I was a trader on 9/11, safe on midtown but still watching live on CNBC. It was scary as hell. 3000 people died, include acquaintances of mine.

The men who conducted the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. We went to war with Iraq, and later Afghanistan.

It’s estimated that on March 31, 2020 the deaths in NYC due to COVID-19 surpassed the NYC deaths of 9/11. And as a country we are at war… with ourselves.

I have such profound sadness at the loss of life from both. And such anger at the bungled leadership responses to both. I have pride that our country could come together so quickly and resolutely in the face of extremism in 2001. And shame that our country is dominated by extremism 19  years later.

Conference Cancellations

The first chip to fall in what could be the economic downturn of 2020 was Mobile World Congress. Driven by fears of contagion, a couple of big organizations pulled out. And then the rest of the world pulled out. So the organizers canceled it.

Next up, the corporate conferences started cancelling. Facebook. Adobe. Google. Microsoft. IBM. More. And then Expo West Natural Foods had major players pull out, followed by the entire conference cancelling. Then HIMSS.

Corporations are restricting travel. Mayors are declaring pre-emptive emergencies. (Does that defeat the purpose of declaring a state of emergency?)

And the 400,000 people that go to SXSW are holding their breath as they watch the mayor of Austin, the Austin City Council and SXSW organizers dance around the word “cancel” like it was forbidden fire. No one wants to be the one to cancel the event that brings $350+MM into the city each year.

Update 3/6 – they stopped dancing and the city cancelled SXSW.

All of this has me thinking about the economic impact to the country and the world.

Corporate Actions

First let’s unpack the corporate actions. Restricting travel and cancelling your own conference (that is purely a cost center) is a very rational thing for a company to do—not because of the health and safety concerns but because of the fiscal responsibility. The coronavirus provides the perfect scapegoat for saving a significant sum of money. Cutting your developer / marketer / influencer conference and saving $1-10MM in hard event costs “out of an abundance of caution” is a perfect excuse. Same with cutting down all but essential travel. This is a once-a-decade opportunity for big businesses to scale back costs without hurting employee morale, and you damn well better believe they’re going to take it.

With or without a SXSW, F8, MWC, Dreamforce or whatever your conference of choice is, corporations scaling back travel wil have ripple effects throughout the country. Those ripples alone are probably not enough to let the air out of the tires on the Bull Run Bus. Couple that cutback with media-fueled fears of large groups of people, and add in a solid dose of big businesses getting more restrictive with spending—done out of caution in case of an economic downturn—and we’ve got the making for an economic downturn.

The industries that are most exposed right now are anything reliant on travel, groups, or personal interaction. And then closely followed by consumer products, and its sister industry: advertising. But more important is the understanding that all industries are subject to belt tightening, and thus the most at-risk startups are those not mindful of their cash.

Drilling Down

My friend Eric Marcouliier on his website, ObviousStartupAdvice.com says that the CEO has only 3 jobs: 1) sell the vision, 2) hire the best people, and 3) never run out of money. Right now, #3 is all that matters.

As the cases of the coronavirus spread and grow, the fear factor will only get worse. As I write this, my mom is going through chemo and has a compromised immune system. I worry about her, though I know she and my dad are taking precautions. I live 2000 miles away (CO to Pgh) but if I lived closer, I would be very careful about going over to see her. And I sure as heck wouldn’t go see her after coming home from SXSW (and yes I’m still going to SXSW) . And if I lived with her, I wouldn’t go to SXSW at all. I’m not worried about me getting coronavirus—if I get it, I’ll fight it off and recover because our bodies are built to fight viruses. She might not. How many people are having the same thoughts?

Let’s play this out on a larger scale. Corporations cut travel. Conferences are cancelled. General public cuts exposure to large groups of people. The country turns inward, online, and closes its doors. For every 1 person that gets sick, another 10,000 are paralyzed by fear. Schools are shutting down—preemptively or reactively. With children at home instead of at school many parents will be unable to go to work, which puts financial burdens on the lower and middle classes. Many of those people do not have the financial resources to withstand missing work. Household spending begins to dry up. The economic ripples begin turning into waves.

Travel industries and tourist locales are going to get hit hard this year. Retail is going to take it on the chin, again. Events–whether sports, concerts or conferences–will suffer. As these ripples out into the economy more people will become unemployed. Families will spend less, resulting in lower consumer spending, and that is a massive driver of our economy right now. When consumer spending falls, so falls the economy.

It doesn’t help that supply chains are getting disrupted right now—and I mean “disrupted” in the classic “breaking” sense not the startup “innovation” sense. With less stuff to buy and fewer bucks to buy it with, the secondary effects kick in: less advertising. Lower marketing budgets. Less dollars to go around in that industry. (Poor AdTech, can’t win in a bull market, going to get slaughtered in a bear market.)

Side bar: I can imagine an alternative scenario for adtech where everyone stays home and digital ads and digital video ads take off. This is with the added disclosure that I’m an investor in an awesome video ad tech startup, Brandzooka.

I digress.

Bull Run Bus

My belief is that the underlying business fundamentals of most businesses are strong. That is, the Bull Run Bus has been based on solid fundamentals and not the “eyeballs” of the late 90s. And as far as I know, there’s no financial manipulation happening by Wall Street as with the 2008 crash. Even better, the public market is not buying the “cult of the CEO” shit (WeWork, Uber) any more. My hope is that there is truly no funny business being done by bankers (whether of the fed or goldman variety) that has created unnecessary risk exposure beneath the surface.

The reason we’ve experienced an unprecedented bull run is because we continue to unlock human potential by replacing humans. When Edwin Hubble proved that other galaxies existed and the universe was unimaginably massive, he did so by sending the data of his observations to humans (mostly women) who computed the results using pencil, paper and slide rule. Human computers. (h/t to Answers with Joe) We now have all that computing power in our pockets, and more. That is unlocking human potential by replacing humans. That cycle is accelerating. For this reason, I’m a long term bull.

But even with solid fundamentals, as consumer spending dips, as consumer sentiment is driven by fear, and all these little ripples sync up turning into waves. Add in businesses curbing spending—starting with travel budgets being cut—and the economy will take a hit.

Advice for Startups

Startups, now is the time to take a hard look at your cash flows. The venture capital model is predicated on a company continually raising more capital at higher valuations in every subsequent round. The underlying message is: growth at all costs. That is certainly one strategy. Another strategy, and more fitting in down cycles, is to keep the lights on at all costs.

What will it take to stretch your runway between rounds from 12 months to 18 months? From 18 to 24? What do you do if your revenue is cut in half? What happens if you can’t raise at the next higher valuation? Who is prepared to take salary cuts? What projects need to be cut? How will you handle all of this as a leader? Now is the time to buckle down, figure this out, draft a plan, and be prepared to move quickly, nimbly.

It’s been fun, bull run. I’m a long-term bull, but I’m ready to ride the bear this year.

Turkey Hat

As Nassim Taleb said, “you can’t make a prediction without being a turkey somewhere.” We’ll see where I end up being a turkey…

Losers
Consumer goods
Physical retail
Travel
Events
Marketing and advertising

Winners
Remote work enablement
Ecommerce
Esports
Streaming services

Could go either way
Supply chain
Logistics
On-demand economy
Digital advertising

Originally written Tuesday March 3, 2020. Updated Friday March 6, 2020.

First, it’s worth saying that I’m really enjoying Season 8. Despite the hate on the internet—and granted, it’s the internet and so there’s always going to be hate—I think the writers, producers and directors have done a phenomenal job with this season. They’ve balanced the conflicting priorities of having to both wrap up dozens of story lines, and continue to develop main characters. I’m very satisfied with the story development this season.

And Arya killing the Night King? It was the greatest moment in television or cinema. Ever. I’VE NEVER FELT SO ALIVE!!

OK. On to the theory.

Here goes.

There’s one story line that fits the whole eight seasons, and two possible endings within that story, both equally tragic. First, the plot structure: Daenerys’ rage of destruction on the million innocent Kings Landing residents was intentional, and her intention is to see Jon Snow (aka Aegon Targaryen) rule Westeros.

As much as the show is working to build Daenerys into a power-hungry mad queen, what she cares about more than the Iron Throne is breaking the wheel. What she cares about is freeing people from the bonds of servitude, whether directly as slaves or indirectly as subjects of a tyrant. She even says so while sitting on the dragon glass throne in S8E5: mercy is our strength. The reason she wants to rule is to see a just ruler on the throne.

Westeros doesn’t love her. Westeros loves Jon. But Westeros respects power. And Westeros caves to military might—particularly in the form of fire raining down from the skies.

Daeny spent days brooding—and if you can out-brood Jon Snow, then you’re doing some serious brooding. While brooding, she came to the conclusion that she can’t rule the way she wants to: which is to be seen as a beloved liberator. Now that Jon’s secret is out, she’s a foreign invader with foreign armies and a subordinate claim to the throne.

She sees that she can only instill fear, but that the people love Jon. She comes to the same conclusion as everyone else: she and Jon rule together. Together they will be both loved and feared. That scene in front of the fire is her last-ditch effort to pull that plan together. If Jon could have gotten over the whole “sleeping with my aunt” thing then they would have ruled together and she wouldn’t have burned Kings Landing to the ground. When he pulled back, she made her decision: “let it be fear.”

She needs to straight-up rampage on the city in order to generate the maximum amount of fear and hatred. She wants the major houses to see what horrors she can deliver upon their houses, their castles, their entire country, unless they get in line and bend the knee. She does this knowing that Jon will end up on the Iron Throne. Her purpose is only to bend the seven kingdoms, and she knows that she will not be the one to rule them. She knows that one way or another, the ever-reluctant Jon will rule, and will rule justly.

And so Kings Landing burns.

At this point, as I mentioned earlier, there are two possible endings.

Ending 1. Daenerys has united the houses, and seeing the hatred and fear she has (intentionally) created for herself, contrasted with the love and adoration the people have for Jon, and with Jon continuing to refuse her advances… kills herself. Jon becomes king, the King. And Arya, having had enough of the god of death, rides her white horse to Storms End to live happily ever after with Gendry. As do the millions of residents of Westeros who find themselves under the benevolent rule of the ever-reluctant-to-rule Jon “last of the Targaryens” Snow.

Ending 2. Daenerys has united the houses, and seeing the hatred and fear she has (intentionally) created for herself, contrasted with the love and adoration the people have for Jon, and with Jon continuing to refuse her advances… plans to kill herself… only Arya gets to her first. In a dramatic moment, Daeny, about to kill herself, gets killed by No One Arya right in front of Jon. Jon becomes king, the King. And his first act as king is to execute Arya for regicide. And no one lives happily ever after. Except the millions of residents of Westeros who find themselves under the benevolent rule of the ever-reluctant-to-rule Jon “last of the Targaryens” Snow.

In the end, Varys was right, right, and wrong. He was right that Jon is the better ruler. He was right that Daenerys would commit horrible acts against the people. But he was wrong in thinking her true motivations changed. Daeny stayed true to herself as breaker of chains, and she was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to see that through. She was willing to make herself into the enemy in order to truly break the wheel.

There’s a saying I heard somewhere about that the only thing Star Wars fans hate more than Star Wars’ critics is Star Wars itself. Might be true for me as I reflect on The Last Jedi.

The more distance I get from The Last Jedi the more I am pissed off about the resolution of the Finn/Rose/Poe conspiracy. To be fair to the movie, I really enjoyed the Rey/Kylo/Luke story arc. But the more distance I get from The Last Jedi, the more this one thing really grinds my gears.

Let’s summarize:

• Poe asks for information from his commanding officer
• She deems it unwise to share with him, given his reckless behavior
• Pissed off by the slight, he proves his recklessness by defying orders in two huge ways:

1. He sends two people, a mechanic and an ex-Stormtrooper, on a crazy one-in-a-million-shot mission
2. He mutinies and captures his commanding officers

Let’s pause here

The one-in-a-million mission was a failure. That’s fine. It’s actually pretty good and it’s nice to have some realism (for lack of a better word) play out, as opposed to a non-stop barrage of one-in-a-million things panning out all in the same movie.

I don’t have a problem with the mission itself. Even the entire casino planet being a pointless diversion except to maybe play out a freedom-from-oppression allegory and introduce us to the new character, DJ. That’s fine. Whatever.

And the plans fail. That’s great. Better yet, they get betrayed by the morally-absent new character, DJ. That was fantastic. In your heart of hearts, you were secretly excited for a “new Han.”  A scruffy, stuttering, hacking genius was there to tease us and to make us think we had a new Solo who was going to join up and save the rebels, flying out of the sun to blast the baddie at the last minute. Admit it, you thought it, you hoped it. I did.  But no, the tables turned on him and he turned on his new friends. That was a great twist.

Not only does DJ turn on the two misfits he brought on the ship, but he turns on the entire rebellion by helping The First Order track the loadlifter ships that were fleeing in secret. The First Order otherwise would have never noticed. That’s Crait salt in the blaster wound right there.

Fast forward a bit

• Leia wakes up from her near-death and blaster-stuns Poe
• The rebels begin their evacuation on the loadlifter ships
• Holdo stays behind
• First Order starts shooting down the evacuation ships
• Holdo sacrifices herself to shred the mega-class Star Destroyer (fucking amazing BTW)
• Finn, Rose & BB8 escape to join the rest of the rebels on Crait

It’s at this point that I’m starting to become the True Star Wars Fan. My transformation is nearly complete.

Poe, along with Finn & Rose are put right back into the rebel troops. And Poe still holds his position as an officer.

In what universe would a mutiny leader be left in a commanding role? Shouldn’t he have been spaced? (I’m crossing universes with that jargon, but you know what I mean.)

Not only did Poe lead a mutiny, but his actions along with those of Finn, Rose and BB8 led directly to the deaths of hundreds of the (already severely diminished) rebel fleet. The escape to Crait would have gone of perfectly smoothly, without the First Order ever noticing if Poe had just followed orders of a commander who was wiser and less self-absorbed. There would have never been a Battle of Crait, and there would be hundreds more alive, ready to continue the rebellion another day.

I’m not saying this because I think there shouldn’t have been a Battle of Crait. Quite the opposite.  The battle was awesome. Nor am I saying the plot line was bad. It wasn’t; it was fantastic. Everything coming together in the rebel’s last stand.

Missed opportunity

I’m saying this because there was an opportunity to enrich the plot by holding Poe, Finn, Rose, and even BB8 accountable for mutiny, treason, and the deaths of a hundred or more fellow rebels. Instead, they’re back in the ranks like nothing ever happened.

The character arc of “Poe learns his lesson” and decides at the last minute to call off the frontal assault against the battering cannon is pathetic. He mutinied! He was responsible for hundreds of deaths! That doesn’t phase him or anyone else, at all. Anywhere.

There’s a great chance to add some distention to the ranks, for the rebel alliance to have internal divisions to overcome. There’s an opportunity to turn from black/white characters and add some layers of complexity. Is BB8 a fun party droid, or a mutiny conspirator partially responsible for hundreds of deaths. Is Finn a reformed Stormtrooper, or mutiny conspirator partially responsible for hundreds of deaths. They are both. And that would make them better characters.

Instead, it’s brushed under the rug, and we all escape in the Falcon singing kumbaya without acknowledging that major mistakes were made, that a mutiny—no matter how well-intentioned—led directly to the deaths of hundreds of fellow rebels.
None of that got addressed. At least for now. Maybe it will get addressed in the next film. Maybe.

Until then, my transformation to True Star Wars Fan is complete.

Ah, Saint Paddy’s day. In my wilder days, I will admit to throwing some great parties to celebrate. I vaguely recall nearly missing a Black 47 concert due too many car bombs (the drink, not the act of violence) the night before. I was living in New York City, the home of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, and I’m Irish, after all. I had to represent my heritage with some pride! What I didn’t realize until later, was the history of the Irish in America, and the blatant racism my great grandparents faced. Or even that the St. Patrick’s Day parade was originally a show of solidarity by a repressed people.

As the waves of Irish immigrants landed on America’s shores from the Great Potato Famine, they were looked upon as a drunk, ignorant, and violent people, and ranked lower on the social scale than freed slaves. At a time when an entire race was being subjugated and oppressed through the horrors of slavery, the Irish were thought to be nearly as low.

This idea that the Irish were more than a lower class, that they were a separate race, has deep roots in England, and continued for decades in America. An Irish-Italian union was even considered an interracial marriage up until the mid-20th century.

NINA

No Irish Need Apply (NINA) signs were so common that there was popular Irish folk song of the same name. They were so prevalent, that recently even an eighth-grader could find detailed accounts of NINA postings, and published a research paper documenting their widespread use throughout America for decades.

The American Civil War was raging while the Irish were still fleeing their homeland, and they were recruited heavily into the Union ranks, mostly because they couldn’t get jobs elsewhere. In the army, they were often treated as cannon fodder.

The history of the anti-Irish sentiment stems from Medieval England, and is largely due to religious differences. The Irish held fast to their Roman Catholic beliefs while England turned towards Protestantism. This carried over into America, manifesting in everything from extreme prejudice to acts of violence such as burning down convents.

Modern Ties

The ties of the Irish plight to modern America are uncanny.

Can you imagine an entire country of immigrants being discriminated against so blatantly? Of course you can.

Can you imagine discriminating against people just based on religion? Of course you can.

The story of immigration in America is filled with stories like the Irish. Just ask African-Americans. Or Chinese. Or Polish. Or Indians. Or Mexicans. Or Muslims. Or any non-settler people who emigrated to the US.

Personal Ties

My wife is half Mexican, and so our son is one quarter Mexican, half Irish, and one quarter “American mutt.” I suppose that makes him 100% American. But some people don’t see their fellow Americans that way — they see differences instead of similarities.

What will his future be like? Will he be discriminated against because of his Irish heritage? I doubt that, as we’ve moved past that prejudice. Will he be discriminated against because of his Mexican heritage? Maybe. I certainly hope that as a country we can move on from that prejudice, as well as all others.

My incredible Grandmother, who turns 97 next month, used to say to me all the time, “we Irish need to stick together.” She was referring to the lingering bias she saw growing up, and a desire to unite Irish descendants under a common banner. When a group of people are being actively discriminated against, it makes sense to stick together based on those bonds. The original St. Patrick’s Day Parade in NYC was an example of this: a show of solidarity, showcasing the Irish presence in New York as a positive thing, not a negative.

Now that we no longer have to fight blatant prejudice and NINA posters, we Irish should stick together to welcome other ethnic groups, religions, and races. We should never promote prejudice, but instead reflect on what it felt like for our forefathers, and banish hatred from future generations. We should open our hearts to people who are different, so that we can “stick together” as one amazing, eclectic, and colorful mass of Americans.

On Sunday—a day I promised myself I’d do no work—I opened up Twitter and came across a link to an article, “A necessary education on Boulder’s startup community” written by Nicole Glaros, Rajat Bhargava and Jason Mendelson. I was shocked and appalled, and quite frankly, felt something must be done about it. I retweeted it. That didn’t feel like enough. I emailed the article to some fellow Boulder startup leaders & feeders. That didn’t feel like enough either. I needed to take another step.

I’m a big believer in confronting difficult situations head on. Two of the more common phrases around this idea are, “take the bull by the horns,” or “eat a frog first thing in the morning.” The one I prefer is, “lean into the pain.”

Lean into the pain.

I first heard it as attributed to Coach CEO, Lew Frankfurt, and it resonates with me. I don’t like conflict, and I think that’s a good thing, but I don’t shy away from it. The people I’ve met who seem to enjoy conflict are among the worst people I know in this world. For me, conflict is difficult (maybe painful), but necessary at times. I lean into the pain. I like the phrase because it reflects a certain necessary reluctance, while acknowledging that a challenge must be overcome.

That was forefront in my mind as I began writing an email to Macon Cowles and the Boulder City Council. I felt a personal obligation to say something on behalf of myself and the community I love. It was a “lean into the pain” situation. Did I want to put myself on the line in such a direct and forthright manner? Maybe. Is it scary to do so? Yes. But I  knew it was something I had to do. I felt if I didn’t say something, I would be letting myself down. I took the time to tweet it, then to email it out to friends and colleagues, I should take the time to express my thoughts directly to the person who started this chain of events.

I hovered my mouse over the Send button. I reread my email. I made minor modifications. I hesitated. Putting myself on the line, putting my thoughts out there, confronting someone directly: it’s all scary stuff. I leaned into the pain, and hit Send. And felt really good about it.

Within a few minutes, I received a response from Macon, apologizing for his statement, forwarding his note to Jason, and taking me up on my offer to meet me and get to know the startup community. I thanked him for this and we set a time to meet for coffee in a few weeks.

I feel good about taking a step to bridge a divide, and extending an invitation to someone to learn and participate. This is one of the core missions of Engage Colorado, the group Tim O’Shea and I formed to build bridges between entrepreneurial communities.  I leaned into the pain (hesitation, and fear in this case), took a step, and will look to bridge a divide.

When you find yourself at a difficult crossroads, lean into the pain. Take the difficult step that you don’t want to, but know in your heart is the right course. Look to make a difference, and you will.

Photos courtesy of 23rd Studios

What follows is the email I just sent to Macon Cowles and the Boulder City Council in response to Mr. Cowles remarks about the Boulder startup Community, and his response to me.

Dear, Mr. Cowles & the Boulder City Council,

I was disgusted, embarrassed, and upset to read the comments characterizing the startup community as a group of highly paid white men, and then putting the burden of increased housing costs squarely on our community’s shoulders. This is a terrible stereotype for a community that is actively inclusive.

I fully support the response from Nicole, Rajat, Jason, and others in their Daily Camera article.

The majority of members of this community are hard-working, middle class Americans who believe that they can have a positive impact on the world through their efforts. And I would venture to say most of whom would align with you on working to make housing more affordable in Boulder.

I challenge you to compare the Boulder startup community to the Boulder community at large. I wonder, are your stereotypes reflective of the city population as a whole? We, as a city, certainly suffer from a lack diversity, but it’s not from a lack of invitation or openness that the startup community here exemplifies.

By making such off-hand, unsupported comments you tear down what thousands have worked so hard, for decades, to achieve. We stand out as an icon for cities around the world. I have personally been contacted by startup leaders from Canada, Denmark, Tel Aviv, Singapore, Hong Kong, as well as dozens of cities throughout the US, all of whom look to Boulder when building their own startup communities.

What Boulder has built is a model that cities—around the world, large and small—look to for guidance. For a city council member to stereotype it, and tear it down, is embarrassing and counter-productive.

I would like to invite you to get involved in the startup community, to attend events, and meet the people who make this community the global icon that it is.

Personally, I am working with a friend to bring two new events to Boulder this year. The first one, NewCo will shine a spotlight on entrepreneurship and innovation in the city. I would like to personally extend an invitation to the entire city council to attend. If you are interested in getting to know the startup community, please reach out to me and I will give you a ticket, and do what I can to introduce you to the diverse, hard-working Americans who make our community amazing.

Dear Rich:

I apologize to you and agree that it unfairly stereotyped the startup community.

I offered my apology to the writers of the OpEd in the Camera, in the following email that I sent to them this morning:

“Jason, I am sorry for what I said and the offense it caused to you and the people you referenced in your OpEd this morning. My comment gave short shrift to contributions and energy that startups and other high tech entrepreneurs have brought to our community.

“I would appreciate it if you would forward this email to Nicole Glaros and Rajat Bhargava, as I do not have their email addresses.

“Not reported in the Camera was the context of my comments, which was the diversity of Boulder, and the recent release of Google’s numbers with respect to the demographics employees. http://tinyurl.com/kcbkelg

“I would like to find a time to meet with you, offer my apology in person, and get acquainted. I respect your accomplishments and would appreciate a chance to get our relationship on a different footing. Would you be interested in this?

“Thanks very much. And again, I offer my apology to you.”

Also, I accept your invitation to get involved in the startup community and would welcome to get the opportunity to get to know you and the startup community better.

Thanks very much for writing. The best number to contact me at is the -3062 number below.

In a few weeks I’m off to NYC for my bachelor party, and my best man asked me if there was anything I absolutely wanted to do, or any place where I must go to eat or drink while back in town. Around the same time, my future father-in-law pinged me because he and his wife are heading to NY for their 30th wedding anniversary, and I had offered them suggestions should they ever visit the greatest city on earth. Between those two requests, I figured it was time to sit down and write out my list.

What follows (in two parts) is the best advice I can offer to anyone visiting NYC. The caveat I’ll throw out there is that I’ve been out of New York for two and a half years, and things change there so fast that I’m certainly including a place or two that is past its prime, and definitely missing dozens of other places are sure to be incredible. New Yorker’s are natural foodies, so it’s no secret that the scene changes so quickly. If you have a friend who lives and works in NYC right now, hit them up. Otherwise, my list is the next best thing.

And for this post, I’m linking to Zagat reviews, not Yelp. Not to get off on too much of a tangent, but the reason I love Zagat is because they rate on three factors: Food, Decor, and Service. Each is an important part of a dining experience that can’t be captured by a simple star system. Maybe I’ll dive into why Zagat is far superior in another post, but for now, just enjoy the food. Oh, and understand that in Zagat ratings, a 30 is a perfect score, and anything over 20 is considered very good.

Eat

Chef at Momofuku, April 26, 2005

Big Wong is the quintessential Chinatown experience. The Zagat rating says it all: 22 for food, 6 for decor, and 12 for service. Go there for either the congee or my personal favorite, the roast pork over rice. It’s the real deal for Cantonese fast food. Which means the place is not the height of cleanliness, service is incredibly rushed, sometimes pushy, but damn that roast pork is delicious.

Joe’s Shanghai has something you must try: soup dumplings. Expect to be sat at communal tables with complete strangers, but don’t worry, they don’t care about you and don’t want to talk to you any more than you want to talk to them. Do read about how to eat a soup dumpling so you don’t absolutely destroy your mouth on the hot broth. And then proceed to burn off every tastebud anyway. But damn, it’s worth it.

John’s Pizzeria is a local chain of pizza joints, with the one in Times Square. Does that sound like a lose-lose situation? It’s not. It’s real-deal authentic New York style pizza. And it’s inside an old church. It’s not for a fancy night out, but it does make for a great meal if you’re in the area.

Marseille – While we’re in Hell’s Kitchen, which truly was my old stomping ground, if you’re in the mood for a French Brasserie, go hit Marseille for their seafood. You can also visit them for brunch and get the same level of food you’d get at Balthazar, but without the 3 hour wait.

Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien – Forget Shake Shack. Well, maybe don’t ditch out on Shake Shack entirely, but if you only have time for one burger in NY, it should be Burger Joint. Just go during off-hours because the lines are insanely long.

MarkJoseph is where you should go for a steak. Forget all the steakhouses you’ve heard about before coming to NY. I’m not even going to list them. No doubt you’ve heard about a famous steakhouse or two in the city. Skip ’em. MarkJoseph is an authentic steakhouse experience, and is not known to tourists. Minimal decor, amazing service, and absolutely massive cuts of incredible meat. I highly recommend going with a big group and getting the porterhouse to share.

Blue Smoke is my top choice for BBQ in the big city. (Especially since learning that RUB closed!) Blue Smoke, being a Danny Meyer restaurant, has absolutely amazing service, and of course delicious food. And I wish I could recommend RUB to you, because it was an amazing BBQ joint, but unfortunately, they closed

Eataly – I wasn’t sure if I should put this on the Eat list or the Experience  list, because it’s both a place to eat and an experience to be had. Let’s stick with the Eat list for now. It’s a grocery store unlike anything you’ve seen. It’s also a series of restaurants, but each counter only serves one thing. There are counters for the different types of “restaurants” within the store for everything you’d expect: espresso, fish, meats & cheeses, pasta, pizza, and sandwiches. You can’t get pasta at the fish “restaurant” for example, so explore the whole place, decide what you want to eat, and stick with that. Because of this setup, it’s not good for big groups.

Lil’ Frankie’s is where to go for what we all think of as Italian food: spaghetti and meatballs or a Neapolitan pizza. It’s cash-only, and also super crowded because it is a mainstay of the east village.

Catch is the place you want to go if you want to hit the trendy Meatpacking district for an expensive meal. The food is incredible, and the scene is exactly what you’d expect from the area: see-and-be-seen.

Finally, a few other places are worth mentioning for some unique fare. City Bakery has pretzel croissants that are to die for. Luke’s Lobster Shack has the best damn lobster roll this side of Maine, and there are locations throughout the city. The Meatball Shop is exactly what it sounds like, and is amazing for it. And lastly, it’s worth every penny to get a $12 salad at any of the Chop’t locations, particularly for their dressings.

Drink

Disco ball in a Brooklyn bar, October 29, 2005

Surprisingly, I don’t have as much to offer on the drinking part of my old town. Partly, that’s due to the highly situational nature of going out in NY—some places you hit early in the night, some late, others only on off nights, and some could be the best place in the world one night but totally dead the next. And then there’s the fact that bars change over more than the restaurants do. For example, two great dive bars I would like to recommend are closed down. What follows are the best of what I feel comfortable recommending.

Dead Rabbit – This is top on my list since a recent visit to NY.  I was introduced to their drink menu so large it could be confused for a novel, then served an ass-kicking cocktail in a porcelain tea cup. There are two levels to this bar, be sure to go to the top floor for the full experience.

Swift’s Hibernian Lounge has live jam sessions on Tuesday nights (at least they used to a few years ago). In addition to that, they have a great beer selection.

Molly’s Shabeen is about as seriously Irish American as a bar gets. Don’t make a special trip for it, unless hunting down a perfect pint o’ the plain is your thing (as it is mine), but if you are in the neighborhood, I highly recommend checking it out.

PDT – OK, so you have to enter through an odd door inside of a hotdog shop (granted, it’s Crif’s, but still…) in order to pay for pricey drinks. But the drinks are well made and damn tasty.

Stay tuned for the next installment: experiences to have and traps to avoid.

The golden rule for speaking at networking events or meetups is this: ADD VALUE. Bring something to the table. You’re an expert in some area, so share some knowledge. It’s OK to give an introduction about who you are, what you do, and what your company does. But that’s it, and keep it short. After that, add value for the attendees.

When I was in tech staffing, I would sponsor meetup groups for the technologies where I did business. As the sponsor, I bought the pizza, salads, and soft drinks for the event, got my logo & link on their newsletter for that month, and got 5 minutes in front of the audience. I always used that as an opportunity to add value. I never pitched my services or told about why I was awesome. I would give a quick (15-30 second) intro about who I was, where I worked, and what I did. That’s it. Then I’d jump right into adding value.

I’ll give you some examples; here are some topics I covered in my years of doing this:

• How to get your resume down to 2-3 pages
• Working with recruiters 101
• Why & How to use LinkedIn (this was 2006, btw)

The attendees of the NY/NJ .NET Users Group were not there to hear about job hunting, resumes, or networking, but those topics are relevant to everyone at some point in their careers. They were also my area of expertise, and so I used the opportunity to add value in an area where I could.  If necessary I would have a few slides, and would always keep my time under the 5 minutes given to the sponsors.

Photo from @themikelaszlo

This morning, the event was sponsored by JP Morgan and Lazlo Law. I always meet new and interesting people at their events, and Mike Lazlo always adds value in his talks. He dropped a lot of knowledge about the different types of crowdfunding, the emerging markets for crowdfunding-for-equity, and the things you need to do before you get into any sort of crowdfunding.

The representative from JP Morgan Private Banking, Erica Carpenter, talked about what to do with excess cash, and had a lot to share about what options are out there, what the risks are, and what the potential returns are, too. The big take-away from her was cash from an initial investment can be put to work for your company, most importantly with limited risk. As a former finance guy, I’m embarrassed I hadn’t thought about this myself—but then again, as an entrepreneur, I haven’t been in a situation where I have excess cash to invest!

It was the first speaker at this event who fell flat, though. I think he was supposed to talk about traditional funding routes such as SBA loans. I’m not entirely sure. What the audience got was a pitch about why his business is awesome. Even if his intention was to get up and pitch his business, it was all about features, there were no benefits. It was the equivilent of getting up and saying “me me me me me.” More importantly, there was no value to the attendees.

As I begin to plan our events for the fall (through our new company, Engage Here d/b/a Engage Colorado) I’ll be sure to coach our sponsors before they get up to talk to our attendees: ADD VALUE.

If you’re ever sponsoring an event, please follow that rule. And if you want help figuring out what you can do to add value in front of an audience, feel free to ping me, and I’ll be happy to help you.

In a previous post I alluded to the three key business philosophies that I see as ideal business models. They aren’t necessarily startup related. In fact, in most cases business that embody these models aren’t tech related at all. They are simply three common business models I’ve seen to be hugely successful. They are:

1. Middle a Transaction
2. Sell a System
3. Supply the Gold Rush

The Prop 64 Gold Rush

The third model, “Supply the Gold Rush”, came to mind this week when I had the pleasure of meeting two successful medical marijuana growers. Despite my twitter handle being @Stoneybaby, I don’t actually partake in the bud. But I am a curious sort of guy, and talked with them extensively about their business. It seems that everyone in their line of work is just scraping by on razor-thin margins, anxiously awaiting the regulations that will allow them to sell pot for recreational use.

One interesting tidbit I picked up was that the price of pot fell from $4000/lb to $1800/lb. This drastic drop in price took place from the time that medicinal marijuana was legalized in Colorado until now. Simply put, too many people saw the opportunity to sell pot legally, saturated a market capped by law, and drove down prices.

When the recreational regulations are finalized and passed, there will be a second gold (green?) rush. Prices will initially skyrocket as supply can’t match demand, which will invite a new wave of growers who will eventually saturate the market, and eventually drive prices back to down to equilibrium. It’s Economics 101, but it’s not the business I want to be in.

Levi Strauss & Waste Farmers

When I think of gold rush, the second thing I think of is Levi Strauss. His family already had a dry-goods business in St. Louis, and seeing an opportunity, he moved to San Francisco to open a branch to serve the growing market. Moving to a growth market is a smart business move in any era.

In our era, I see a business like Waste Farmers as being the next Levi Strauss. Waste Farmers takes food waste from restaurants in the Denver area, composts it, and makes some damn fine soil. If there was any business to supply the coming Colorado marijuana gold rush, it’s the soil business.

And so while I wish my new-found grower friends all the success in the world, I don’t want to be in the pot growing/selling business; it’s just another gold rush. The business I want to be in is the one supplying the goods and services to the growers.

Why compete in what’s sure to be an overly-zealous and quickly-crowded market? That’s the modern equivalent of panning for gold. Instead, I say sell jeans to the miners, or soil to the growers. Supply the Gold/Pot Rush.

When I first read Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Work Week I was in between jobs and looking for my “next big thing.” The book should have been inspirational, or at least motivated me to find my own way to work less and earn more. Instead, what I got out of the book were two very important lessons:

1. In order to work a 4-hour work week, the author first put in multiple years of 80-hour work weeks
2. By purchasing the book, the only one who was getting a 4-hour work week was the author

The first point is a no-brainer to anyone who’s worked hard during their career, but the second point is the real kick-in-the-pants.

Seminars

While I was in high school, a family member went to a seminar that was supposedly focused on helping people start their own home-based business. That family member came back from this event with a few items they purchased there and were supposed to be ideas to help them get started. I remember thinking, “the business I want to be in is the one where people pay to hear me talk, and then pay again to buy my crappy products.” Even at that young age, I could see that the seminar was only earning extra income for one person: the organizer.

Fast forward to 2008, when I read The 4-Hour Work Week, and those thoughts were so overpowering I couldn’t even finish the book. I was so disgusted by the sham I bought into–one that I could see so clearly as a 12-year old, but was now wasting money on as a 30-something–that I put the book down and never picked it up again.

This week, when one of my favorite authors, Jeffrey Gitomer, wrote a post bashing the 4-Hour Work Week, I couldn’t help but laugh and applaud. I couldn’t agree more:

…all you have to do to get the deep-dark secret they want to share with you is give them some of your money, so THEY can work less and earn more. Funny – in a pathetic kind of way.

Sell a System

I have a few key business philosophies; things that I believe make for great businesses. After I read The 4-Hour Work Week, I added “selling a system” as my second key business philosophy. (The first being “middle a transaction” which I’ll get into at another time.)

The irony of Gitomer’s rant is that he, Ferriss, and this seminar host of my childhood, all do the same thing. They all sell a system. Some are better at it than others–I wonder where that seminar guy is now–and some have better advice than others–which is why I love Gitomer’s work and feel dirty when I see Ferriss’ book. But at the core, they sell a system.

There plenty of examples out there of people who sell a system. Kathy Smith pioneered the home workout video: she sells a system, a great system that is constantly changing and adapting to market conditions. Tony Robbins… well I think it goes without saying that he sells a system. Steve Kamb at NerdFitness sells a system.

In fact, Steve at NerdFitness idolizes Tim Ferriss, and might be the best example of someone who has taken the true message of the 4-Hour Work Week, embodied it, and mastered it.

What is that message?

It’s not that you can work 4 hours per week and be wildly successful, it’s this:

if you have a smart system for doing what you love, and you work your butt off selling it, you can be wildly successful.