A VC - Latest Comments in The NY Startup Scene

Re: The NY Startup Scene

nihal mehta — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:05:24 -0000

don't forget recyclebank, 33across, media6degrees, kickapps, buzzd and more..! i left the bay area for NY in 2005 when my previous company was acquired, and i have been complaining about NY startup excitement until now. good to see and looking forward to bringing this to the next level with all of you!

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:13:09 -0000

You have to do it

Re: The NY Startup Scene

paramendra — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:47:57 -0000

The center of gravity in tech will have shifted to NYC in 10 years or less.
http://technbiz.blogspot.co...

Re: The NY Startup Scene

jsrand — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:31:05 -0000

This survey looks like it is based on dated information.

Re: The NY Startup Scene

jsrand — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:30:01 -0000

This survey looks like it is based on dated information.

Re: The NY Startup Scene

kidmercury — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:54:07 -0000

lol, we definitely have to call it the kook party...."the kook party, founded by kid mercury"....lol can you imagine

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:54:05 -0000

You gotta start the kook party and recruit all these people to it. I'm not sure I could be a member, but I'd sure love to see you all in action. It would be good for us and fun too

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:53:02 -0000

Yup. Those guys are smart

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:50:02 -0000

I think wall street will permanently shrink

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:48:05 -0000

I'll join you in that!

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:47:05 -0000

We can't play favorites by backing one incubator and not another. But we'd love to look at the companies you are incubating

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:43:02 -0000

Headed to my kindle asap

Thanks for the tip

Re: The NY Startup Scene

kidmercury — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:48:39 -0000

my boy ron paul is my all time favorite, he is without question the kooks' choice. if congress was filled with people like him we would not have any economic crisis or anything like that. we are so fortunate to have him.

kucinich i also like quite a bit, with the exception of his anti-2nd amendment stance.

jim demint has done a great job of hatin' on the fed and has been active in supporting legislation to audit the fed.

brad sherman of california has also spoken out about the financial terrorism that wall st and the powers that be are doing when they threatened to destroy the economy if bailouts were not granted.

dan patrick is a little too much on the religious conservative side of things, but i like him, he understands and supports the basic libertarian principles.

i know you like the begich guy from alaska, i am a big fan of him as well. he is a closet kook as his dad was killed for telling the truth.

on the state and local level there are also some great people working hard to protect states' rights. there is some guy in oklahoma named keyes or something like that who comes to mind.

though no longer active, i like former minnesota governor jesse ventura and former congresswoman cynthia mckinney (mckinney is too socialist and supports silly things like reparations for slavery, but she has immense courage, real integrity, and fought for 9/11 truth to the extent that she basically lost her seat in congress because of it, so i have to give her mad props). former congressman and 9/11 commission member max cleland is also someone i give props to because he has basically admitted that 9/11 was an inside job.

though in general it is true that i don't like most politicians. as a general rule of thumb any candidate that gets serious attention from the mainstream media is too corrupt for me to respect. although when you look at the state of this country, can you really blame me? to be a fan of government is to be tolerant of wars based on lies and tax rates in excess of 50%.

oh, and any public official who supports 9/11 truth is probably someone i have a deep respect for. here is the list.

Re: The NY Startup Scene

Rob @ Glohbal — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:06:32 -0000

Damn, I didn't know Alley was part of Gilt. Very impressive.

Re: The NY Startup Scene

Dave Pinsen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:48:00 -0000

There's also, apparently, an emerging scene of culinary-oriented entrepreneurship in Brooklyn too. I wrote a post a few months ago on this, after reading an NYT article on the subject, Lessons from Brooklyn's New Economy. I didn't mention it in that post, but another example of Brooklyn-based culinary entrepreneurship was Isa Chandra Moskowitz and her "Post Punk Kitchen". She's since decamped for Portland, OR though.

Re: The NY Startup Scene

Dave Pinsen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:40:19 -0000

A start-up I worked for started in an incubator in Trenton, NJ, of all places. The AC didn't work there, so our joke was that it was hot like a real incubator. It then moved to a non-fancy town in central NJ called East Windsor. Meanwhile, if memory serves, one of its better-financed competitors was based in Boston and the other in NYC. Long story short: the company I worked for is still around (and in the middle of the pack on the Inc 5000 list), and its two better-financed competitors aren't.

When I was there, I used the company's non-prestigious location as a selling point, noting for potential end-user clients that it enabled the company to offer them lower costs, and noting to potential private label partners that it demonstrated the management's prudence. It also helped though that much of the skilled labor pool for this particular industry was located in central NJ, so the location made sense on that score as well.

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:20:03 -0000

Is there a public official you do like kid?

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:19:02 -0000

I don't agree with your spices analysis. None of that is holding us back. I don't even think we are being held back. I've been doing early stage VC in NYC since 1986. The first ten years NYC was not much of a player. The second ten year we were a player but many of the spices issues were holding us back. Now, I think we are good to go

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:15:02 -0000

Very feisty ceonyc! But well said and lots of data to back it up

Re: The NY Startup Scene

jeremystein — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:05:04 -0000

Do you think that trend is going to reverse? Although jr finance positions
are relatively scarce every bank raised base salaries when they took on
TARP. Not every large bank has repaid TARP which will impact an md more than
an analyst.

Re: The NY Startup Scene

Carl Rahn Griffith — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:38:11 -0000

You can't put a price on the value of the external stimulus from your environment - that's why there's a 'New York Minute' but not a Nevada/etc one.

Re: The NY Startup Scene

Carl Rahn Griffith — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:33:28 -0000

The underdog supporter spirit would probably prevail - so, would probably have to be Charlton, Fred ;-)

Re: The NY Startup Scene

robsayre — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:16:33 -0000

Should see something along the lines of Y Combinator Bushwick soon. Maybe you should find out who's doing it and invest. ;)

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:08:04 -0000

Do you know what criteria the milken institute used in that study? If you use VC investment dollars, you get a very different story

Re: The NY Startup Scene

fredwilson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:02:22 -0000

No argument about that. My point is that NYC is a much bigger deal than it gets credit for, not that it is king