About Starting My New York Story

This Wednesday at 5pm I will be the guest speaker at the Syracuse Technology Garden business roundtable where I will be discussing my experience and observations on Starting and Growing a Business in Central New York.

It should be a fun time. I am gearing up for a discussion that is both a little bit of help, and a little bit of plea for improvement. I look forward to a lively discussion and I hope you can be there. Click here to learn more.

Inland Surfing

One of my favorite bumper stickers is "Surf West Virginia". It's a reference to whitewater kayaking in that beautiful state. Since they beat us to it, and New York has actual ocean waves, a "Surf New York" bumper sticker doesn't have quite the cache, but it could.

This spring I taught a whitewater kayaking class at Cornell and we had such a strong crop of students that many of them were surfing river waves by the end of the second day on the water!


Surf Upstate
We were on the lovely Salmon River, surfing a fun spot called Titanic. Here are some of the stars of the show strutting their stuff:



Mike surfs Titanic

Brendan surfs Titanic

James surfs, then swims Titanic
We had a wonderful day and everyone was happy and tired at the end. And the best news is that half of the students are shopping for kayaks! Whooo!

Mezmeriz at the DFJ NYC VC Event

On Monday, Shahyaan and I participated in the DFJ East Coast Venture Challenge. We were presenting Mezmeriz and competing against a truly remarkable field of startups.


Tangerine Tie Dreams
We didn't win the $250K first prize investment money. That went to the truly deserving team from Princeton, SteriCoat. The judging of these competitions has got to be tough because how do you really compare a TV company (us), to a sterilization company, to a truck aerodynamics company, to a dishware company, to a video search company? Apples to oranges to crab cakes. They are just so different.

The question I heard the most after we presented was "aren't you nervous about finding out the winner?" Oddly, the answer was no. The most nervous part is the lead up until the presentation begins. Once I have the microphone and get going, my nerves are smooth. The thing I worry about more than anything is falling down as I walk to the lectern.

The session closed with Tim Draper singing "The Riskmaster", a song he commissioned via a charity auction, and really sums up his perspective on investing. The one way to summarize this guy is that he loves gutsy entrepreneurs, and they love him back.

PS. My thanks to Dean Collins for taking the picture.

Reading My Own Press

I usually don't re-post my own press, but I especially liked the recent cover story in Small Business Technology Magazine about, well, me (and six other people):


Grinning about what's next
I especially like this because they asked a lot of fun questions. You can only see a third of the interview online free, but if you see a copy of the paper version, there is more fun stuff beyond including what my favorite movie is, and why.

Thanks Joanna!

Through the Macrotrees to the Nanoday

Today I am at the University of Maryland's Nanocenter for their Second Annual Nanoday Conference. I drove down here via the Baltimore-Washington Parkway:

Lush
The foliage is in full bloom in Maryland. While the leaves are just peaking through in Ithaca, driving down the BW Parkway was like driving through a forest. If the cars weren't buzzing through, I think the trees would take back the road.