Leeap Project - NYC - The True Hustler

New York (or ‘Silicon Alley’ as it’s known within the startup community) breeds a special kind of entrepreneur – the true hustler. The level of competition here is staggering, however there is such a dense and supportive community to help give you a real fighting chance – watch out Palo Alto! But be warned, the cost of living here is extreme so prepare to familarise yourself with Ramen Noodles, fast.

The startup community in NYC is growing at astronomical rates with groups like Tech Meetup’s 28,000 members regularly gathering in swarms of 800+ every month. Every vertical you can image has a thriving community, even the most ‘niece’ industry or sector will have a meetup or gathering organisation of some form. From distributed information systems, to secondhand clothing, to nanotechnology – whatever the industry, you’ll find a group of people in NYC who share you passion. Being immersed in a highly dense environment by driven and like-mined people is what makes the allure and opportunity of New York so appealing.

Considering that Manhattan accounts for almost 10% of national GDP, it’s not hard to understand that capital and personal wealth is in abundance here. Venture capital firms in most cases are looking for strong business models as well as other partnering firms that would be able to add value to a potential round of capital raising.

One of the most first criteria that a VC will grade a potential deal on is how the opportunity got in front of them in the first place. As Andrew Mitchell (Managing Partner at ZIG Capital) told me – “How did this deal get on my desk?” Although cold calling/emailing can *sometimes* work, how the VC game is played in NYC is all about connections – so if you’re willing to take the plunge, prepare to build a network and take the time to understand the community (and investors) before reaching out for money.

A rising trend towards promoting and fostering more socially impactful, clean tech and non-profit startups is especially abundant in a place like NYC and has driven the creation of dedicated co-working spaces like Green Spaces as “playgrounds” for innovation and socially conscious entrepreneurs wanting to make a difference. Very impressed with this space, and those inside of it!

The popularity of co-working spaces over the last 2 years has grown exponentially around the world, however no single entity has arguably been as successful than NYC-born General Assembly. In under 3 years Adam Pritzker, Matthew O.Brimer and Brad Hargreaves have expanded GA campus’ and educational services across the nation and recently opened up offices internationally. If you decide that NYC is in your sights, make sure GA is one of the first places you land.

There is an indescribable buzz and energy about the city that’s completely intoxicating and infectious. Although you’re a tiny fish in a seemingly endless ocean, the osmosis effect of the city pushes your harder, makes you work smarter, and places you in an environment where you have the capacity to truly excel on the world stage.

If you can make it here, everyone will pay attention.

The state of the New York tech scene in 2012

It has only been a year and a half since I first moved to NYC, and since that time the scene itself lured me away from school, into hackathons, a startup job and now finally here at The Next Web. This all happened organically, where I changed from being a designer and musician into a full-blown geek, only because of how infectious the tech scene truly is here in New York.

Of course, the city drags you in and tries to spit you out, just as it does with startups fighting for funding, talent and space, but if you manage to survive the struggle is worth it. That’s the spirit here in NY — it’s equal parts love and aggression, where the traditionally rowdy city attitude merges with night-owl programmers, investors and scrappy entrepreneurs.

The spaces, places and meetups

The “Silicon Alley” nickname given to NYC once just represented Broadway, where a handful of impressive startups and incubators could be found from south Midtown and Flatiron all the way to the bottom of Soho, just before Chinatown. Now, NY’s tech scene reaches far beyond a single street or alley, with booming communities building up in Brooklyn, and plenty more spread out across Manhattan.

Back in August of last year, our own Courtney Boyd Myers covered The 5 Coolest Coworking Spaces in New York City, which featured the likes of General Assembly, a coworking and education powerhouse located just around the corner from a number of notable investors at 902 Broadway in the Flatiron District. Then there’s WeWork Labs, which has since undergone a massive expansion in NY andopened up offices in San Francisco.

Those two companies aren’t nearly alone, either. There’s New Work City, which Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson calls the “grandaddy” of NYC coworking spaces as it has been running for the past 4 years, the relaxed Dogpatch Labs, which has offices in Cambridge and San Francisco as well, Projective Space (formally known as SohoHaven), Hive at 55, Tech Space, Greendesk, Greenspaces, Coworking Brooklyn and WeCreateNYC. Then there’s a decently large list of accelerators and incubators, including ER Accelerator, the famed TechStars NY, which is about to graduate its latest class of startups, Betaworks, Dreamit Ventures and Founder Labs – just to name just a few.

So what’s changed in all these places since last year? Every single one of them is way harder to get into. Not only is space tight, but the competition is grueling, which means only the best survive. All in all, this represents much of what’s happening in New York. Of course, in a high-risk startup environment there will be flops, but there have also been enough success stories to start a mildly large encyclopedia about them. Best of all, the scene here is still growing.

Dave Tisch, Managing Director of Tech Stars NY, spoke to us about his thoughts on NY’s tech scene in general:

The growth of the NYC tech community has been well documented, that said, there are some major pieces that continue to go overlooked. The non-tech community in NYC and the surrounding communities are not over-saturated with beta testing, and represent such a variety of demographics, each subway stop is the home to a different community, that testing your product here is a unique advantage for many startups.

The density and variety of businesses are also a tremendous asset the city has to offer. And the general and genuine support of the startup community for each other here I think stands out. We are all in this together. I said previously, but I believe there will be some very big exits this year in NYC, which will help advance the ecosystem even further.

Thanks for the mention of us and our peer coworking spaces, TNW! Click here for the full story.