business users who, for example, might pay for data created by the site, or in our case, to search out the right candidates for employment.

Again, all of this stuff is obviously critical and I'm not meaning to be dismissive about it, but startups our out there trying to figure out how much blood they're supposed to squeeze from the stone of an angel round.  Should they expect to raise multiple angel rounds, or just really large angel rounds?  

The interesting thing is that the advent of the larger (500k+) angel round may be shooting some venture firms in the foot.  Companies raising around 750k might be able to get to the point of building something worth acquiring by then--not for huge money, but certainly for enough to send everyone home happy because of the lack of capital sitting on top of them. 

The exception to all these rules is when a VC firm writes a multimillion dollar check to a repeat entpreneur to go after a particular space without even having a product yet--like when Benchmark funded Zillow.  The founders of Zillow were behind Expedia and so it was basically assumed that team could find success if properly resourced, in a completely different industry.  It certainly seems plausible, but then it makes me think of a friend of mine whose first startup was a blowout success, whose team went on to create a product in a different market.  What she's realizing is that she didn't really learn a lot the first time around--that when they built a product that caused the phones to ring off the hook and revenues to start pouring in, no one really questioned it, and so no one really learned much about why or how they were successful.  Those lessons would have to be learned to enable repeatability.  Her team is struggling now with their second go at this.  I think if I were a VC, I might try my hand at finding good teams who have failed once before--but then we dive into what makes a good team if not good results, and that's a whole other question and a whole other blog post!

Congratulations!  You've just been made the VP of Media Innovatiion at Bigolmedia Corp.  You've been tasked with the job of bringing what had historically been a print magazine business into the current Web 2.+ environment.  You came from a startup that grew out of a thriving local entrepreneurial community.  You're excited about not only bringing new ideas in, but also about being a resource to the local community--you have money, you have people resources, and a ton of legacy traffic from the online versions of all your print media titles.

So what do you do first?

You have several tools at your disposal. 

You can hire new folks, invest, incubate, do biz dev deals, buy things.  What has worked for other companies?  What do innovators want from you?  How do you best take advantage of the opportunity you've been given?

We now have personality test widgets for the Path 101 Personality Test!   You can share and compare with your friends side by side!  Click here to see if we're anything alike.

Starting this Wednesday night, September 24th, I'll be teaching ITAC's FastTrac course, which is a beginner's overview on starting up your own business.  ITAC has served as the Marion Ewing Kauffman Foundation’s certified provider of FastTrac entrepreneurship training in NYC for 9 years.  It's not just limited to tech companies--last spring we had three bakers, a fashion line, an HVAC remanufacturer, and a nanotech company in the mix. 

The class goes for 10 successive Wednesday nights and we bring in speakers to cover various areas of entrepreneurship, like financing, recruiting, marketing, etc.

Please contact Veronica Price (vprice@itac.org) with your name, company, and phone number by noon tomorrow for more details and be prepared to come to tomorrow night's first session if there are open spots.

The class costs $1,000, a small part of which goes to pay my salary, but mostly goes to fund ITAC's associated entrepreneurial support activities.  ITAC is a nonprofit consulting and training organization dedicated to helping NYC manufacturing and technology companies with programs that increase their top and bottom lines.

I just wanted to write a quick note of thanks to everyone who was involved in Tuesday's nextNY @shakeshack event.  I'm sure I'll leave folks out:

First off, Fred Wilson made the intro to Danny Meyer.  That's what got us in the door.  Danny, who apparently came by but who I didn't get to meet, put us in touch with his staff and the folks at the Madison Square Park Conservancy.  They've worked together on many previous events and they made it happen logistically.

The actual event could not have possibly run any smoother, so I owe much thanks to Vernon Patterson from the Shake Shack and his staff, as well as Debbie Landau and her staff from the Conservancy: Lizzie Honan, Leah Milton, and Maggi Landau.  I expect that SOMETHING would go wrong, but it didn't... not at all.  Not even a blip--especially considering we did the whole plan in less than four weeks--a testament to their organizational skills.

Of course, someone had to pay for all those burgers, the shakes, and the beer (and purple cows, too!).  In two weeks, we covered all our costs with great sponsors that were able to move fast--the first, fastest, largest and most fun were the folks from chi.mp.  They were extremely visable, from their banners to their t-shirts, and worked hard to get all of the attendees beta invites to their service.

Also coming up big for us were the NY Angels, who not only contributed financially, but also made a big splash with their turnout.  I don't think I've ever seen so many of the angels out at an event. 

Recruiting firm Winter Wyman was also a major supporter.  After my recent call for tech recruiting firms to participate more in the community, they've been getting their feet wet in social media.  You can find partner Mike Fitzgerald on Twitter and on his new blog at Alley Hunting .

Video chat service Paltalk, law firm Cooley Godward Kronish, NYC venture capital firm RRE, Square 1 Bank (see the article on the nextNY blog), and the Incubator at RoseTech Ventures were also big supporters.

Still, with 300 people and the prime location, we needed every bit of help we could get, and when we put out the call, several others helped as well.  Startup MyJambi, law firm Pillsbury Winthrop, funding software Angelsoft, reputation service BeenVerified, PR firms Bite PR and the Horn Group, Path 101, and social network CafeMom all pitched in as well.   In fact, I wasn't really familar with some of these services and sites, and so I'll be profiling them on my blog over the next week, because I'm curious.

I also want to thank everyone who pitched in and helped at the front desk--too many to mention and lots who just jumped in to help.

But most of all, I want to thank everyone who came!  You made the event.  I get a lot of credit for stuff because I'm the initiator, but this was a community event.  Without the community, it would have been just a bald dude in the park with way too much to eat and a lot of extra booze.  So, to everyone who enjoyed the event, you should pat yourselves on the back for participating.  The New York City tech community is strong and vibrant--much stronger than before.  Financial crisis?  Bring it.  We'll weather this storm and be better for it.

tmarman: The @shakeshack event was a resounding success - everyone thank @ceonyc again for his effort on setting of up. Go #nextNY!

vacanti: @ceonyc Best new york tech event I have been to, BY FAR. Awesome job.

dangellert: Back from basketball and a great event put together by @ceonyc. Great food and great people

jonsteinberg: @ceonyc Let me throw my kudos on top of everyone else. Fantastic event...great meeting face to face (again)

DorianBenkoil: @ceonyc It was a wonderful thing, all that Shakin' going on.

Dan121377: @ceonyc A for the event. A+ for the Hannibal Smith reference.

sachinag: @ceonyc That was great. You should be proud. Many thanks!

alexandergordon: Fun night at @ceonyc's @shakeshack and TechSet. No more talkie, time for sleepy

rauenzahner: @ceonyc knows how to set up an event. ShakeShack was a huge success and I met some really awesome people!

caroliiine: Also, big props to @ceonyc for throwing one hell of a burgerfest.

tobins: @ceonyc Thanks so much for putting @shakeshack together. Met a lot of new folks and had great discussions.

epc: @ceonyc Fantastic job on @shakeshack tonight!

christianbusch: Thanks to @ceonyc and chi.mp plus other sponsors for pulling together @shakeshack! Good community event and great people

Shripriya: @ceonyc very nice job, charlie. you should be proud of yourself...

dherman76: Great job @ceonyc for @shakeshack event. Had a great time!

WayneMulligan: @ceonyc Great event Charlie!!

zarzecks: @ceonyc kudos on such a great event. Was a blast.

jasonoliver: @ceonyc great job with the event man. Let's definitely grab food sometime soon.

tikkers: Huge thanks to @ceonyc and chi.mp and the rest of the sponsors for the @shakeshack event!!

whitneymcn: @kortina Good to meet you too, and @ceonyc - thanks for making this happen! Great party, though I'd expect nothing less from @shakeshack. :)

kortina: dinner @shakeshack w @navajeet @ceonyc @innonate @charlesforman @rauenzahner @jonsteinberg @whitneymcn @alexlines @ et al! back to work...

Philip_James: Great event @shakeshack, good work to @ceonyc

dam00n: @ceonyc great event fantastic kickoff to the week

CathleenRitt: Hey @ceonyc and the people at chi.mp and of course @shakeshack sure know how to throw a party

Jschwa: @ceonyc seriously nice job that was no joke

innonate: @ceonyc Is. The. Man. GREAT party man. You killed it.

ronaldbradford: home after Web 2.0 NY events. Shake Shack, sponsored by chi.mp and Women in Tech. Both great networking.

mylerdude: Wow! The @chimp bash at the shake shack totally rocked. NYC take note: that's how it's done.

MCholly: very goid NextNY event at (drum roll please).....shake shack! Nice meeting food and seeing familar faces

BeenVerified: Shake Shack event went great, will post pics on blog soon. Gearing up for Web2.0 Expo now...

imnoah: Good food at shake shack/nextny party. Now off to techset party

RobFarrow: Hanging at shakes shack, crowd is jumping

mknell: wow - the entire Shake Shack is shut for this...Cool :)

As many of you know, we have a very special event going on here in NYC next Tuesday night called @shakeshack.  The name comes from the Twitter bot us Big Apple geeks use to organize our midday jaunts to the famous Madison Square Park Venue.

The event is going to be huge: 300 key people in the NYC community:  VCs, Angels, developers, designers, business people.  You can check out the attendee list here.  Sorry, but it's totally full!

We couldn't do the event, however, without sponsors, and a number of startup and tech friendly folks stepped up to make it happen.  We'll be spotlighting those folks leading up to the event as part of their sponsorship, but more than anything else out of our appreciation for their support.

Our first is Square 1 Bank.  I asked Brad Steele about what the bank does and here's is response:

"In a nutshell, we specialize exclusively in providing commercial banking services and senior debt financing to venture capital-backed companies and venture capital firms.  That's all we do.

We are keenly aware of the ups and downs, life cycle stages and challenges early stage, emerging growth companies face as they drive to become a large, dominant player in its space.  The traditional, mid-market regional and larger money center banks like the ones you mentioned below, are no very little about the venture capital world, entrepreneurs and start-up companies. It's important for an emerging growth, venture-backed company to surround itself with professionals who specialize in their world. 

That's us. 

You wouldn't go to a mortgage company for a car loan.  Why would you go to a bank who doesn't cater to venture-backed companies when you have an option which does?

"Innovation. Risk. Potential." High-tech shorthand like this describes the very essence of hundreds of young technology companies in the New York area.

For traditional business banks, terms like "conservative" and "risk-averse" are more appropriate descriptors--a profile that contrasts sharply... ...with hard-charging technology companies and their equally aggressive professional investor partners.

Square 1 specializes in meeting the requirements of emerging growth, venture-backed technology and life sciences companies.  We tailor our service offerings and lending styles specifically to the needs to these companies and their more mature counterparts.

Venture bankers like those found at Square 1, on the other hand, understand that traditional attributes may not capture the true value of an enterprise and they are willing to consider additional factors.

For instance, the expertise and track record of a high-tech company's top management carries a great deal of weight. Another critical factor (particularly for start-up firms) is whether the company has gained the backing of a financial firm. Professional investor backing is a key consideration for venture banks, and the larger and more experienced the venture capital firm is, the better chance the company will have to obtain a bank loan. Venture bankers will also evaluate the company's intangible assets. For example, intellectual property--including patents, copyrights and trademarks--may be considered acceptable collateral."

You can learn a lot more about Square 1 Bank at @shakeshack, where Brad and several members of the Square 1 Bank team will be in attendence, or you can contact him directly at bsteele (at) square1bank (dot)com.

Yammer is Twitter for corporations, but people don't need or want corporate control over their twittering.

"Anyone with a corporate email can sign up and follow other people in their company. But if a company wants to claim its users, and gain administrative control over them, they will have to pay. Its a brilliant business model."

Yammer Takes Top Prize At TechCrunch50

I don't know about you, but I don't exactly want a corporate IT department controling my communication apps.  Plus, doesn't this sort of sound like racketeering?  It's not like Get Satisfaction, where companies may pay one day to participate and get data.  No, companies will pay to "gain administrative control"... ie shut it down/make it no fun, kill the community.  If I'm placing my bets, I'd lean towards companies becoming more open and participatory, teaching employees how to behave in public and seeing the ROI from that involvement, not locking them up more.

Didn't we try this with instant messaging, and didn't IT departments just concede victory to AIM and let everyone put AIM on their desktop?  Sure, it came with that silly disclaimer IM, but people wanted the same apps they used at home to be available at work.  Add on the fact that Twitter is on mobile via SMS and will soon go live again on IM, and there's simply no way companies can block usage.

Companies may in fact wind up signing up for this, but I can't imagine that many employees would really want to us it. 

Big corporate, please keep your filthy hands off my 140 characters!

Is it me or does the west coast technology scene resemble something of a car accident?

Who's in?  Who's out?  Who gets an unfair look at coverage?  Who charges for what?

Among all that catfighting and negativity, how is anyone supposed to get their startup taken seriously? 

A VC asked me the other day if I was thinking about participating in TechCrunch 50 and I nearly laughed out loud.

I respect Jason Calacanis and Mike Arrington for their ability to self-promote, but remember, its self promotion that's their specialty, not the promotion of others.  Once again, the big news coming out of TechCrunch 50 isn't the companies--we don't even know who they are yet--it's the promoters. 

Let's get it straight.  No company has ever been made or broken on TechCrunch, and the idea that Mike has been called a "kingmaker" is laughable.  If he was a kingmaker, he would have taken the $5 million he had to build Edgio, and made himself a startup king. 

Instead, he found out that there's no substitute for a great product and great marketing.  That's what makes or breaks companies.  If you've built something really great, you need to systematically find your target audience and get them using it, and build in the product features that make it easy to spread.  For most startups, the crowd at TechCrunch50 and Demo isn't anything close to the userbase most of these companies are looking to get.

In fact, if you're participating in anything that has an embargo attached to it, you're wasting valuable opportunities to get in front of reporters when there aren't dozens of other companies all trying to launch at the same time.  You can say that TechCrunch 50 has no cost, unlike Demo, but there's a real cost to it.   Time is money to entrepreneurs, and if you're not allowed to talk to reporters, and each day you burn more of your own or your angels money, participating in this conference is costing you real money. 

That's another reason why I'm happy to be building my company here on the east coast, where we don't let all this startup stuff get to our heads, because our egos are kept in check by the enormity of other industries around us.   When you're big in tech in the Valley, you're huge.  When you're big in tech in NYC, you've still got a ways to go, and for a hungry entrepreneur, that's a much healthier place to be.