Hope To Happiness

My Steve Jobs Story

After my junior year of college I was able to finagle my way into an internship at Apple. I moved out to Sunnyvale, worked in Cupertino coding for an internal team and only passed by Steve Jobs a few times. He was always walking quickly, but would give eye contact and that brief half smile and head nod that strangers give each other.

I heard him speak in the executive lecture series, where all the Apple execs came in to talk to the interns. Steve took questions, and one was related to where he gets his inspiration from and he said half jokingly “from the scorn of women” before giving a more complete answer. +1.

My one moment with Steve was in the cafeteria. I sat down for lunch and Steve was sitting behind me speaking to someone. It was hard to concentrate on whatever mundane conversation I was having when there sat a man with so much vision and wisdom that I wanted to learn from, just one table away. So I listened, and remember hearing him say:

“I wish I could be a fly on the wall in 100 years to see what technology is like”.

That sentence stuck with me for a long time. To me it symbolizes the type of long term thinking and resolve necessary to build an entity (company, organization, ideals, etc) that is decades old. To create something that lives on for centuries and finds ways to impact our world in profound ways. Our incremental thinking in entrepreneurship must be balanced with a long term world view of what society should be like.

I heard someone say “what did Steve Jobs do beside put shiny iPods in our pockets”, which misses the boat on what a man of his stature can do to a society of entrepreneurs, if only as a symbol of what can be done with patience, taste, and focus.

Pancreatic cancer has taken the lives of many influential figures in my life, including Steve Jobs, Randy Pausch (who spoke at my commencement from CS at CMU), and my Uncle Charles Egerton Denbow. The disease cut their lives short, but their vision and hope for the future will live on through us.

If I Ran It: Zaarly

Dylan (best rapper of all time) could have use Zaarly to get sugar cookies for Diddy

Zaarly is a platform that lets you buy and sell goods and services to people nearby. It is buyer powered, meaning the buyers post what they want (each of these posts is called a ‘Zaarly’) and others come in to fulfil the requests. Some of these requests range from headshots to McDonalds hash brown delivery.
They launched out of Startup Weekend this year and have moved quickly. Although there are competitors in the space, the idea of helping facilitate local commerce (like one of my favorite companies Milo.com did) truly is a big idea. It can help solve so many inefficiencies in the job market if executed well.

Here are some thoughts, then my 3 point action plan for Zaarly.
 

Good Stories

 You want to get people to evangelize Zaarly by having great experiences, and then sharing these experiences with others. One way to do this is to work on satisfying very specific use cases consistently. Setting up a Zaarly booth with an “I’d pay X for Y” sign and being the fulfiler for a specific item each week, would help people understand the cases in which they can think about using Zaarly, and create some of the stories they are looking for. Having a big open platform is definitely the way to go, but people have to understand what is possible first. A few ideas : 

- Cold water and water bottles

- Ice cream samples (can partner with Ben & Jerrys truck)

- Umbrellas in the rain

Find Major Use Cases

You want a platform to be open, but you need to get people into the habit of posting Zaarly’s first. In order to get them posting, they have to have some specific idea as to how the platform can be leveraged. I find that most Zaarlys on the site are for physical products (usually at an unrealistic price), but I think Zaarly can be best utilized for basic services. Find out what some of these basic uses are, either through mining the fulfiled Zaarly, or by searching the requests people put out on twitter and facebook.

Reputation 

A reputation system for fulfillers is important so that you know who to trust in fulfilling. After the AirBnB debacle, it is clear that even though you are simply adding a layer over interpersonal communication, you still bear the brunt of the blame if things go wrong. Protect your users by helping to verify the reputation of all on the system, and encourage commerce between friends.

SMS

Needs to be broken up into multiple sms’s, as most times when I get it, I miss most of the info.

Routing Requests

Find ways to route requests to the people who are most capable of fulfilling them. At the last NYTM, Ron at Snap Goods demo’d Knod.es, which helps you to find the right people in your network to connect. It would be a great tool to add to the system, as trust is higher within your own social circle, even if a reputation system is established.

Syndicating requests to other platforms (like what is being done on twitter with the Zaarly feeds) also makes sense, but needs to be taken further.

Also, since many of these tasks are time sensitive, its important that the right person for the job finds out about the tasks they can fulfil quickly.

Action Steps

Here are the things I would do if running Zaarly:

Push Notifications

Have the Zaarly fulfillers list the items and services they have available. Let them add tags to their listings. When new people post their Zaarlys, have them also add tags and try to do some matching to find the right person for the job immediately. Send a push notification to the fulfiller to see if they would be interested. 

Connect With Offices (for posting Zaarlys)

I can envision offices and co-working spaces like WeWork Labs, New Work City, and General Assembly having individuals with very simple needs that need to be taken care of. Especially since most of the people at these places are in small (under 10 employee) companies or freelancing, having Zaarly on their side to help fulfil some of these needs will help them free up time to concentrate on the areas of their business that matter the most. Partner with them to be their concierge of sorts.

Connect With Companies (for fulfilling Zaarlys)

Although the ethos of the company is to help individuals connect with each other, it is beneficial to have companies that may be able to service a large amount of Zaarlys on board. If lots of people are asking for DVDs (a la Kozmo in the late 90’s), it may be beneficial to get a local dvd store to help fulfil or route requests.

Multimedia Posts

I am sure this is on the roadmap, but some things aren’t communicated well through text. Pictures and video will help to make browsing and understanding requests easier.

Zaarly Staff

Employ people to aid in the process of routing requests locally. People who are experts about the city and are a human dispatch on top of the automated push notification system.

Drop Ins

Surprise offices or major events with something relevant to what they are in need of. I believe strongly that surprising customers (and potential customers) with something good and needed helps to build loyalty. After you build relationships with offices, drop in every once in a while and surprise them with something.

Wish I was in NYC tonight to see Zaarly demo at NYTM, but grandma’s 90th birthday takes precedence. Hope everything goes well!

(Thanks to Deepen Parikh for reviewing this)

On Honesty in Startupland

My experience in NYC Tech over the past year has been highlighted by great conversations with people of all backgrounds. I’ve been lucky to get support and feedback from various people in the community. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, but with a supportive ecosystem it can be manageable.
 
The issue of honesty does come up frequently in these discussions with New York tech entrepreneurs. Are we giving each other honest feedback on the projects and ideas we are working on? I’m worried that we aren’t. In private discussions, I hear people giving candid displays of concern about other startups in their community, while publicly cheerleading the efforts of the same companies. This is usually done in a manner reminiscent of high school gossip. It’s unfortunate, since there are startup founders who need to hear honest feedback in order for their companies to ever be successful.
 
Much of the issue here is how people take feedback. Is the founder ready and prepared to hear honest/harsh criticism of what they are doing? Will it crush a part of their spirit and make it difficult for them to move on? Is that a bad thing? My contention is that if you are really in the game to win it, you will appreciate the advice that will get you to success faster, however harsh it may be.

Our goal in continuing to develop a strong startup ecosystem hinges on our ability to incubate and support good ideas, and helping each other get rid of the bad ones. We should all be testing out one another’s startups, so that we can help provide honest feedback for others to use to chase after real traction and success, rather than vanity numbers, fake accolades, and tech press stardom.
 
How harsh is too harsh? Are feedback/call-outs like Matt Mireles’s post on David Tisch (here) or BetaBeat’s (tounge in cheek) dismantling of Hashable (here) helpful to the community? Sometimes I feel that I am in a happy, positive feedback loop when talking to people at meetups, while the real truth lingers underneath the surface of conversation. We need to always accept and appreciate varying viewpoints on the current state of affairs in the community (handling bad actors is another post).
 
We should strive to find ways of giving feedback that is fully honest yet tactful in delivery. Nobody does this better than Paul Graham. His office hours at TechCrunch were incredible (if you haven’t watched this, I highly recommend you do so now: http://tcrn.ch/PaulGrahamOfficeHours)

You can see why he has been so successful in helping to inspire ideas like Reddit. As I said in the comments on TechCrunch, he gently puts down bad ideas and helps inspire good ones. The same kind of spirit can (sometimes) be seen on the Ask HN or Show HN sections of Hacker News.
 
An example local to NYC was a discussion I witnessed about Hashable. As a passionate user myself, I understand the value of the service and how it can evolve in the future. I listened as another user broke down in full detail to John Exley (a Hashable intern) in detail why the service was not up to par with her needs. John gave an impassioned plea as to why he thinks the service is of great value to him now and in the future, and they went back and forth for a while, each giving insight into their world. It was a great conversation that helped all three of us fully understand what was needed for Hashable to succeed. These are the conversations I hope can be welcomed and happen frequently in our community.
 
How can we create supportive feedback loops that encourage entrepreneurs in the right ways? Lets aim to give as much open feedback as we can to the peers we share a community with. As Dean Barrow said earlier this week, a little feedback goes a long way.

Discuss on Hacker News

(Thanks to David Kay, Deepen Parikh, and Nick Gavronsky for their edits and suggestions)

If I Ran It: Turntable.fm

If you haven’t heard of Turntable.fm, its the new music web app that is all the rage in the tech scene. It is a great site that lets you listen to music in rooms with your friends/coworkers. There are some great social elements to it, and it just works well. The game mechanics are also interesting and can encourage people to buy music. As someone working on my own music startup in private beta, it is encouraging to see others in the tech/music space experiencing success. Here are my thoughts from an inexperienced student of the music industry.

Why is this app crushing it? Many little things that add up:

- Club Feel: It mimics the dynamics of a club graphically, giving you a fun interface through which to consume music

- Ego Stroking: In the points and avatars, you let people become DJs and satisfy the same ego needs that a service like twitter satisfies. People (myself included) love posting that they are *the* DJ right now and will gladly tell their twitter friends “hey come check me out”. It plays off of a few key social dynamics that are powerful

- Passive Application: This is the kind of application people will have in the background all day, popping in when there are discussions going on, or to check out who is DJ’ing the room.

- Social: You trust your friends for recommendations more than any recommendation engine. This is one of the ideas that Rexly is playing off of as well. With Turntable, you get to find out more about your friends taste in songs (not just the artists that they end up “liking” on Facebook). Music defines us in many ways (my current status: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78hT0H8nt_E) so we get to learn about who are friends are through music. Beautiful.

The main thing to think about with music startups is licensing. It should be the main thing on the mind of anyone doing a music service, especially if you are doing downloads or streaming. Without any real insider info (aside from my own talks with MediaNet for my service), it appears that Turntable.fm is focused on creating a DMCA compliant Internet Radio site. The main element of this is that it is non-interactive to end users. This means end users:

1) May not see ahead in a playlist past the currently playing song

2) May only play or pause the list

3) 3 songs per artist per hour, maximum

4) 4 songs from a single album in three consecutive hours, maximum

5) Users may skip ahead only 6 times per hour

Turntable.fm hold to this criteria in most use cases. The line between DJs and listeners is blurry, since at any point anyone can become a DJ, and a DJ can see their own playlist. If you are the only DJ, then you only hear previews, but the labels may still find a way to call this interactive since it is partially interactive for the DJs. What would make sense is that Turntable.fm pays a regular streaming rate for each DJ play, and their regular SoundExchange rate for the rest of the listeners. This is a bit of a grey area as I see it, so it is fascinating to see how this will turn out.

Turntable.fm is powered by MediaNet (who may also power my startup, Songsicle) for content delivery. The requisite DMCA takedown notice is included (DMCA = Digital Millennium Copyright Act, absolves sites of prosecution if they are notified and remove content that is uploaded by users. It is what made Youtube possible with all the illegal content on there. They dealt with Viacom and, miraculously, won: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/23/youtube-viacom-lawsuit-se_n_623256.html). The other requisite parts for this are the relationship with SoundExchange, which handles royalties for audio recording public performance. MediaNet provides the data necessary for SoundExchange to charge them for usage. Also, musical work performance royalties must be paid through ASCAP, BMI, and/or SESAC (and now EMI Publishing directly, as they have pulled rights from ASCAP: http://bit.ly/m0sBvS). I have no idea if Turntable.fm has these things in place, but they are necessary since they have content delivery with MediaNet but also need content licensing done.

Whats the difference between licensing content and content delivery? Well in the music industry there are a ton of different rights types you can have (streaming, mechanical, public performance, derivative work, sync, lyrics, etc). Some of these rights are tightly controlled by labels directly, while others are pushed to other companies for control (like Harry Fox, BMI, ASCAP). So to run your music startup according to the proper procedures, you are to go to the rights holder and get a license for their content for your specific use case. In the case of on-demand streaming (which hopefully will not apply to Turntable.fm), you have to go directly to the labels. Apple had to pay $150 million for their service (http://gizmodo.com/5808172/is-icloud-costing-apple-up-to-150-million-in-music-label-payments). What do you get for that? A piece of paper that says you have access to the library of X million songs. If you want to actually deliver that content, you have to go to someone else (for most developers at least). Yes, the record labels give you a license for something they actually cant give you. Companies like MediaNet and 7digital (which helped power SongVoodoo, my Music Hack Day project) have the actual music files for you to use (and understand the business well enough to provide full solutions and APIs).

One of the things I have learned at the Music Startup Academy (hosted by Bill of NARM) is that you have to play by the rules from the start if you want things to go will later on. If you plan on having a huge service, there will likely come a point where you have to negotiate with a label for content. If you annoy them by not respecting their rules, then you are going to have a tougher time negotiating later. Its like finding a loophole that lets you skip class in high school, and being surprised when the principal finds another way to put you in detention. You will likely have some kind of business model creep as certain parts won’t work in your startup, so best to play by the rules (which are changing, but mostly for the better).

Since Turntable is a private(ish) beta, they still have the time/ability to make the tweaks necessary to cover their tracks.  The safe (expensive) bet is to do the things by their rules, which they seem to be doing, as far as I can tell. GrooveShark is the main example of a site that *everyone* loves but is deep in litigation because they didn’t have the proper licenses to start http://www.tuaw.com/2010/08/17/streaming-app-grooveshark-pulled-from-app-store/ . Although Dalton Caldwell from imeem might discourage you to start a music startup (http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/20/imeem-founder-dalton-caldwells-must-see-talk-on-the-challenges-facing-music-startups/), there is much hope for the industry’s future.

So what would I do if I was them? Three major things:

1) Start Licensing Discussions: Get every license they could possibly want in the future.

2) Make it as non-interactive for most users as possible: Create a separation of users so that you can consider this fully non-interactive (worked well enough for Pandora). Doing this can cut the rates down by a lot and wouldn’t hinder the experience too much. 

3) Partner With MTV: This is right up MTV’s alley. If they are willing to do a partnership with GroupMe for messaging (check the ABDC partnership), then I am sure they would. They also want to repair their image as a place that doesn’t stand for music anymore.

4) Real DJs - Have some real DJ’s pop in to play music

5) Direct Social Features: Let users chat directly with each other.

6) Song Requests: This may be tough, since it makes it more interactive, but end users would like it. You can do it how real DJs do and just ignore all song requests anyway.

7) Other Business Models: Affiliate sales are not enough. Subscriptions, pay-to-DJ, exclusive rooms and virtual goods (extra DJ abilities) are all things to be considered.

8) Mobile: Although this complicates licensing even further, I’d love to select tracks and listen from my mobile device

The possibilities for them are pretty far and wide.

Music is one of the most powerful, transformative mediums we have. It has the power to inspire, to move people to action, to heal wounds, and to unite people of various backgrounds and cultures. Sometimes when I talk about music as communication, I can see people’s eyes glaze over with skepticism, but I know in my core that this is right. Where else can you see 50,000 people excited and passionate about one core idea: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/2632880868/ .

It is still shocking to me that investors are so opposed to investing in these kinds of startups, while also saying that they want to invest in people who are bold and swing for the fences. Some parts of the licensing game are actually smooth (MediaNet, BMI and ASCAP are great, reasonable organizations to work with). It may be comparable to startups in the finance or banking worlds in terms of difficulty. Ringtones and Ringback tones, while on the decline, still do around $1 billion a year in sales, so there is still money in this industry. My goal with Songsicle is to create a new repackaging of music that hinges on the same concepts of “music as communication” that Ringtones and Ringback tones, and even knew applications like Steve Jang ‘s Soundtracking, were built on. I have only gotten a few no’s so far, so I have a long way to go until I reach Tim Westergren’s 300 VC no’s status.

Looking forward to the discussion of labels tonight with Fred Wilson about music industry at the Northside Ideas Festival: http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/47123. We should be encouraging bold entrepreneurs to build great applications like Turntable.fm. I truly wish them the best!

Thanks to Joel Resnicow of Rexly for the lively email discussion which lead to some of these thoughts!

How To Hack Conferences and Meetups

Discuss this on Hacker News here.

I’ll admit it, I am a  conference junkie. Traveling is my thing, and meeting new inspiring people who are on the same journey I am on helps to keep me in good spirits. It took me a while to get the stamina to truly enjoy networking, but it is a skill I have developed over time. Here are some tips that may help you.

HOW TO GET INTO EVENTS

So you want to get into that big conference, eh? Over the past few years, I have discovered a few ways that you can get in for free.

Stay Up To Date - Keep up to date on the events in your field. Subscribing to the Startup Digest (a weekly email list of the top events, curated by locals) in various cities is a solid path to finding good local events. Lanyrd.com is by far the best for conferences, as it lists upcoming conferences with the speakers who will be there. Search through for events in your area, or for events featuring people you are interested in meeting or following. Plancast.com is another good resource which lists the events your friends may be attending in the future. Following the influential people you want to meet is another way to find out.

Be Useful  - Find ways to help the event organizer in exchange for free tickets. Many of the organizers are scrappy entrepreneurs themselves and will work something out with you if you are equally scrappy in helping them. You could photograph the event, volunteer for some behind-the-scenes work, or help with any of the organizers other concerns. Meeting other volunteers has been the most rewarding part of participating in conferences for me, so I would suggest doing that if you can. 

Find Discounts - For most bigger events there are discounts that are used to entice people in specific communities. Dig around and you might be able to find these

Attend As Press - This is not easy to get. There are press passes for many events as well, as long as you can provide proof that you are a part of a reputable media outlet. It may be worth it to participate in content creation for a press outlet, as most web companies today have some sort of content marketing strategy anyway. Consider it practice.

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THE EVENTS

As great as conferences can be, you are sacrificing work time in order to attend. Here are some tips to get the most out of the event before you go and while you are there.

Research Speakers- Find out who is speaking and contact them before the event if possible. Set up times to meet up for an interview or a quick 5-10 minute chat during breaks.

Sit In The Right Place - Depending on your goals you may want to sit in strategic areas. One may be next to the mic so you can jump up and ask questions. Another may be next to the stage so you can catch a speaker when they are coming off stage. You could also sit next to the press if there are media outlets that you want to connect to.

Ask Questions - After TechCrunch Disrupt, I was know as that guy who asked Dennis Crowley and Fred Wilson questions after their panels. This is not only helpful in getting great advice from great investors and entrepreneurs, but it is also a chance to let people know exactly who you are and what you are interested in. People interested in the music industry have contacted me after hearing my specific questions about the industry, so this is a trick to getting some inbound requests, instead of searching through the sea of people to find those who are most impactful to your goals. It is your change to ask a compelling question that might help you stand out from the crowd.

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF EACH CONVERSATION

Give - The problem most people have in their conversations is that they don’t listen nearly enough. Waiting for your chance to talk is not equivalent to engaging in conversation. Listen and ask questions that can help probe into their struggles, and give some feedback.

Wear Something Interesting - I try to wear my Songsicle shirt as often as possible, but anything that grabs attention can help give others an icebreaker to start a conversation. People tend to have trouble recognizing me in person unless I am wearing a fedora like in my twitter profile.  At MicroConf I was the exploding hot sauce guy. In fact, peacocking works well for all areas of life :-)

Use Tools - There are many tools out now like Hashable, Sonar, and Sumazi that help you connect with people at these events. Use Hashable to immediately follow up with someone as soon as you meet them. Sonar and Sumazi will help you find people to connect with before and during an event. Twitter is still huge for me in continuing with some light conversations with people after meeting up with them. Monitor the hashtags for the event and converse with those who you may not even have met at the event.

HOW TO FIND A PLACE TO STAY

Greg Pollack has this down to a science: http://www.screenr.com/QOd

I would also highly suggest AirBnB, as I found my partner for Songsicle while we were staying at the same AirBnB house. Someday I’ll write the story up.

Gtrot.com is another site that lets you find friends to stay with and travelers to connect with.

Another site to check is FirstClassFlyer.com, suggested by Ramit Sethi of Earn1k.com

HIRE SOMEONE TO DO IT FOR YOU

Maybe all of this stuff is too much for you. You may have a different personality type than the person that might implement these tricks. Or you are too busy dealing with the details of running a company to worry about traveling and spreading your message and product worldwide. In this case, if you want to focus on doing what you are good at and let others handle the networking and evangelizing, hire someone to do it for you. They can do the work to get key influencers using your product. You can sign up for early access to some of these evangelists at OnDemandEvangelist.com

What are your conference tricks? 

(Thanks to Mariya Yao and John Exley for their tips)

You Did What!?

A few weeks ago I made a split second decision to quit my full-time job and go fully independent. I gave the company a few weeks notice and this was my first week on my own.

With most decisions I try to weigh my options, putting myself in a position to have all the necessary information to make the right choice. This type of thinking works for many things, but can paralyze you in situations where a quick decision is the best path. Any decently intelligent person can figure out a rationalization to continue with self-destructive behavior, so we must figure out how to get out of this mindset when necessary.

In this case, I made a decision based on my gut. I’ve had a passion for entrepreneurship since the days of downloading and selling And1 mixtape DVDs to people on eBay (thanks Phin Barnes) when I was 12. With one failed startup under my belt (hip hop outreach/events company in college), I knew I had enough experience and ability to make something work. More importantly, though, is the need to know that I tried. I don’t think I could live with myself 50 years from now knowing that I had all these creative business ideas and a passion to leave the world improved, but didn’t try them out because I was too scared to walk out on my own. It is comforting to know that there are many others who face the same feelings and employ this advice. 

Fear can rule you or push you to action. Situations that invoke this fight or flight response are the ones that truly define who we are. I have no real savings and a ton of debt (yay college and failed startup!), but I wouldn’t let those things stop me from reaching for that which is within my grasp. Luckily for me, there are some really really good people who are helping me with gigs, places to stay, and general support. I’m lucky to know and work with these people.

So what’s next? My last company had as our tagline “Passion Through Music”. I hope to rekindle my passion for music and its ability to unite cultures, channeling this energy into creating some innovative solutions for the music industry. There are some parts of the industry that are completely broken, and someone must make an attempt to fix them. Songsicle is one such product that I hope to fully reveal soon. Just remember it is all part of a greater vision of how we can use music to communicate, inspire, and impact lives.

So who’s coming with me?

Music Hackday SF and SF Music Tech

I had a great time in San Francisco at the Music Hackday and SF Music Tech events. I worked on a new version of SongVoodoo (http://new.songvoodoo.com) and a mothers day version of Songsicle (sign up at Songsicle.com and I’ll hook you up soon). The reactions I got for both were very positive and helps to encourage me to push forward on these ideas.

SongVoodoo ended up winning the MusixMatch prize at Music Hackday so I will be going to Italy at some point to hang/work with the crazy italians that run the company. Much thanks to Franz and Max for their support!

I sent my mother a Songsicle message, as I was in San Francisco while she was in New Jersey. The message said “Happy Mothers Day mom! Wish I could be there” with the Stevie Wonder song “I Just Called To Say I Love You” playing after. I called my dad back and recorded the full conversation to get her reaction to it. Here it is: 

Songsicle Testimonial by frankdenbow

Product validated.

There were also lots of other amazing applications built over the weekend:

JSONLoops By Marak of Nodejitsu

This is an awesome Open-Source real-time multi-user audio sequencer in the browser ( built on Node.js ). Really impressed by the progress on this. It will be pretty fun for people to use once it is packaged up for normal people to use.

SingSong By SubStack

Sing songs from a web interface using a speech synthesizer. Pretty ill when you see it performed. Best demo of MHD.

Soundkick By Lee Martin

Soundcloud + Songkick == Sex . Yup.

HeartBeatMatch By Arshad Tayyeb Daniel DeCovnick Edward Aten Scott San Filippo

Mobile dating app that sets up people in the same location who have similar taste in music. Brilliant.

HueSound by @huesound

Browse music by picking colors and seeing matching cover art with those colors

SF Music Tech was also an amazing experience, meeting many cool people in the music industry. Much is in the works from that, so stay tuned. There was also free ice cream courtesy of Ice Cream Man . Songsicle + Ice Cream Man in the future? Definitely!

Startup Summer by NY Tech Meetup

When I look back on my own history in technology, I find that my experiences in high school were critical to me falling in love with technology and programming. NY Tech Meetup (NYTM) is looking to help more students in NYC have a similar experience, by joining them up with startups for 6 weeks during the summer. 

Partnering with Camp Interactive and MOUSE (local technology based non-profit organizations), NYTM will help sponsor 30 or more students at meaningful internships. Application are done through Futures & Options, a non-profit that administers internships, with sponsorship support from Microsoft and AT&T.

If you are at a startup and would like to participate in the program, click here to submit your information. If you know students who may want to participate, send them here. More information can be found on the NYTM site here.