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.
