I'm now blogging at jessepodell.com

There's No Crying In Baseball

"Have you ever been hated or discriminated against?  I have.  I've been protested and demonstrated against, picket signs for my wicked rhymes, look at the times, sick is the mind of the mother____g kid that's behind, all this commotion"    Eminem

A constant criticism of startup companies being built in this bubble is that too many are being built with only an exit in mind. Even though it's fun to imagine building a super successful website and selling to a large public company for lots of cash, it is delusional as a game plan. That doesn't mean your friends and loved ones aren't rooting for some splendid exit for you, but in some senses, you pass the fantasy to them and focus on other seemingly epic goals like, validating an assumption or two, or, if you are among the very few, actually achieving product/market fit.  When I began my wall street career in Knight Securities' training program in '98, I guess it's fair to say I had an exit in mind.  I figured I'd slang stocks for a decade or so, be stinking rich, and then have enough money to do what I really enjoyed.   Little did I know, months after I slunk into my work place downtown, skirting protesters during the height of OWS, another trader at a competitor who was in the biz the same length as me was having his own machinations of "returning human" - in a very public way.

The Trend Is Your Friend

New Rule:  Find the thing people are going batshit crazy about.  You're then able to leave the guessing world and understand what really turns people on, and then figure out how you are not going to fight it, but encourage it and work hard to help people solve problems.

First Wave

(not me)

As fall creeps into the air here on the Eastern End of Long Island, one of my favorite weekends arrives; The Hamptons International Film Festival.  It's a one of a kind festival- competing with the much larger New York Film Festival, with most crowds containing many folks over 60yrs old, due to the year-round inhabitants that includes many retired and extremely wealthy people who reside out here after long careers working in NYC industries such as Financial Services, Law and Real Estate. There's a great mix of films and film lovers.  The festival provides many world premiers- and I was honored to buy tickets to a film called Drift and be part of the second audience to ever see this fictional account of how in the 70's such huge international surf apparel and equipment brands such as Billabong and Quicksilver got super viral after being started by just a pair of brothers or some friends who lived for surfing, but had the vision for commercial enterprise.  

Where's the love?

And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself. - Tolstoy

We've got a big problem on our hands.  People just love to hate.  We piled on NFL replacement refs for sucking, that's how we spend our time.   How does it feel being humiliated on newspaper covers, by announcers, by owners, by players?  Does that improve their ability to officiate football games- or make a better call for YOUR team next time?  I certainly think not.  Why did we pour the negative energy on?  Just to be dicks?

I propose that we should be a bit more careful just how much we hate on Apple ($AAPL).   After winning a big lawsuit and rolling out IOS6 with a terrible Maps App, people just love to hate, while 55 million homes have at least one iPad, iPhone, iPod, or Mac in the house.  Be careful what you're rooting against.  Particularly when it holds the fate of your personal wealth.  

Out of the Darkness

I guarantee that you will enjoy this video!

Wasn't I right?  How on earth does it only have 3,200 hits?  It's not for lack of trying on the star's part.

Her name is Whitney Hess. I first heard about her about two months ago while taking a class at General Assembly.   She knows a thing or two about publicity, and harnessing social media.  If you find her on (very active) twitter, the photo is a close up shot of her grill.  Her linkedin is free for you to see.  She blogs about personal stuff.  She gets the joke- you are either all in or not in at all when it comes to branding yourself.  She has also forgotten more about "user experience" than I will ever know.  If you asked me two months ago what UX was, I'd probably have guessed it had something to do with Unix, the awesome operating system we used at Knight Securities in 1998, and never saw again.

Labor Day

Notorious Big and Frank Sinatra - Everyday Struggle / A Day In The Life

Since this is the first Labor Day in my post-college career that I don't have a job to go to on Tuesday, I thought I'd wish a happy holiday to my friends in New York.

To my friends with big jobs and don't make nearly as much money as people think they do in entertainment, medicine, and over at large financial conglomerates like Amex, happy labor day.

To my overeducated friends with several degrees who can't find good work, and are doing things like selling gym memberships for a living, happy labor day.

To my former wall street friends who are out on their asses, burnt out, with bills to pay, happy labor day, take this time to relax, and take a breath, no one can figure it out for you, the hand that fed you is no longer there, and it's time to make some decisions.

Beginner's Mind

Shoshin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Ryukyuan king, see Shō Shin.

Shoshin (初心) is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning "beginner's mind". It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, 

and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner

in that subject would. 

Anders Ericsson's "10,000-Hour Rule" of expertise was popularized by the Malcolm Gladwell 

book "outliers".  For anyone who doesn't know, 

Facebook IPO in human speak

Every pre-ipo investor in Facebook did awesome.  They could give a shit that you lost money.  And why should they?  They have no responsibility to you.  And Facebook was founded by scrappy Harvard kids who weren't motivated by money?  Right?  It's not like the people influencing them were giving pieces of the action to the biggest investment bank in the world, hedge funds who were able to curry favor, and Russians you've never heard of?  Right?  Thank goodness they all stepped into that void and helped infuse the fledgling company with 500Mln+ users and tons of cash flow.

Sadly, in late 2011 and early 2012 a few friends and less savvy colleagues waited till they got me in private and told me,

With Freedom Comes Big Responsibility

(This is a classic rap video from 1993 by KRS-One that is generally SFW.  KRS was one of the first rappers to focus on social issues and has rallied for non-violence his entire career.)

The video above is worth watching.  A) It's hysterically irreverent B) The lyrics are worth paying attention to- really.  In 1993, hip hop was roughly 10 years into its nascence and entering into what connoisseurs like myself consider its "golden years", before really crappy artists driven by marketing & promotion (not real talent) began to get radio play and become extremely commercially viable.  KRS is considered one of the great artisans and legends of this art form, and probably has made less money in his entire career than lil' wayne makes in a month.  Real talent and sometimes even raw talent still dominates the success stories of startup nation.  I don't know too many folks that are actually trying to "strike while the iron's hot" in entrepreneurship- but the number is growing, trust me.

Today is my first day at a coworking community in downtown NYC where the long haul of the research and work will get done for the startup I am working on.  Instead of hopping around from

I Surrender.

 My friend K called me today to wish me a happy birthday, and he remembers it each year because "that's the day Japan surrendered".  How many Americans even know the significance of August 15th 1945?  And more surprising is that I seemed to forget that my friend K who moved to this country when he was 17 as an exchange student, worked at big Japanese banks after college and went on, at 36 to pursue his true passion to work in a showroom for a fashion label, is a person who would use such an ominous date for his former nation a memory device.  Seriously, if you knew him, recalling infamous dates in his nation's history is the very last thing you'd expect him to bring up. One can learn (or recall such dates that were memorized some 20 years ago in a high school text book) things from the most unexpected of places.  The lesson I'm learning this year is to stand my ground when I think I have a right to, but surrender to the fact that people may not behave the way I'd like.  Particularly important when I put a phone call I had earlier this morning into perspective after the jump.

Crack Game/ Rap Game

"Somehow the rap game reminds me of the crack game" 

This line is well known to fans of hip hop, but for the uninitiated, above refers to 1) a lyric in the middle of a Nas song, and 2) The sample (audio snippet) which provides the de facto chorus and song title ("Crack Game/ Rap Game) for an even more popular Jay-Z song. The Jay-Z song CGRG describes then startup rapper Jay-Z's ascent to radio domination vis-a-vis slinging drugs in the hood.   I won't waste your time with a blog drawing on the commonalities of lean startup ethos and the line,  "Let em test the product, give em a promo show.  Just a breeze, not enough to catch a real vibe." (this concept was touched upon in the book "Rework" by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson).  Instead, I offer this, my newest observations of a man reminded of a man trying to make his way in a strange world.  

When I meet folks who have been involved in this community for five, ten or maybe even fifteen plus years, it brings me back to a time when I first looked at the first twin screens (2 screens was considered a big deal in 1998, you were definitely official) at Knight Securities that looked like the matrix and a christmas tree mated on acid, and said to myself- there's just no way in hell I'm going to figure this out.  It took an unavoidable and at times intolerable climb up the learning curve, but I figured it out by fire.  The most important part of getting along was my interaction with those who helped me along the way. Those dozens  of new kids that have sat beside me on the trading desks of Jersey City, Connecticut, and NYC with eyes glazed over while desperately trying to remain just intense enough and interested enough- some whom have moved on to be head traders at big time hedge funds, and some are probably wearing a hard hat about now, I get to remember how they feel all over again.

Hate It Or Love It

Eminem - We Made You
(hip hop is generally nsfw, but if you're at home, blast this at will, it's pretty dopey but good fun)

This morning I got a phone call from an old boss, actually an old President.  This is a dude who could sell fire in hell, who convinced me, in 2008 of all years, to leave a 2,500 person global bank and join his 250 person "relationship shop" with his earnestness and smile. Needless to say, we know which of those one is still around today.  I have no regrets, because I learned so much at his shop and made contacts that enabled my career to be extended for an entire two years!  Back to the lecture at hand, my old boss lived in my old, pre-trader returned human, neighborhood in downtown Manhattan.  I would see him from time to time with his kids, and usually I was coming back from Yoga or a jog along the Hudson or picking up Bagels.  I always like seeing him, because he is a charming guy, and never turns to negative town, despite so much of the emotional fuselage that spreads after a small investment bank closes.  He was never one to scold at our old shop, but the trading minion in me kind of braced for some disapproval this morning, since the first thing he said was "so I read your blog...".   How on earth did he find it?

Turns out I shouldn't have worried.  I mean, he probably is mildly offended by my scathing portrayal of his current and my former business. I think his ultimate suggestion was that maybe it makes more sense for me to use a different nom de plume.  It paints a bad picture of him and everyone I worked with, so
for that I feel bad if they think it refers to them personally, but I'll never apologize.  They want me to

Before Knight Falls

“I have always considered it despicable to grovel for your life as if life were a favor. If you cannot live the way you want, there is no point in living” ― Reinaldo Arenas

As of the close of business today, Knight Capital Group, my former employer, is not out of business.  Far from it.  They're going to fight many more days- to the chagrin of it's peers on wall street.  If you think my wall street buds, some of whom are also former employees of KCG are relieved- that 1,400 similarly backgrounded employees don't have to worry about finding new jobs- think again.

Here are three meetings I had today- 


Meeting One (UX Director, J):

When I woke up this morning the news was out that over the weekend a few competitors and clients had decided to invest $400 million in KCG.  Knight has to pay back the vampire squid(GS) $440Mln by Wednesday night.  To make things even more ironic, my other former employer, Jefferies was the largest investor and put in $125mln.  Expect a decent sized media outlet to have the story out tomorrow

The Human Error and Wall Street.

I will remember today as the day the firm that trained me, gave me my first shot on wall street, three years of opportunity and a lifetime of memories, potentially began a quick descent into non-existence.  Now I might know how the alumni of Bear Stearns, Lehman, and Merrill Lynch felt when they could no longer feel proud of the achievement of having fought and won a spot at a prestigious firm out of college.  Those folks will always see the name of their firm at the bottom of the work experience portion of their CV as kind of embarrassment or taint they have to shrug off in conversation because their firms no longer exist and are associated with the financial meltdown of 2002.  I used to market myself with the distinction of having been selected to the training program for the biggest stock trading company in the world (which it was, possibly until today), now, I'm not so sure that's going to be my game plan.


August 1st, Big "technical issue"
August 2nd (today) Big decline in stock price, like huge.

Knight may be just be a decade and a half old, certainly had its share of mutants in its NJ based office, has had some of the ugliest black eyes in history in terms of trading compliance fines over the years, but the firm was revolutionarily aligned with technology very early in the game, it never took a dollar from the government, and besides a small separately branded asset management business for rich folks and instutitions, the core trading biz never handled individuals' money.  That means when they lost

Is It Practical?

"I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your      friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone." - Henry Rollins


It's funny and fitting for me to be writing a blog about a former wall street guy's foray into a professional life of great uncertainty in technology after actively avoiding the greatest innovations of our time, and quote Henry Rollins.  For those of you who don't know, HR was the singer of Black Flag, a pretty important California punk band in the early 80s, and has remained an interesting and relevant, albeit intense, personality in the media and music since.  One of my favorite shows on TV about five years ago was the Henry Rollins show on IFC.  His show was a entertaining platform for his very strong opinions about relevant issues, and one show in particular that stands out he had a particularly nasty rant about the irrelevance of social media, which at the time meant Myspace.  I tried

Pretty Much Everyone On Wall Street Hates Technology

Employment by Occupation

Data series	Employment,  2011
Brokerage clerks	47,970
Financial analysts	53,350
Financial managers	26,310
Personal financial advisors	96,490
Securities, commodities, and financial services sales agents	173,140

(Source: Occupational Employment Statistics)

I'm certain that of the 400,000 people above who are/were employed by the securities industry in this country (there are 800,000 in total), only a few dozen have any love for technology and innovation.  Why is that?  It's easy to just say that they're so content making their awesome wages that they intentionally keep their heads in the sand in hopes that this whole facebook thing is just a passing fad and they're true value-add to the system will one day again soon become evident and they will return to their pre-bank failure income.  Maybe that strategy will work, sure.

I am going to Blog all the time now.

Boy what a difference a month makes.  Let's get caught up.  Here's the first lesson I learned a long time ago- ideas are easy and they don't amount to much.  Also, just because I think I have something that's not being done right now, that doesn't mean much either- and as it turns out- some one was doing the same exact thing. And the crazy part is it only pumped me up more, because I just got a two year head start on what they are doing wrong.

I am comfortable telling you that I have identified the problem I wish to solve, and that I am dedicated to being the most knowledgable person in the NYC tech scene on the specific problem of "helping people connect to & discover the information sources that lead them to more informed investments and trades."

I have a name for this effort, tradembark.

After putting together a pretty poor presentation coupled with a graphic logo from my friend Ali; I decided to open up myself to the network a bit. 

Here's how it went:

I had a call with Developer A.  Basically it was my first call with a grown up in the industry.  I think I wanted to validate my idea and of course I was hoping he'd just fall in love with it and tell me that I was crazy to speak to anyone else about it and how he wants to partner with me and do my website for free and be my partner etc etc etc.  Of course what happened is he thought my idea was "interesting" and gave me a few books to read, Including "Do More Faster".  I'm glad he was cool and receptive, because it would turn out to be my least impressive call as an entrepreneur ever, it only gets better from here.  He told me a bit about what development might be like for the site, and told me to check in in a week.

I had a meeting with an old colleague who still works on wall street but in a pretty neat customer data kind of gig, and his friend from University, a bad ass CTO from a pretty major well known company.  We all got along swimmingly, and CTO A, said my idea was "phenomenal" which I think was 85% just being a good guy and knowing that this dude he just met is so passionate and crazy about the idea of helping people and putting his own money up to accomplish this made him want to keep in touch with me after "letting it marinate" which made me think of the pasture raised heritage chickens I brined from Browders Birds in the North Fork in a large cooler the previous weekend and butterflied myself after learning how on youtube.  Actually not that hard.  He told me about two social apps that were coming up which I sadly didn't know about (apparently they dont talk about stocktwits and roboinvest in Bali when you are reading diary of a yogi on the beach.)  I just joined twitter a month ago. 

I had my follow up call with Developer A and he suggested that I attend meetups, hackathons and contact his partner Developer J to plug into the ecosystem better locally.  Yes, I am this new, these suggestions were actually amazingly helpful to me.  He seemed genuinely encouraged by my dedication to this - he could tell I'm getting psyched about contributing to this world.

I attended two meetups/pitches and fell in love with them.  I still don't know how to ask a question (it took me some time on wall street to know how to ask a question too).  I have moved past thinking that just because I think an idea sucks that it wont work, and visa versa.  I am loving that these startups are meant to help people, make the world suck less, and they are addressing real needs. 

I went through every startup in the Made In NYC NY Tech meetup site - all 300+ and took notes.  So many seemed similar, freemium with the nice design- I was impressed by a few but it just excited me more- I feel like I'm in the right place NYC is just cooking with ideas and startups and I feel proud to be a New Yorker for the first time in a really long time.

I met with the founder and two editors of an extremely influential Blog (Blogs are at the core of my idea) because a good friend writes at this blog.  Turns out Founder A went to high school same years as my brothers and turned out to be a pretty great guy who LOVES my friend.  His dudes told me about a site that was started 2 years ago trying to do exactly what "my" idea was about but even more.  They don't like the dude who started it.  It reminded me alot of wall street with the whole good guy/ bad guy thing.  On the surface, everyone seems to be playing nice out there- like everyone is young and smart and just the right amount of nerdy and street smarts and everyone seems poor but doing fine.  Thirteen years on wall street and you can look a guy in the eye and tell if he is making money.  You just get that intuition.  And you know P&L is a day-to-day affair to anyone not working the traditional 9-5.  Anyway I left the meeting energized and 100% knowing that I should never show my presentation to anyone again until it's fixed ("it needs about 1/10th of the words") and that I don't have a business yet or a really fully baked idea.  Perversely, I was more psyched than ever, because I was pretty confident there wasn't anyone working on my idea except this one site and it wasn't very impressive and apparently "isn't doing anything".  They also told me that the users really want "quick and fluffy" right now.  And they pointed out to me that nothing has really moved the needle in personal finance web from YHOO finance (which I still use to this day and have used since it was rolled out) until Twitter.  I know I'm in a sweet spot now. 

I sent my presentation to my mom's friend Barbara.  she loves me.  She was leaking all of my facebook postings and stories to my mom when I was away. I knew she did something in corporate communications but she knows I was interested in getting in front of her friend who was a pretty well known dot com social media thing for the 18-24 set.  Turns out she is a beast and marketing is what she does.  She massacred my presentation in the best way and set me on a really professional direction.  I couldn't be more thankful, amazing this woman has known me since I was 14? and a key member of the loud cacophony of clinking coffee and single Great Neck moms that came from my mom's dining room growing up at 945 on week nights after dinners.  Did I have any idea how lucky I was that my mom knew the key to life was just getting people around a table and eating and talking until it was time to go.  Anyway she's a pro and I can't wait to neaten this presentation up - it's not for investors- it's really just to give a guideline of what I'm going to be addressing as the key problems that I am going to address.  It doesn't address competition at this point yet.  It needs a great deal of work.  Now I think i'm a month away from asking her to send me in to her friend.  I will tell you all about that meeting when it happens.  I will actually have a business by then.

I met Developer A's partner, J.  He turns out to be an ex wall street guy who is 2 years into the biz.  He reminds me of alot of guys I worked with, probably played lacrosse and it's hard to make him crack a truly unintentional smile - but I tried my darndest.  He's a supportive dude, and it seems like the further I go with this process, the better advice I get.  He demanded I read the lean startup (i bought it that night) and also suggested the revolutionary concept (to me) of getting something out there even if it's on tumblr and getting customer feedback from there.  He had a few biz ideas for me  as well- and we both agreed I need to ripen a bunch before I spend money on this gig which is fine with me.  The number one take-away is that I need users to tell me what they do and don't want and I may not need to have the idea up and running to get that feedback.  He also introduced me to Jason who runs Alley NYC, which is where I will probably be spending work days in August and September.  Jason and I got along pretty well, we both do yoga, we both worked in finance, and both of our grandfathers pushed schmate carts up and down 7th avenue just two generations ago not far from the office.  I can't wait to go in there, push out blogs and tumblrs and tweets and make friends and learn.  We talked alot about the role a technical co-founder might have in my business.  He also pitched his own development firm as the kind of place that can fill in for that, etc.

I took a class at General Assembly, and learned that everything is possible - and most likely impossible.  I tweet-shoutouted the professor an early stage VC guy and he responded.  Then it turns out my boy Matt at Birchbox knows him and will intro me if I ever needed it.  Sounds good!

Today I met with another former wall street guy who is at a seriously successful startup I think he is employee 3 of 7.  He complimented me on my network, and I think I know how I'd like to collaborate with him in the future.  We talked about having a technical co-founder.  He told me he knows a few examples of how "our eyes met from across the room" types of things can actually happen for people in search of co-founders...  He told me programmers are manic, and they will often overdeliver rather than underdeliver even if they're moonlighting with you.  He said eventually if I ever did want to raise money a technical co-founder is pretty important.  We talked about how my idea can eventually make money after it's created.  He gave me a signed copy of Don Dapscot's paperback and I left him in his awesome meatpacking district office around the people with the couches and the coffee cups and the cute receptionist downstairs. 

I learned something about my mom tonight.  She is a pretty successful lady and told me she keeps a yellow pad of every call, meeting, etc every day.  Every day of her career.  Pretty amazing.  There really is something to the action of writing things down.  That's why I'm going to contribute to this more and more.  ANd I'm going to learn what these "post settings" are to my right.

This is the story of a guy with an idea.  It's the first inning.

In January of this year, for the first time in my thirteen year career, I was laid off.  After a month or two of shock and recovery from burn out, I embarked on a trip to Asia.  In May, after a day at the Singapore Art Museum, I was inspired by an idea for a company that is rooted in helping people inform themselves for a crucial issue in many folks' lives:  investing their own money.  I returned home a week ago inspired and excited filled with ideas and that's just where we're going to begin our journey.  Today, I wrapped up an idea stage presentation that I want to share with some potential partners. 

I'm not really sharing the idea with too many people, in but the fact is it's pretty simple.  I feel that I can create something that will actually work, because its intention isn't to make money first, it's to help educate people.  I've told a couple friends and family members about the idea.  They think it's pretty cool and there's definitely a need for this sort of thing.  Good start!  The next step is to partner with people who can use their technical skills to get a website up with the quickness and then the real work begins.  I'm going to spend the next six months of my life just working on this.  Oh yeah, I also need to work on finding a name for this site.  I have been places on the web looking for inspiration from tree species, to subway maps, to poems, lyrics, etc.  But it doesn't have to be one of those "premium" go daddy names that cost $8k.  Like a friend said and I agree "It just can't suck".