Last night I twittered that I'd sent out my startup overview presentation (saved it on Jing, which is awesome, btw... posting soon) to anyone who was interested.
It got picked up by Henry Blodget's Silicon Alley Insider. It was the second time this week I got mentioned... Tuesday night he wrote about how I was noticeably absent from Tuesday's Tech Meetup, because I went to the Mets-Braves game with Fred.
The last two and a half years have been an amazing ride for me... bursting out of obscurity to local digital "celeb" status--all while having accomplished relatively little compared to some of the other folks in this space, in my opinion.
Frankly, I shy away from it. I don't ever want to be known as a self-promoter or someone whose reputation and prominence in the spotlight is ill-deserved. I'm not the guru of anything. I'm just "an ordinary guy with nothing to lose."
I wrote this note to Henry just now and thought I'd share it. The bottom line is that it is great that we've finally got a post-Calcanis voice covering NYC and we need more... but that voice needs to talk about people we don't know about. I'm the last guy anyone needs to hear about twice in a week on SAI... and so is Fred...
Henry,
I appreciate the links and all, but with all due respect, I really shy away from "celeb" status.
I don't run nextNY and compared to lots of other great area entrepreneurs, I really haven't accomplished anything yet.
I have no partner, no code, no nothing but a presentation at this point...
There
are so many people don't really interesting and great things around
here that are so much more worthy of coverage. I don't want to become
known as the Guy Kawasaki of the East Coast... a great self-promoter who people know, even though he really hasn't actually accomplished
anything of substance.The NYC tech scene is so much more than "USV and friends" and
I'd encourage anyone covering the scene to do their best to reflect
that.And no, I have not approached anyone for funding. The
folks at USV are great friends because I worked with them. If
anything, I'm less likely to approach them because I'd never want this
to appear like any kind of an "insider" deal. I need to make my own
way on this. I'm proud of the fact that, for example, my subscribers
have grown much more after I left USV than when I joined and during the
time I was there... so that I know I don't have a Fred-fed
blog...I'm glad you're covering the space, because more people need
to, but if you could point the camera at all of the other really great
things going on here and maybe wait until I actually accomplish
something useful, I think that's the right away to go.I'm being anti-stealth on this not to start up the hype
machine, but because its really how I want to build this business... to
get as much feedback from everyone who cares about the space... to be a
lightning rod for anyone thinking about this... to get the word out to
colleges and a potential partner.I hope this makes sense and I def don't want to come across
as snarky and unappreciative because I appreciate every link and every
mention... I just want it to be deserved.I don't celebrate
birthdays for the same reason... not dying is not a thing to
celebrate... until you're like 85... then its an accomplishment. :)Charlie