Caterpillar Cowboy

Just got this sent to me by one of the organizers:

** 2010 hackNY Demo Fest ** 

WHERE: 109 Warren Weaver Hall (Courant Institute), NYU; 251 Mercer Street 10011

WHEN: Friday July 30, 6-8 pm

REGISTER HERE: http://hacknydemofest.eventbrite.com 

WHAT: The 2010 class of hackNY Fellows invites you to attend our 2010 hackNY Demo Fest Friday, July 30, 6-8 pm in rm 109 of the Courant Institute, NYU (251 Mercer St. between 3rd and 4th street). The class of 2010 will be presenting their accomplishments during their 10 week internships as part of the hackNY Fellows program. Please do come meet the Fellows and hear about what they’ve accomplished and learned, both working with some of NYC’s best startups as well as in lectures from members of NYC’s startup community. Please contact info@hackNY.org or visit http://hackNY.org for more information. 

ABOUT HACKNY:

hackNY is an initiative to mentor and federate the next generation of NYC tech all-stars. During the summer hackNY organizes the hackNYFellows program, in which selected fellows are matched with NYC startups able to demonstrate a mentoring environment, with technical needs matched to the skills of the selected Fellow. Fellows also enjoy shared housing and a set of lectures from leaders in the NYC startupecosystem, including founders, CTOs, and investors.During the school year hackNY organizes student hackathons to help students learn about opportunities in NYC’s great emerging tech startup ecosystem, as well as to help them meet their fellow members of the student-hacking population. 

SPECIAL THANKS:

The success of the 2010 hackNY Fellow program would have been impossible without the active support of the entire NYC tech ecosystem, including numerous founders, CTOs, technologists,educators, investors, and students. Financial support for the 2010 class of Fellows was provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.Special thanks to NYU and the Courant Institute for their logistical support both with summer housing and with the hackNY student hackathons. We thank as well Alex Qin and Arikia Milikan for assistance throughout the summer, and thank our summer lecturers: Fred Brooks, Kristina Chodorow, Kushal Dave, Chris Dixon, Ann Miura-Ko, Jonah Peretti, Chris Poole, Martin Wattenberg, and Albert Wenger.

postling:

At Postling, we believe in empowering small businesses so local communities can thrive in a world of big brands. In line with this vision, we created a social media management tool specifically for small businesses. Our Sidewalk Collective community events take the social media conversation into an offline setting where local businesses can give and get advice from each other.

We have three open, paid positions for part-time Community Builders—one each in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—to help us grow the Postling community in those cities.

The ideal candidate

• Loves interacting with people via phone, email, and in person
• Is active across several social networks and has a strong online presence
• Has excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Is extremely organized, independent, self-motivated, and forward-thinking
• Is passionate about their local community and the small businesses within it
• Has a great network within their city
• Can get things done with minimal supervision, but knows when to ask questions

  A Community Builder will

• Help with every step of planning our community events in their city: find venues, secure sponsorships and speakers, invite local business owners, and acquire local publicity and media coverage
• Expand Postling’s user base of local business owners
• Manage a street team to visit small businesses in their city to promote and create awareness about our Sidewalk Collective events
• Use social media to build interest in Postling and Sidewalk Collective
• Represent the Postling team at relevant small business events in the area
• Contribute to the Postling blog with interesting stories and resources for and about their local communities
• Collaborate with our fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and ridiculously fun team

Is this you? Prove it. Email jen@postling.com with

• An overview of yourself: what you’ve done, what you aspire to do, and, if available, examples of your work. Send us an email that lets us get a feel for your personality. Formal resumés and cover letters are unnecessary—your LinkedIn URL is fine.
• Links to three of your own Twitter statuses, blog posts, or other social media updates that describe you as a person
• A list of at least three local businesses that you think are doing a great job using social media

If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to build a community from scratch, drop us a note. We did it at Etsy and we’re doing it again.

informationarbitrage:

As part of my transition from angel to VC, one of the issues I’ve had to grapple with is that of syndicate construction. I have always been a huge proponent of syndicates, seeking to get parties around the table with the best mix of domain experience, contacts and attitude to help de-risk the investment. While there are myriad ecosystem benefits to taking this approach, e.g., playing well with others, sharing good deals, it is also highly rational. My friend David Beisel just wrote an interesting piece on deal-sharing in the Micro VC space, positing that the three biggest reasons for “large and friendly Micro VC syndicates” are: (1) being capital constrained; (2) as a vehicle for deal sourcing; and (3) due to the immaturity of the asset class. While I believe these reasons to largely be true, they don’t address perhaps the most important element of syndicate-building: the tactics around syndicate construction. To lead or to follow? When and how to build a syndicate? How do you work with the company on syndicate construction? How a Micro VC, or a VC, for that matter, deals with these questions can often determine the level at which an investor can play in a deal - if at all.

In general, I view the syndicate construction question in much the same way as I view the management of an early-stage company: one lead founder is fine; equal co-founders are great, provided that one is the CEO; more than two co-founders without a clear understanding of who is the CEO is bad. While there are exceptions to this rule I find it holds in most cases, and provides an accurate metaphor for how a Micro VC should view syndicate construction. I believe every deal benefits from a lead. Ambiguity around this issue can be costly, causing a firm to lose an investment opportunity because of distributed decision-making and slowness in getting a term sheet issued and signed. It is not simply a matter of capital provision but of deal leadership, serving as the primary point of contact during the deal negotiation/term sheet stage, being ultimately responsible for getting the deal done and advising management on the most value-added syndicate members. It is important for syndicate members to know their role in a deal.

I believe strongly in working closely with management to build the best syndicate. Sometimes more experienced entrepreneurs already have a wish-list of strategic angels they’d like to include in a round. This has to be respected and built into the syndicate sizing and composition discussion. One can have a reasoned discussion concerning capacity, etc., but fundamentally if an entrepreneur wants a particular investor in I am going to make room - period. Other times a first-time entrepreneur brings no investors to the table and is looking to me for guidance on building the best investor base, and that is fine, too. Either way, the entrepreneur is an essential part of the syndicate building process.

Bottom line: someone needs to own a deal. Coming to the table as a two- or three-headed syndicate beast without a clear leader is a big, big mistake. How many VCs like investing into situations where there is “management by committee?” Answer: zero. Why should syndicate-building be any different? You like the deal? Step up and issue a term sheet. You can get your BFFs in line afterward. I have played every syndicate role in my relatively short time as a VC: lead dog, strong #2 and a subordinate syndicate member. And each role is fine. Just make sure you know which role you want to play and by all means, if you want to own a deal, step up and make it happen. Otherwise, someone else will.

Interesting stuff. In our case, we’ve been able to pull together a great syndicate of angels without a lead (and are doing it again right now), where everyone puts in $25k-$100k checks and no one takes a board seat. I’m not anti-lead (in fact, I agree it can be beneficial) but I’m not interested in handing over that kind of leverage / board seat unless someone is willing to step up and put in a significant amount ($250k+). Unfortunately that doesn’t fit into the model of today’s “spray-and-pray” angels. Maybe this is where micro-VCs fit in?

tedr:

parislemon:

With Garza’s no-hitter today, there have been 5 no-hitters this season. Even crazier is that this is only one fewer than the number of one-hitters this year, apparently. And one of those was Armando Galarraga’s (should-have-been) perfect game.

So it should be 6 no-hitters to 5 one-hitters this year. Crazy.

Lots of speculation as to if the absence of steroids is what’s behind this. 

Steroids don’t help you hit the ball. Maybe it helps you hit the ball farther, but that’s questionable in itself. Players tend to use steroids to heal faster from injuries, so maybe you’ve got a causation if you can show that players who hit well have spent more time on the DL than in years past, and that’s due to a lack of steroids accelerating the healing process. Again, pretty dubious.