Startup One Stop

Good morning, All,

Investors care about one thing. Wait: two. Ok, three: your market size, revenue model, and your team – not necessarily in that order. Still, at the end of the day, it still boils down to one thing: money, so we were right: investor care about one thing. And you need to look at your business the way they do. Seriously.

The Wall Street Journal noted that VC funding of consumer web and mobile companies is down 42% in this first nine months of 2012 (versus the first nine months of 2011). And the big falloff was not in seed but rather in follow-on rounds (VCs Still Chasing Web Companies, But With Less Cash: http://on.wsj.com/RaBjPX). What Has Changed (http://bit.ly/Tk5YXj)? That was the title of one of Fred Wilson’s recent blog posts, and he feels that the consumer internet has run its course; and that mobile and enterprise are the new focuses. Howard Lindzen chimed in as well and concluded that “a great product and brilliant use of the tools of the new social trade are still not enough in November 2011 to guarantee success” (The Stock Market, Venture Capital and Angel Investing…All Connected: http://bit.ly/RaHpQn). Actually, it never should have. Read More...

Good morning, All,

Yes, our next gathering is tomorrow, November 14^th. We know that most of you wait till the last minute to register anyway. RSVP here: https://sosoctobermixer.eventbrite.com/# Stop by! We'd love to see you!

Show of hands: how many of you use twitter and facebook as a marketing vehicle? (I just purchased Aluminum Tri Wallet Yellow Red from HuMn on Fab … via @Fab.) When one is selling something or promoting a business – preferably your own – it can be an effective vehicle, especially if it’s a customer who’s selling it for you. Preferably a happy one. (Mia Krautplezer suggested you like Mia Pain Management.) We might like Mia, were she not a figment of our imagination, and happy to do her the favor of liking her endeavor – but employers, insurers, credit department – a whole host of third parties also check FB for information about you, and pain management is not one of our issues, and what kind of message does that send? They’re not looking through our timeline with Mia. They’re looking at the bottom line: theirs. And they’re looking at everything, going to show you, once again, that nothing’s free: How A Simple Gmail Search Could Lead To An Invasion Of Your Privacy: http://read.bi/Zu8tKJ. (My weight: 165.3 lb. My @WiThings scale auto-tweets my weight once a week. It's the future! withings.com. I walked 12.4 miles this week. Company auto-tweets once a week. It’s the future!) How does this move the human race forward or improve life as we know it? It’s often twitterati who include such information, along with where they’re dining or hanging (@AceHotel w/23 others 4sq.com). Is this information that will help someone, with the possible exception of their doctor (whom we are sure is not following them on twitter), insurer (who’s checking), a stalker (no doubt), or is some part of them still stuck in 10^th grade AP English and passing notes around? Only the medium has changed to exposed the guilty. It can be bloody annoying, too. Unfollow. (I’m at Heartland Brewery (New York, NY) 4sq.com). One of our members only tweets when he’s out at a pub. The tweets come days apart, and presumably he wasn’t at that same pub the whole time. He doesn’t work there and well, it could easily send the wrong message, to a potential employer et al and hopefully his mom’s not following him. Read More...

Good morning, All, and happy to see that you weathered the storm!

Last year, Hurricane Irene hit the Eastern Seaboard. New York dodged a bullet on that one, but it was a wake-up call. When Sandy plunged downtown Manhattan into darkness, Goldman Sachs, located at the epicenter of the maelstrom, was fully lit up and functional. They’d obviously heeded the lessons of Irene (actually, they were prepared even before that), while our Mayor Bloomberg, a huge advocate of global warming, turned his attention to – pressing hard for a ban on oversized softdrinks. The New York Times did a piece in September criticizing the mayor for moving too slowly in addressing potential flooding and worse: New York Is Lagging as Seas and Risks Rise, Critics Warn: http://nyti.ms/SIYNbA. “Planning to be flooded” is no replacement for investing in protection. Consequently, lives were lost: let’s not forget that NY is second only to New Orleans in the number of people living less than four feet above high tide. New York was a Tale of Two Cities: uptown, which was not affected by the storm at all, and downtown/the outer boroughs/low lying areas, which were in the dark and parts of which - and still do - looked like downtown Beirut. Moreover, it was a Tale of Two Realities: what we were told by our elected officials, and the reality of the situation/news that was streaming through social media, more specifically, via Facebook and twitter (Disconnect Between What We're Told And Aid People Are Receiving: http://youtu.be/65hk_PoWMwc, while a friend posted: PLEASE HELP AND MAKE CALLS. Island Park was devastated this week. FEMA and the Red Cross have relocated to where there is MEDIA COVERAGE). Most people were turning to social media for help and or/information. Variations on a line from ‘Alien,’ and take note, elected officials: in cyberspace, everyone can hear you scream.

In the midst of all of this, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the NYC Marathon would not be cancelled. After all, we are a resilient bunch, and power was restored to much of Manhattan (note: the race goes through all five boroughs). New York was back to normal, in Mayor Mike's reality. (In New York’s Public Housing, Fear Creeps In With the Dark: http://nyti.ms/X8DXXV; Queens residents arm themselves in the post-storm blackout from looters: Residents feel isolated and some use guns, baseball bats, booby traps — even a bow and arrow — to defend themselves. http://nydn.us/VLkpns). The reality was: the city that never sleeps had become the city that would only sleep with one eye opened. Read More...