8 ms·

Still Starting Up

90 points by daegloe 13y ago

kapkapkap 13y ago
non paywall (at least for me) https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CD4QqQIoADAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F04%2F28%2Fbusiness%2Fstill-starting-up.html%3Fhpw%26rref%3Dbusiness&ei=r-ZdU9zKJ-bisAS6-oKYBg&usg=AFQjCNHhlRPLcSkACDdPvUpB0lAkc0i-ag&sig2=PCUy-OYv9cHhq4z4baUTEQ&bvm=bv.65397613,d.cWc https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newss...
efnysien 13y ago
If someone could be so kind as to paste-bin this, I'd be grateful. The NYTimes paywall has been in full force lately (probably due to me being on uni IP?) considering that I rarely visit the site.
- cwperkins 13y ago
  If you open the article up in incognito mode in chrome it will get you past the paywall.
  - mafuyu 13y ago
    Appending '?share' to the URL will do it as well.
    - efnysien 13y ago
      cheers!
- win_ini 13y ago
  If you take part of the URL of any nytimes article...pop it into google and then click on search result...it's free.
- rwhitman 13y ago
  Opening in Chrome Incognito mode and stripping all URL params lets you read the article w/o the paywall modal. It used to be if you simply stripped out the URL parameter you could read the article which does not work anymore. Did some noodling, deleted all my cookies for nytimes.com, stripped the params and it still brings up the modal. After some inspecting I discovered its Local Storage & Session Storage where they're saving your tracking info, not IP address.
danielrakh 13y ago
Let's stop with the comparisons to the Valley. Let's stop trying to be like the Valley. NYC's edge is the fact that we're exposed to so many different industries and cultures, many of which have not yet been "modernized" with tech. Let's focus on that.
- zmitri 13y ago
  In my experience that makes it a better place to live -- but not necessarily a better place to try to build a (very large) technology company. The difference between NYC and the Valley was unclear to me when I lived in New York, but after spending just a few months out west, it became very apparent to me that there is an order of magnitude difference between the two -- and I believe that will translate into an increased chance of success. There are lots of reasons that New York just doesn't compete with SV, mostly to do with people and networking, but the difference that really struck me was the openness and positivity in the Valley. Yes there's an echo chamber, and yes you need to keep your BS detector on at all times, but when you are just 3 or 4 people trying to crack into a behemoth of an industry you need all the help you can get. I felt lots of people in New York were looking for weaknesses in what we were doing or trying to figure out who would acquire us, whereas people in the Valley were looking for ways to help us really succeed. The combined operating experience is not only greater in the Valley, but much more accessible too. I felt like larger companies like Tumblr and Foursquare were silo'd off from everyone else, whereas you can barely shake a stick in Mountain View without hitting someone at Google. Personally, I believe New York is the greatest city in the world and due to it's culture and array of experiences, a great place to start a company -- but if you want to build a big tech company, you should move out west. In fact, it's one of YC's indicators of success after going through the program. As a side note, the closest thing I've seen on the east coast with a similar vibe to the valley is Waterloo, Ontario. Although very, very small, they've somehow captured that same feeling.
  - jval 13y ago
    This is a great post, thanks for the insight. I notice you work with writers and the press, most of whom I imagine would be living in NYC if not the East Coast cities. Do you think there's an advantage to being closer to that? Or do you think that any advantage you get from being closer to those you work with is outweighed by the skepticism you get from other people around you? I was watching an interview where the Airbnb guys said they were constantly flying to NYC because many of their early customers were there and I was wondering why they didn't simply relocate together, although perhaps the positivity and accessibility of expertise outweighs the burden of travelling. Also - in your opinion, do you think New York could ever replicate the SV mentality, even just in its own tech scene silo (obviously Wall St bankers will never adopt it), or do you think this is bound to fail?
TheBiv 13y ago
> "Being in the San Francisco area, he said, helps start-up founders know the right people to pick up on bits of gossip about new product releases or venture financing rounds." I'm based in Dallas, so I am wondering from a Sillicon Valley/SF perspective, how beneficial is this data point? Or is it one of those data points that keep the overall investor excitement of early stage startup investments going, but doesn't actually help early stage start ups with their own companies?
- jkaljundi 13y ago
  This does boil down to a point: do media and blogs write about startups that are interesting and/or important, or those who they can grab coffee, beers etc with. Quite often I've found being in the same city with someone covering helps you immensely, as many European startups can attest to. Hard to build those relationships from another city. Same goes for investors, biz dev partners etc.
  - brandnewlow 13y ago
    Do you even have to ask the question? Of course it helps being able to meet someone in real space to win them over to your cause.
- acgourley 13y ago
  We're based in the bay area. I have no idea why gossip or info on financing rounds would help our business.
brc 13y ago
'No New York startup has been a breakout hit with a multi-billion valuation' 'Tumblr, the blogging service based in downtown Manhattan, made headlines last May when Yahoo acquired it for $1.1 billion. ' I don't know where the writer hails from, but 1.1 billion isn't exactly chump change. It's unlikely that any one city can overtake anotner for a specific industry. It's unlikely that San Francisco coudl ever supplant Wall St, despite San Francisco having a large financial centre. The top people will want to go to Wall St for finance, and the Valley for tech companies. Very hard to reverse that, and I don't see a lot of reasons why anyone would want to.
- grinich 13y ago
  It's unlikely that San Francisco could ever supplant Wall St, despite San Francisco having a large financial centre. Is this actually that unlikely? Look at the tremendous wealth creation around the Bay Area over the last three decades. There's an unprecedented flood of capital to the area, including private individuals and international investment firms. If you look at the actual numbers, it's astounding and can't really be described as a "bubble." In the 80s, companies would hold a public offering when the had <$25MM in revenue. Today, companies try to stay private for as long as they possibly can, which has resulted in massive private financings. See Square, Uber, Dropbox, Airbnb, Twitter, etc. These are nearly always being led by investment banks, like Goldman Sachs. It's not outlandish to imagine a secondary financial market emerging in SF, designed specifically to fuel the sort of innovation the region has become famous for. The huge banks in America (JP Morgan, etc.) were essentially a result of the industrial revolution. If we're in the midst of another revolution, it's likely a new banking group will emerge. The way of Silicon Valley is to innovate solutions. Nobody is going to try to appeal Sarbanes–Oxley. We'll just build a way around it. Even with it's warts, Bitcoin is one example. Full democratization of commerce and investment is inevitable.
  - brc 13y ago
    Yes, it's very unlikely for the same reasons. New York 'Wall St' is a very established industry. The biggest of Tech IPOs are chicken feed compared to the money going through New York on a daily basis. If you want to be at the top of finance, you have to be in New York. Anybody who wants to work to the top, will end up in New York. The reverse applies to Tech, which is why both will stay top of their game for their respective current strengths. It's completely wrong to think of New York in terms of just JP Morgan as it is wrong to think of Silicon Valley as just Apple. New York doesn't care about the origin of the wealth. It's about raising the capital, repackaging it, and on-selling it, and trading it all the while. So any wealth generated in San Francisco that makes it as far as the public markets will end up going through NY anyway.
WoodenChair 13y ago
This comment thread and the article itself are like parodies of all of the detachment from reality that the tech industry faces. Only in this community do you increase in investment size by 200% over a 4 year period and still see people questioning whether your market is becoming more viable. New York's investment share is apparently more than 1/4 that of Silicon Valley and climbing. That's a big deal for a city that was once seen as tied exclusively to old money. "The amount of venture, angel and private equity money invested in New York soared about 200 percent from 2009 to 2013, to $3 billion from $799 million, according to CB Insights, a data analysis firm that specializes in venture capital trends. Silicon Valley, by contrast, took in $11.4 billion in 2013."
- zmitri 13y ago
  I don't think anyone questioned if it was becoming more viable, but if you are concerned with macro figures I think this one is much more telling: SV: Largest exit so far 2014: WhatsApp: 19B NY: Top 5 exits since 2009: Tumblr: 1.1B Indeed: 1.0B Buddy Media: 745M Shutterstock: 570M Ascend Health: 500M Not sure where the parody or detachment from reality factors in.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    Is it really fair to compare the exit of WhatsApp with Tumblr? Tumblr has been around much longer, is used regularly by a lot of people, and isn't too hard to monetise via advertising. WhatsApp was purchased by a giant with a lot of money simply to prevent it's competitors from getting it. Obviously WhatsApp provided a lot more value to it's investors but the comparison just doesn't seem fair to me. Edit: It's also important to realise that our idea of a huge exit has changed rapidly over the last few years largely because of Facebook. A couple of years ago Instagram's $1bn astonished people. And yet Tumblr's $1.1bn isn't considered huge?
    - zmitri 13y ago
      I wasn't trying to compare WhatsApp to Tumblr, I was trying to compare one exit this year vs the top exists from an entire ecosystem over the past 5 years. I think New York is great, and I think Tumblr is great, but I think if Tumblr were perhaps in SV, things could have went differently.
kator 13y ago
I wonder how much employment laws play into this also? I moved from California (born and raised) to New York three years ago and currently work for a "Start up". I've been stunned to find the differences in employment laws, taxes, non-compete, cost of living etc.
- dopamean 13y ago
  I think some of us may really like to hear specifics regarding these stunning differences. I grew up in NY and as far as I can tell both NY and SV are high tax areas with extremely high costs of living.
Killah911 13y ago
According to Brad Feld's book "Startup Communities" you have to be committed to a place for 10 years to see any real change. He mentions politicians as being too short sighted for not being able to carry thru for that long. I'm not sure if it's been 10 years for the New York Startup scene, but maybe NY Times is being a little hasty. If the current political establishment keeps it's support up and so does the next batch, I think the NY has a very decent chance indeed. However, it's the tough times that will tell whether NYC Startup Culture endures, especially when the hype has died down and the economy has had another mood swing. I remember after the 90's .com boom people in the city acted like tech was over (the boom and subsequent bust was surreal on the people's part too, I thought), but what it proved was when the party's over, all the riff raff falls away and only tech companies that were fairly strong not only made it thru, but thrived. NYC, shouldn't be Silicon Valley, only Silicon Valley can be that! The city, despite it's many "issues" is one of the most amazing places on earth. I hope the tech that comes out of there is just as amazing and real. Cheers!
- mathattack 13y ago
  It's also a question of if you are looking in the right places. NY startups tend to be less pure technology plays that need lots of VC money, and tend to be tied to information intensive industries like advertising and finance. Fintech startups frequently are cash flow positive by the time they hit 20 employees. These aren't game breakers that will get multi-billion dollar valuations, but they build from strength and don't need to become monsters. The biggest hold-up is actually the cost of living in NYC. It's worse than the Bay Area, and there is less pride in being a starving entrepreneur.
normloman 13y ago
I loathe all the armchair sociologists here, trying to blame the status of NYC's tech scene on everything from NYC's finance culture, to the supposed unfriendliness of New Yorkers, to the colder weather. Get over yourselves. We don't know what makes for a good start up community. You might have some hunches, but you're just as clueless as the rest of us. Besides, I for one am glad NYC is not the valley. Who says you folks in the valley are right about everything?
- _nato_ 13y ago
  `Also glad NYC is not the valley. But there is reason for it. It's not random. I think SV was first to market. This is more or less in keeping with my sentiments about it: http://www.evanmiller.org/marketing-startup-hubs.html http://www.evanmiller.org/marketing-startup-hubs.html
mhidalgo 13y ago
Like everyone's been saying I think these kind of things take time. I think all in all the shift in startup culture has been dramatic over the last ten years in NYC. Its only a matter of time for an iconic tech company to come out of NYC, especially if investments keeps growing.

90 points by daegloe 13y ago

non paywall (at least for me) https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CD4QqQIoADAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F04%2F28%2Fbusiness%2Fstill-starting-up.html%3Fhpw%26rref%3Dbusiness&ei=r-ZdU9zKJ-bisAS6-oKYBg&usg=AFQjCNHhlRPLcSkACDdPvUpB0lAkc0i-ag&sig2=PCUy-OYv9cHhq4z4baUTEQ&bvm=bv.65397613,d.cWc https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newss...

efnysien 13y ago

If someone could be so kind as to paste-bin this, I'd be grateful. The NYTimes paywall has been in full force lately (probably due to me being on uni IP?) considering that I rarely visit the site.

cwperkins 13y ago
If you open the article up in incognito mode in chrome it will get you past the paywall.
- mafuyu 13y ago
  Appending '?share' to the URL will do it as well.
  - efnysien 13y ago
    cheers!
win_ini 13y ago
If you take part of the URL of any nytimes article...pop it into google and then click on search result...it's free.
rwhitman 13y ago
Opening in Chrome Incognito mode and stripping all URL params lets you read the article w/o the paywall modal. It used to be if you simply stripped out the URL parameter you could read the article which does not work anymore. Did some noodling, deleted all my cookies for nytimes.com, stripped the params and it still brings up the modal. After some inspecting I discovered its Local Storage & Session Storage where they're saving your tracking info, not IP address.

danielrakh 13y ago

Let's stop with the comparisons to the Valley. Let's stop trying to be like the Valley. NYC's edge is the fact that we're exposed to so many different industries and cultures, many of which have not yet been "modernized" with tech. Let's focus on that.

zmitri 13y ago
In my experience that makes it a better place to live -- but not necessarily a better place to try to build a (very large) technology company. The difference between NYC and the Valley was unclear to me when I lived in New York, but after spending just a few months out west, it became very apparent to me that there is an order of magnitude difference between the two -- and I believe that will translate into an increased chance of success. There are lots of reasons that New York just doesn't compete with SV, mostly to do with people and networking, but the difference that really struck me was the openness and positivity in the Valley. Yes there's an echo chamber, and yes you need to keep your BS detector on at all times, but when you are just 3 or 4 people trying to crack into a behemoth of an industry you need all the help you can get. I felt lots of people in New York were looking for weaknesses in what we were doing or trying to figure out who would acquire us, whereas people in the Valley were looking for ways to help us really succeed. The combined operating experience is not only greater in the Valley, but much more accessible too. I felt like larger companies like Tumblr and Foursquare were silo'd off from everyone else, whereas you can barely shake a stick in Mountain View without hitting someone at Google. Personally, I believe New York is the greatest city in the world and due to it's culture and array of experiences, a great place to start a company -- but if you want to build a big tech company, you should move out west. In fact, it's one of YC's indicators of success after going through the program. As a side note, the closest thing I've seen on the east coast with a similar vibe to the valley is Waterloo, Ontario. Although very, very small, they've somehow captured that same feeling.
- jval 13y ago
  This is a great post, thanks for the insight. I notice you work with writers and the press, most of whom I imagine would be living in NYC if not the East Coast cities. Do you think there's an advantage to being closer to that? Or do you think that any advantage you get from being closer to those you work with is outweighed by the skepticism you get from other people around you? I was watching an interview where the Airbnb guys said they were constantly flying to NYC because many of their early customers were there and I was wondering why they didn't simply relocate together, although perhaps the positivity and accessibility of expertise outweighs the burden of travelling. Also - in your opinion, do you think New York could ever replicate the SV mentality, even just in its own tech scene silo (obviously Wall St bankers will never adopt it), or do you think this is bound to fail?

TheBiv 13y ago

> "Being in the San Francisco area, he said, helps start-up founders know the right people to pick up on bits of gossip about new product releases or venture financing rounds." I'm based in Dallas, so I am wondering from a Sillicon Valley/SF perspective, how beneficial is this data point? Or is it one of those data points that keep the overall investor excitement of early stage startup investments going, but doesn't actually help early stage start ups with their own companies?

jkaljundi 13y ago
This does boil down to a point: do media and blogs write about startups that are interesting and/or important, or those who they can grab coffee, beers etc with. Quite often I've found being in the same city with someone covering helps you immensely, as many European startups can attest to. Hard to build those relationships from another city. Same goes for investors, biz dev partners etc.
- brandnewlow 13y ago
  Do you even have to ask the question? Of course it helps being able to meet someone in real space to win them over to your cause.
acgourley 13y ago
We're based in the bay area. I have no idea why gossip or info on financing rounds would help our business.

brc 13y ago

'No New York startup has been a breakout hit with a multi-billion valuation' 'Tumblr, the blogging service based in downtown Manhattan, made headlines last May when Yahoo acquired it for $1.1 billion. ' I don't know where the writer hails from, but 1.1 billion isn't exactly chump change. It's unlikely that any one city can overtake anotner for a specific industry. It's unlikely that San Francisco coudl ever supplant Wall St, despite San Francisco having a large financial centre. The top people will want to go to Wall St for finance, and the Valley for tech companies. Very hard to reverse that, and I don't see a lot of reasons why anyone would want to.

grinich 13y ago
It's unlikely that San Francisco could ever supplant Wall St, despite San Francisco having a large financial centre. Is this actually that unlikely? Look at the tremendous wealth creation around the Bay Area over the last three decades. There's an unprecedented flood of capital to the area, including private individuals and international investment firms. If you look at the actual numbers, it's astounding and can't really be described as a "bubble." In the 80s, companies would hold a public offering when the had <$25MM in revenue. Today, companies try to stay private for as long as they possibly can, which has resulted in massive private financings. See Square, Uber, Dropbox, Airbnb, Twitter, etc. These are nearly always being led by investment banks, like Goldman Sachs. It's not outlandish to imagine a secondary financial market emerging in SF, designed specifically to fuel the sort of innovation the region has become famous for. The huge banks in America (JP Morgan, etc.) were essentially a result of the industrial revolution. If we're in the midst of another revolution, it's likely a new banking group will emerge. The way of Silicon Valley is to innovate solutions. Nobody is going to try to appeal Sarbanes–Oxley. We'll just build a way around it. Even with it's warts, Bitcoin is one example. Full democratization of commerce and investment is inevitable.
- brc 13y ago
  Yes, it's very unlikely for the same reasons. New York 'Wall St' is a very established industry. The biggest of Tech IPOs are chicken feed compared to the money going through New York on a daily basis. If you want to be at the top of finance, you have to be in New York. Anybody who wants to work to the top, will end up in New York. The reverse applies to Tech, which is why both will stay top of their game for their respective current strengths. It's completely wrong to think of New York in terms of just JP Morgan as it is wrong to think of Silicon Valley as just Apple. New York doesn't care about the origin of the wealth. It's about raising the capital, repackaging it, and on-selling it, and trading it all the while. So any wealth generated in San Francisco that makes it as far as the public markets will end up going through NY anyway.

WoodenChair 13y ago

This comment thread and the article itself are like parodies of all of the detachment from reality that the tech industry faces. Only in this community do you increase in investment size by 200% over a 4 year period and still see people questioning whether your market is becoming more viable. New York's investment share is apparently more than 1/4 that of Silicon Valley and climbing. That's a big deal for a city that was once seen as tied exclusively to old money. "The amount of venture, angel and private equity money invested in New York soared about 200 percent from 2009 to 2013, to $3 billion from $799 million, according to CB Insights, a data analysis firm that specializes in venture capital trends. Silicon Valley, by contrast, took in $11.4 billion in 2013."

zmitri 13y ago
I don't think anyone questioned if it was becoming more viable, but if you are concerned with macro figures I think this one is much more telling: SV: Largest exit so far 2014: WhatsApp: 19B NY: Top 5 exits since 2009: Tumblr: 1.1B Indeed: 1.0B Buddy Media: 745M Shutterstock: 570M Ascend Health: 500M Not sure where the parody or detachment from reality factors in.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  Is it really fair to compare the exit of WhatsApp with Tumblr? Tumblr has been around much longer, is used regularly by a lot of people, and isn't too hard to monetise via advertising. WhatsApp was purchased by a giant with a lot of money simply to prevent it's competitors from getting it. Obviously WhatsApp provided a lot more value to it's investors but the comparison just doesn't seem fair to me. Edit: It's also important to realise that our idea of a huge exit has changed rapidly over the last few years largely because of Facebook. A couple of years ago Instagram's $1bn astonished people. And yet Tumblr's $1.1bn isn't considered huge?
  - zmitri 13y ago
    I wasn't trying to compare WhatsApp to Tumblr, I was trying to compare one exit this year vs the top exists from an entire ecosystem over the past 5 years. I think New York is great, and I think Tumblr is great, but I think if Tumblr were perhaps in SV, things could have went differently.

kator 13y ago

I wonder how much employment laws play into this also? I moved from California (born and raised) to New York three years ago and currently work for a "Start up". I've been stunned to find the differences in employment laws, taxes, non-compete, cost of living etc.

dopamean 13y ago
I think some of us may really like to hear specifics regarding these stunning differences. I grew up in NY and as far as I can tell both NY and SV are high tax areas with extremely high costs of living.

Killah911 13y ago

According to Brad Feld's book "Startup Communities" you have to be committed to a place for 10 years to see any real change. He mentions politicians as being too short sighted for not being able to carry thru for that long. I'm not sure if it's been 10 years for the New York Startup scene, but maybe NY Times is being a little hasty. If the current political establishment keeps it's support up and so does the next batch, I think the NY has a very decent chance indeed. However, it's the tough times that will tell whether NYC Startup Culture endures, especially when the hype has died down and the economy has had another mood swing. I remember after the 90's .com boom people in the city acted like tech was over (the boom and subsequent bust was surreal on the people's part too, I thought), but what it proved was when the party's over, all the riff raff falls away and only tech companies that were fairly strong not only made it thru, but thrived. NYC, shouldn't be Silicon Valley, only Silicon Valley can be that! The city, despite it's many "issues" is one of the most amazing places on earth. I hope the tech that comes out of there is just as amazing and real. Cheers!

mathattack 13y ago
It's also a question of if you are looking in the right places. NY startups tend to be less pure technology plays that need lots of VC money, and tend to be tied to information intensive industries like advertising and finance. Fintech startups frequently are cash flow positive by the time they hit 20 employees. These aren't game breakers that will get multi-billion dollar valuations, but they build from strength and don't need to become monsters. The biggest hold-up is actually the cost of living in NYC. It's worse than the Bay Area, and there is less pride in being a starving entrepreneur.

normloman 13y ago

I loathe all the armchair sociologists here, trying to blame the status of NYC's tech scene on everything from NYC's finance culture, to the supposed unfriendliness of New Yorkers, to the colder weather. Get over yourselves. We don't know what makes for a good start up community. You might have some hunches, but you're just as clueless as the rest of us. Besides, I for one am glad NYC is not the valley. Who says you folks in the valley are right about everything?

_nato_ 13y ago
`Also glad NYC is not the valley. But there is reason for it. It's not random. I think SV was first to market. This is more or less in keeping with my sentiments about it: http://www.evanmiller.org/marketing-startup-hubs.html http://www.evanmiller.org/marketing-startup-hubs.html

mhidalgo 13y ago

Like everyone's been saying I think these kind of things take time. I think all in all the shift in startup culture has been dramatic over the last ten years in NYC. Its only a matter of time for an iconic tech company to come out of NYC, especially if investments keeps growing.