Entrepreneur 2's company got bought by a big Bay Area tech company a few years ago:

Entrepreneur 1: So, how long you in for?
Entrepreneur 2: Two years, two months, three days...
Entrepreneur 1: Ummm... I meant in New York...at the conferece. How long are you here in New York for?
Entrepreneur 2: Oh...leaving Sunday.

Rock the vote, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Final tally... One Republican (does Mayor Mike even count?) one conservative and three Democrats.

If you can code your way out of a hat, you have a job right now.  You're also probably getting lots of offers from completely random startups and people you've never heard of--people just randomly searching LinkedIn for "PHP", "AJAX", or "ninja".

Some are offering just equity.

Some are willing to pay a little.

Some are willing to pay a lot.

Some are offering their sister who is "number four prostitute in all of Kazakhstan".  Very nice!

Clearly, you've got your pick.  So how do you choose?  I mean, you're not an idiot.  You know that the advertising sponsored lolcat CRM Facebook app doesn't have legs, but there are a couple of things that sound like they could work. Still, you're not a marketing expert or finance major, so, even if you just cut the list down to "interesting technical challenges and things I'd like to work on", you've still got a bunch left.  How are you supposed to figure out what might still be around in a year?

I get sent business plans and ideas left and right--sometimes to evaluate because I worked at a venture capital firm, other times because people hope I'll send it on to said venture capital firm.  I also had to to evaluate a lot of companies when I left my last job, before I started Path 101, because I had a lot of great offers.  So, I came up with a short list of criteria for choosing my next company that I think would be helpful to developers who have their choice of startup opportunity.

First, is this a viable concern?  In other words, is this company going to be around in a year?  As cool an idea as something may seem, if there isn't some kind of money coming into this business, how long are they going to stay alive?

"Build and raise money" right?

Raising money isn't easy.  VCs and even angels see thousands of deals a year.  The chances of getting a company funded are very slim, and just because an investor says "they're interested" that doesn't mean anything.  In fact, I'd be willing to make the argument that since it's relatively easy to get a demo product out, that a REALLY interested investor who believes in the team should be willing to fund a company even before the alpha version of the product is out.  It's going to change over time anyway and you need to bet on the team's ability to iterate, so if there isn't SOME money in the company, either from the founders or angels or somebody, I'd steer clear.

What are they willing to give you?  One of my BIGGEST pet peeves are businesspeople who overestimate their value to a company.  Look, I had the idea for Path 101.  We raised 350k basically based off my relationships.  I'm the one with the experience in our niche.  And what are we worth without Alex, the CTO?

Jack Squat. 

That's why we're equal partners.  So if you've got a team of four businesspeople who are hogging up all the equity and they want to give you only a crumb, steer clear.  You're building the site...  creating the experience.  Where would they be without you?

ON THE OTHER HAND, don't underestimate the value of relevant experience either.  I see a lot of two developer teams that have zero industry experience whatsoever.  That's great if you want to flip to a big competitor for beer money, but if you want to be a part of a company that makes a huge dent in a market and changes the way people conduct business, then you need someone with experience and connections to make it happen.  How are you getting into your best business development relationships?  LinkedIn or are you actually getting real recommendations from people who know the team well?  It's too easy to just build something and think you have a business.  A business fits in within an industry--it isn't just technology.  It creates value for stakeholders--enough value for the right stakeholders.  Take the music industry.  Just because you can do something nifty with MP3 playlists doesn't necessarily mean you have a viable business, especially since big lables can be a minefield.  Step too far to the left and, as John Madden says, "Boom!"

Is the market big enough?  Do you have to bet on lots of people doing things they've never done before for this to be successful?  Do you know anyone without a computer science degree that would even understand this thing?  Go ask 10 of your non-tech friends and see what they think of it.

And finally... how dedicated is the team to this idea?   Do they live it?  Is this just a neat idea they came up with while they were bored one day or has everything they've done in their career and their life led up to this moment of creating a business?  Do they embody this business?  This might sound like overkill and a little hokey, but trust me, when you're still months away from a big turning point, and you're out of money, and its going to take some sleeping on couches and dipping into 401k plans to keeps something alive, you better hope that the founding team thinks its more than just a good idea...

....it better be THE idea.

Any other tests for programmers to find the right startup?

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All I know is, when I saw this catch, I thought of one thing: Endy Chavez.

Back in the World Series, the Mets' Endy Chavez made one of the most unbelievable gamesaving catches I've ever seen.  It was the kind of catch that was supposed to be a sign that things were going there way, only it never happend.

When David Tyree made this catch...  squeezing the ball against his helmet and then holding on behind his head as he fell to the crowd, I just thought of Chavez.

This was the catch that meant the Giants were going to score...  I just hoped the Giants were going to be able to follow through on what was clearly a little help from points unknown.

All I know is, the Giants are Super Bowl champs, and Eli Manning led them there.

When I was 11, I watched Scott Norwood miss a field goal.  Coulda.  Shoulda.  Last night, the Patriots had plenty of opportunities.  Coulda.  Shoulda.

Only one thing matters now.

The Giants were the last team standing and the Patriots had a very fine year at 18-1.

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@jack, @biz I'm not going anywhere... at least not for a long time.  So, don't consider this a threat to go over to Pownce or anything. 

In fact, anyone who threatens to move isn't really thinking properly, because if we all moved to a different service at once, I'm sure we'd experience the same issues. 

But, posting blog posts titled "Happy Happy Joyant" when you've had so many outages lately and your user base has little confidence that you're going to scale for the Superbowl and no confidence that you'll make it through SXSW without a hitch...  its just not the right sentiment.

You guys built a fantastic service and we all love it, but we've all seen how scale problems can take down a business.  (Friendster) And while the service is popular, it's not THAT popular.  Most of your userbase is still pretty technical and it wouldn't really take much more of this before people started leaving en masse.  It's exactly because they're pretty tech savvy that you have a unique opportunity to open up a discussion about your recent problems and engage your userbase.

Let's start a discussion about whether Ruby scales or how you diligence a host.  Is it a matter of just throwing more hardware at the problem or are database and architecture redesigns in order.  If I were Lee Mighdoll, I'd make it a point to blog almost everyday, even a short one, about the problems I'm facing and steps I'm taking to address the issues, so at least people feel like something's getting done.

Take a cue from Six Apart, who experienced serious uptime issues in the past and seems to have gotten over them.  If nothing else, their tone during and immediately after their problems was the right way to go.

The Twitter blog hardly ever provides any information and there's yet to be a discussion of what the scaling issues are or timely accoutns of them.

Here's another post where they Six Apart recapped exactly what happened with one of their outages:

Then they go into a pretty lengthy blow by blow account of what was going on.  People want to know that because they want to feel like something's being done. 

You guys should know that from dealing with your cable or phone companies as a regular consumer.  Waiting in silence for somebody to fix something sucks.  And it sucks even more when the service doesn't level with you about the fact that their are issues. 

"Happy Happy Joyant" just feels like mocking, to be honest, and doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. 

Here's your opportunity to be an "us" company or a "them" company with regards to this issue.  It's a critical point in the life of your young company. 

I'm rooting for you guys to approach it the right way.    

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I don't think the multimedia in this post needs much explanation, other than the fact that, while I enjoy the music, I just want to make it clear that I do not condone all of the behavior that the music of the artist describes or inspires. :)

Photos

Videos

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Nice work folks.  I like the fact that this can only serve to make Rob Kalin more confident, because sometimes, I think that can be an issue with him.   :)

And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Seriously, though, put $27mil. on the venture funding in Brooklyn toteboard.  No sleep 'til...   

Congrats!

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Once the Mets wrap up his contract in the next couple of days, Johan Santana will be pitching for the New York Mets...  in the National League.

Anyone want to take a guess what his numbers are going to be like?  I think it's fair to say that he's a lock for 18 wins and a 2.50 ERA.  In '04, he whiffed 265 batters.  Now, he'll get to face pitchers about 80 more times a year than he does now.  Can we say 300k's? 

The best part is, everyone seems to be in agreement that we got him for a song.  I liked Carlos Gomez, too, but I don't think the guy's ever going to hit .300.  I think the guy will wind up being an Alfonso Soriano type, without as much power...  bat .280, hit 25, steal 35, but whiff 130 times and rarely take a walk.  And the pitchers we sent over?  Meh.... You never know with pitchers.  Plus, Santana's only going to be 29 this season.

The Mets off-season went from a disaster to a huge victory in the blink of an eye, and you gotta hand it to Omar Minaya for getting his guy without giving up too much.

So I'm trying to figure out when Santana's Shea debut is.  I say its Saturday, April 12th, because clearly he starts opening day, but the Mets have two off days in the first 10 games... so they'll use Santana, Martinez, Maine, and Perez, with a day of rest, and probably use Santana again that first Sunday on the road against Atlanta.  It wouldn't make sense to push him back, because they're off that Monday, too, so it would be a week in between starts, and I doubt they're rushing to get El Duque more starts than necessary.

Anyway, nothing is guaranteed, as we saw last year, but with the best rotation in baseball, the Mets now have to be frontrunners for the World Series on day one.

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There's a man sitting across from me reading "The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God". This small paperback has a picture of some little figure, perhaps the distant cousin of a WeeMee, shooting himself in the head with the bullet exiting out the top in a small burst of splat. So, if I seem distracted this morning, its because I'm keeping a close eye on that guy for sudden movements.

There's a short girl standing next to me reading a a magazine article about traumatic brian injury. Very few other people are reading. I'd love to see an analysis of time of day, whether a person is reading, catching up on zzz's, playing video games or listening to their iPod or some combo.

This train is unquestionably a zzz train. I'd say that 60% of the people in this train have their eyes closed. It's 7:20AM and I'm on my way to Fordham to teach class. There's a banana in my tummy, but I'll def need my MetRx shake when I get back to the office at 10:30AM.

I gotta remember to tell my students to allow anonymous comments on their blogs.

There are two City Year girls on the train. They're in there big red winter coats. Those coats look pricey. I wonder what percentage of City Year donations go to buy coats for volunteers. Couldn't they just get hats? I never see them actually working or sponsoring anything...just collecting money. What does City Year do anyway? If my kid ever wanted to stand on the street and collect money for charity, I'd hand them a donation that covers there summer (if I had it) and tell them to go be an intern in a program management or policy making department within a non-profit or government sponsored social program. I think that's where you make a much bigger impact, especially since most donations come from corporations anyway.

I just switched to the 6 train at Union Square... I plenty of time to get to Grand Central. Look, there are Dominican Academy girls on this train...haha. DA!

Girls from DA were the first girls you met in Regis because we had a joint fundraiser with them in October... a Walk-a-Thon around the Upper East Side and the park, which basically meant that everyone in Regis dated a DA girl in freshman year. But I was cool because my DA girl was a sophomore. She taught me who the Ramones were. I feel like I told this story before.

This guy just walked onto the train. He's a dead ringer for Chin Ming Wang...and he's wearing a Yankee cap. Only... he's obviously a high school student.

I kinda feel like we have bigger fish to fry.  At least this model is pretty well covered up.  If I had a daughter, I'd rather her look at ads like this in Times Square than ads of half-naked women in sexually suggestive poses.  Isn't that a much worse objectification of women?

I dunno about you, if this ad makes you want to shoot things at women's crotches, I sort of feel like maybe you had some issues before you saw it.  Me personally, it makes me wish for snow.

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A few years ago, the Hudson River Park Trust evicted the Downtown Boathouse from Pier 26 in order to make way for a brand new pier, similar to the one we moved into up at Pier 96. We knew we'd likely be back, but, in the short term, that left us without an actual Downtown Boathouse location.

Then I heard we were moving a few kayaks to the south end of Pier 40. Of course, typical buracracy delayed the permit that would have allowed us to put a dock down for months and months. That meant that we started our Pier 40 program in 2006 midway through the summer. It started very slow. Construction around Pier 40 meant that you needed to walk halfway past the whole Pier to figure out how to get to us. The neighborhood saw the demolition at Pier 26 and thought we were gone for good. They didn't know anything about the "Downtown Boathouse" as an organization...they just knew about the free kayaks at 26.

Little by little, we started to get more and more traffic to Pier 40. I was there helping to run the program there every weekend. When we started up this season, we hung a big kayak by the jogging path with an unmissable arrow.

People climbed over concrete planters to get to us rather than figure out how to go around. Regulars to 26 started returning.

Pier 40, with only 15 kayaks, no trips, no classes, skyrocketed in popularity.

What also happened was that the whole Pier became a destination. We took people out for a paddle who otherwise couldn't get into the sold out trapeze school on the roof. We took kids out after the soccer games they played on the fields indoors, or runners who normally didn't think much about what was going on inside the pier, and previously just ran around it.  Pier 40 became even busier than our main location uptown. 

And now, the Hudson River Park Trust is voting this Wednesday on one of two commercialized proposals for the development of Pier 40.  The only politician who seems to be on the side of the people is State Assembly Member Deborah Glick.  She wrote an editorial regarding the Related Companies' proposal:

"Unfortunately, Related’s latest proposal for Pier 40, though it has improved from previous versions, remains one for a mega-entertainment center, complete with Cirque du Soleil as the anchor tenant, a huge banquet hall, 12 movie theaters and several large restaurants. Such large-scale uses do not belong on a pier in the midst of a park and bear no relationship to the park. Uses like Cirque du Soleil are not water-dependent and serve no local need. They could be just as easily — and more appropriately — located on 42nd St. or 52nd St. Related’s latest plan, which is expected to draw 2.7 million visitors each year to Pier 40, would substantially impair the park’s ability to serve as a safe and quiet respite, since it would bring large numbers of vehicles across the busy bike lane, endangering walkers, runners and bikers. In addition, the proposal would only add to the area’s congestion issues, running counter to the city’s traffic mitigation efforts in Lower Manhattan."

There's already a major movie complex right down the street, by Battery Park.  And Cirque du Soleil?  I doubt that most of the 20,000+ people who went kayaking with us last year can afford the Cirque du Soleil ticket price.  Plus, most of those people would probably have more fun if the trapeze school were given room to expand and they could fly through the air themselves versus paying more to watch other people do it.

Plus, last time I checked, we're supposed to be building a PARK, here right?  Isn't that what it's called?  Hudson River PARK.  Go ask a five year old what belongs in a park.  I don't think he'll answer banquet halls, movie theaters and restaurants.

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Outside.in, which is one of my favorite NYC startup teams, launched their discussions feature very quietly last week.

It's something similar to when Zillow launched their neighborhood and discussion features.  Zillow faced the aggregator problem of not having a site where people normally contribute directly to the site and now opening up a centralized community feature.  The great thing about these sites is that they reach out and find the community and bring it to you, but discussions require that the communities are on-site.  

My suggestion to Zillow at the time was to go seek out some Outside.in content.

Now what do I suggest to Outside.in?

I thought they should start pulling the comments off of the blog posts they aggregate and using those to start discussion.  The discussion topic could be my blog post title or some summary, and the comments could show up as discussion comments on Outside.in.

Wait... but isn't that "stealing" the community from my blog??

No, not if you resyndicate the comments back to my blog and leave them there.

So, someone could find an article from my blog about Bay Ridge through Outside.in, leave a comment right there on the Bay Ridge discussion board, and I get the benefit of the comment.  And vice versa, any of my comments get resyndicated out to Outside.in.

What would be the net effect of my traffic?  I'm not sure, but even if I sacrificed some of my Outside.in traffic, I'd get lots more comments and probably engage my own users a lot more, because they'd think of my blog as a much more lively place.

Also, maybe each comment on the last.fm discussion board could permalink back to my blog...   "Comment syndicated from This is going to be BIG!".   So, perhaps I'd get even more traffic with a whole new set of links.

Either way, it's going to be tough sledding to cause people to get interested in a new discussion board in a place they don't usually do community stuff on... and so I think you need to start greasing the wheels with some aggregated content. 

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2004 is over.  I really enjoyed myself this past year and accomplished a lot...  maybe more than I've ever done now that I think of it.  I went to California twice, Florida twice, to Chicago, DC, and to Boston--the most flying I've ever done in a single year.  I kayaked and helped others to take advantage of the Manhattan waterfront.  I put 10,000 miles on my car.  I started a website for college students, and saw a mentoring program through.  I helped put together the ILPA conference in New York.  I played on a kickball team and coached a corporate softball team to a winning record.  I started blogging this year.  I was in the newspaper not once, not twice, but three times.

I met some great new people, especially at the boathouse...  Kati, Sandy, Taino, Victor, Graeme, Gretha, Claire, etc...  rediscovered some old friendships, like Pastore, Kristin, Liz, and Susie, and said goodbye to a long friendship that didn't work.  I met lots of great people through work, like Fred and Brad at Union Square, Roger at Elevation Partners (and Bono, of course!), and Gina from the State of Virginia.
So how am I going to follow 2004 up?  I won't make resolutions, but I'll through out some goals.  I'd like to open myself up to a relationship, and while that's hardly a plannable goal, I think perhaps I've had opportunities in the past to create something and I wasn't ready for it.  Stanford remains a goal, whether I get in this year or submit another application in October.  A book is a goal--hopefully I have the right topic now and I'd also like to contibute as much as I can to helping people understand this new content medium.  I've been thinking that perhaps a return to church might be a goal... which I was never averse to, but I never set aside the time to be a part of a parish commuity, so it didn't interest me without that aspect.  And, finally, I'd like to start an alumni association for Fordham's College of Business Administration, which it is lacking at the moment.  Oh yeah.. and I want to buy an apartment this year, too.  That should be enough to keep me occupied.

• 12 Learnings From My First Turn As Startup CEO - socialmedian
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