Showing posts with label Silicon Alley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silicon Alley. Show all posts

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Not Your Usual Yoga Guru


I am in talks to do social media for a yoga studio out there in Dumbo. I hope the talks go through because I sure am interested. Dumbo just so happens to be New York City's own little tech hub. There is no Silicon Alley. There is Dumbo.

Looks can be deceiving. I am Indian, so sure, I do know my yoga, but not as much as you might think. But I will learn. More.

Al Wenger Wants To Learn Scala
Meeting Fred Wilson In Person
Freehand Exercise: 1,000 Push-Ups, 1,000 Squats, 1,000 Crunches

Enhanced by Zemanta

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Nic Butterworth's Open Coffee MeetUp


You get off the 6 train on Astor Place, and you just can't miss the Starbucks. It's right there. Thursday 9.15 AM. So that totally weeds out those who are just out for beer. Jobholders and entrepreneurs are two different species. If you should be at work at 9.15 in the morning, you probably don't belong here.

Nic Butterworth has the relaxed ways of someone who has already proven himself before. You feel easy around him. He is talking, then at the same time he is taking one step back and being his creative self. Parts of him keep churning what he is good at churning out even when he is very much with you.



I met him first on Tuesday evening at Scott's Tech MeetUp. (Scott 2.0, MeetUp.com 2.0) Nic's thing basically was that on YouTube you get lost. If you are into snowboarding, and you want many super clips of one particular move, you can't do that on YouTube. You come to Nic. This kind of vertical niche search has enormous value. He is definitely adding some serious value, and that is where the riches are.

That is the key question entrepreneurs have to ask themselves. Am I adding value?

I was the second person to sign up for it: The New York Open Coffee Meetup. So I am thinking, will it be just him and me? My train had a 20 minute delay, and so I was about five minutes late. And the place was full. It was crowded. How did he do it? How do you go from two on Tuesday midnight to 22 on Thursday morning? I am thinking, maybe the guy is famous.

Apparently most people had already introduced themselves. I got up, said my name, and talked up the IC for 20 seconds. The IC is a doughnut. It is not Nobel Prize for Physics material. It is meant to be a commodity.

The group broke into three, finance, real estate, and something else. I stuck with finance. The lead person had been in the Silicon Valley for 20 years. He made it sound like the East Coast, West Coast thing in tech and venture capital was no different than it is with rap music. New York is more conservative. Here people are not used to taking chances. You already should be churning some profit for them to pump money into you. Whereas in California, the idea sells.

I am not going anywhere. My market is right here. NYC is my number one market. Got contact info for one angel investor.

Met Christine, hardware Korean, software American. Cheerful. She was adopted by a South Dakota family when she was five months old. ("I have been to South Dakota.") She has worked at Microsoft in its XBox division. She is multicultural. She has lived in Paris a few years, for example. ("I have been to Wisconsin. It is like another planet.") She has that entrepreneur DNA, it is so obvious. Her company is called Mao Networks. And I am thinking Chairman Mao. She says it is an island off of Spain. Well then, that island must have been named after Chairman Mao.

And there was this London lady just passing through town. And three ladies around a table staying late. "Men don't change. Inside they are the same. Outside it looks different." Summary: it is a sexist world, and you feel that inside corporations, inside relationships.

There were so many good ideas floating around. It was so educational to get inside peeps into many startups at different stages of their growth. Frankly, I could not have enough of this. It could have gone on a few more hours, and I would still stick around.

Good thing this will happen every Thursday morning. Now I know what rush hour train rides are like.

It is important not to lose focus though. These meetings should not be the sharpening pencils sessions as a way to postpone actually doing the homework.

On The Web

Nicholas Butterworth
echospin | Our Team
Diversion Media Weblog
COMEBACKS: Nicholas Butterworth's New New Thing - Valleywag the former MTVi CEO and Silicon Alley Reporter coverboy, who, like many from Alley 1.0, was suddenly back at the table, buying back in ...... 'Everything is cranking up,'' said Butterworth. ''There is definitely something in the air. It's not exactly the same as it was the first time around, but it's got some of that same spirit.'' ..... Sounding very 1995 ..... his new firm, Diversion Media, launched Travelistic in late October. The site is billed as a YouTube for travel videos .... compelling, engaging user experiences in robustly profitable niches ..... moving beyond the strict user-created model and nabbing professional video personalities for the site.
Nicholas Butterworth: See what people are saying right now on ...
Nicholas Butterworth
The music man - Salon
Nicholas Butterworth
Nicholas Butterworth - Filmography - Movies - New York Times
thinkd2c

In The News

Carter Defends Pelosi's Syria Trip Playfuls.com
EU Bashes Apple Over iTunes Price in Different Euro-Regions Playfuls.com
Toshiba Enhances Thermal Power Generation Service in North America TechWhack
Cisco eyes future Linksys strategy Computerworld
Acer Up, Dell Down In Latest Notebook Numbers
CRN
Review: Apple appalls where Xbox excels
Canada.com
Greenpeace Ranks Apple Last for Green
Chicago Tribune
HP targets PC performance-seekers on a budget
ZDNet UK
Gartner: Intel Still Number 1, Despite Revenue Declines
CIO India
Cisco set to fight aftermarket sellers
Computerworld
Getting Started with Google’s My Maps
PC World
Google Embraces Web 2.0 Model in 'My Maps' Feature CIO Today
Google blurs line between advertising and content, again
ZDNet
Google Expands into Television Advertising, through Deal with EchoStar
Teleclick.ca
Experts say Microsoft should consider change in patching process
SC Magazine US
EU may force Microsoft to license server protocols for free
Ars Technica
Breaking News Microsoft Sues Student Software Sellers
CIO Today
Yahoo Patches Instant Messaging Flaw
BetaNews
Reality Check on The Yahoo/Facebook Story
Seeking Alpha Yahoo! made attempts last year to purchase leading social networking site Facebook. ...... Facebook has recently surpassed 21 million registered users and generates 1.5 billion page views a day. May's argument is that Yahoo will rue the day it didn't pay $750 million to $1.6 billion for Facebook. ..... Yahoo failed to buy Google in its early days and blew Facebook too. .... Facebook.com ranked as the 36th most-visited site on the Web in February 2007 ..... the second-most “engaging” site .... the number one site for photos, ahead of Yahoo!’s Flickr ..... the most viewed site by females in the United States (69%) ages 17-25 ..... the second most "in" thing among undergraduates, tied with beer and after only the iPod. ..... bonus if Facebook goes public: Wall Street will finally be able to short Web 2.0 directly.
Yahoo Needs a Face-to-Face With Facebook Barron's (subscription)
IBM donates translation software to US military
Washington Post
IBM Targets India with Autonomic Computing Center
CIO India
BMW Oracle wins warm-up cup
BoatsandOutboards
Sun Microsystems And Boeing Team Up To Solve Extreme Data ...
WebWire
Sun Microsystems celebrates silver anniversary
AME Info
Sun Microsystems launches new updated UltraSparc IV+ processors
TechWhack
Wal-Mart says sorry, this time to shareholders
CNNMoney.com
Wal-Mart expands personal well-being programs
Reuters.uk
Ford’s CEO Made Over $28 Million. In His First Four Months.
New York Times
CEO confirms talks on sale of Chrysler unit
Seattle Times
Oil Prices Rise
Forbes
Solar Radio Bursts Could Cripple GPS
Space.com
Lifting restrictions on digital music is just one small step
Chicago Tribune
Deal brings Wimax deployment a step closer
Computeractive
Solid foundation now in place for WiMax in Asia Pacific: In-Stat Indiantelevision.com Last year was a good one for the development of WiMax in the Asia/Pacific region, as a solid foundation was laid by the joint efforts of market regulators, operators and eager equipment vendors .... From a lean base of 0.27 million in 2006, total WiMax subscribers in 16 Asia/Pacific countries are expected to reach 31.43 million by 2012 ..... Carrier spending of WiMax and WiMax-backhauled WiFi network equipment will escalate from $394.9 million in 2006 to $2908.9 million in 2012.
WiMAX: Where and Where Not?
CIOL
WiMax to reach 31 million in Asia VNUNet.com
Pipex in Nokia wireless broadband deal
Broadband Finder
Rural Eastern Cape to get wireless broadband
Dataweek (press release)
Warwick to pilot WiMAX broadband services
PublicTechnology.net
Intel plans Centrino Pro for business notebooks CNetNews
iStockphoto sees new rivals everywhere
Photo wars: A $2 billion business gets rough Business 2.0
Online real estate has become a virtual land grab Business 2.0
New OpenOffice version includes security upgrade
Thailand blocks YouTube for clip mocking king
Apple PCs coming to 200 Best Buy stores

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]