About 10 miles away

Follow Scott Levy on Quora The reflections, observances, successes, triumphs, failures and growing pains of a young, investment banker aspiring start-up professional in New York E-mail me here I'm trying something new with this Spotify playlist. Let me know what you think! Note: it's only country music

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Using Web Analytics to Invest in Stocks

A mentor recently recommended that I check-out the book Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik to…

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MailChimp Analytics

For the past 2 months, I have sent out a newsletter every Monday that outlines one business development or VC start-up event each day of the upcoming week. I used MailChimp to send out the weekly e-mails. MailChimp offers some great, free analytics…

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How I Learned The Basics of Programming

After I left my job in investment banking, I spent about 7 weeks learning to code. My goal was to understand the fundamentals of programming and to be able to communicate with web developers. I also wanted to understand how long applications would take to…

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Efficiently Growing Your Business

Over the past few weeks, I’ve put together a side project and set a goal for myself to complete 10 transactions. For the sake of this post, let’s assume that in order to complete a transaction, I need to broker a deal – there has to be a buyer and a…

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NYC Uncubed

Yesterday I went to the recruiting event NYC Uncubed. I was really excited about Uncubedbecause its websites advertises the event as a career fair “with an art battle, founder talks, a bar, dogs & snow cones – it’s the lovechild of a circus and a job…

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(con't)

I continue to notice a trend with the websites I visit for my tech news. When I first tried to immerse myself in the space, I found that tech focused sites directed posts toward two audiences: the tech literate and the tech illiterate. The sites will…

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My Problem With General Assembly

General Assembly is a huge success story in New York. They’ve positioned themselves in the middle of the start-up ecosystem in NYC by offering a shared co-working space and hosting start-up relevant classes. You can check out their website here. I have…

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Ideas You'll Hear At Every Pitch Event

I got coffee with a friend yesterday who works for a company that helps coordinate start-up workshops across the US. Actually, his company recently expanded to Europe to host these events. The workshops are usually 3 days long and start with a pitch…

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How to Start a Business the Lean Way

I recently went to an event at NYU-Stern about cost-effective ways to test an entrepreneurial idea. The session was taught by Amit Klein of Startup Giraffe. I’ve been reading the book The Lean Startupby Eric Reis, and this event offered a hands-on…

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NY Tech Meet-Up: Election 2012 and the Internet

Last Thursday, a buddy and I went to watch Fred Wilson on a panel to talk about the 2012 election and the Internet. I know very little when it comes to each candidate's policies on open Internet. I mainly just went to watch Fred Wilson. It was obvious from the beginning of the event that most of the crowd had an opinion on the topic. It felt almost more like a town-hall gathering for technologists with strong concerns about the future of the Internet. I learned quite a bit from listening to the panel and watching them field questions from the audience. My two favorite moments had little to do with tech policy, though. One audience member offered this to the panel: "I'm 60. When I was in China, someone told me the best way to raise a successful generation is to make sure they are brought up to think exactly the opposite of the way we do. What would you teach your children to make sure they grow up to think differently from us?" Fred's answer was my favorite. He talked about how he believes that by the time our generation takes over, China and India will both be wealthier than the US. He teaches his kids to understand that "America is not the shit." Instead, he raised his kids to appreciate other cultures and be very worldly. The other part of the meet-up that I enjoyed was when Fred talked about technology and education. He's worked to put together a software academy for high schoolers. I don't really know how students are selected for the school, but he made it seem that it will be done differently than the current NY feeder schools. He talked passionately about how he doesn't think that you have to go to Harvard or MIT to be a good coder. Instead, it's about passion to drive to make things. It was a very inspiring thing to listen to, and I hope the school proves Fred's hypothesis.

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Teaching a Skillshare Class

Last night I taught my first Skillshare class: How an Investment Banker Values Your Business. I decided to make my first class free to make sure people attended. Out of the 6 people that signed up for the class, 5 came. 

I spent a few days putting together a PowerPoint presentation about how to value a business using comps and precedents. This is a relatively complex topic to cover in 90 minutes. I tried to structure the class using examples the class could relate to. The class went over well, and I've already gotten an endorsement as a Skillshare teacher! I did learn one important lesson during my class:

People picked things up much quicker than I expected

When I put my presentation together, I tried to build off very simple concepts in the beginning. However, after the class grasped onto the idea of comps, they were already asking questions that advanced the lesson forward. Before class, I didn't think we would be able to finish the entire lesson in time, but we were able to cover everything in about an hour and fifteen minutes. By the end of the class, the students were asking questions about the shortcomings of comparables

I taught a diverse group of students: one doctor, one start-up founder, one 2nd grade teacher (of six years), one guy who just got back from living in China, and one girl who works in marketing after having lived in Singapore for 5 years. 

At the end of class, the start-up founder was talking about how it would be difficult to apply comps and precedents to his business. I mentioned that there was a 3rd valuation method called DCF which would be more appropriate for his needs. The class then told me that if I were to create a lesson plan for DCF that they'd all attend the class. This was a very rewarding feeling as a teacher. I'll probably start with that lesson sometime next week.

Overall, this was a phenomenal experience. I really enjoyed teaching these students. Their curiosity was contagious. I can't wait to do it again!

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Ohours.org

At one of the meet-ups that I went to last week, a buddy told me to check out Ohours. He didn't tell me much about it, but said that it's a good way to meet smart, interesting people around NYC. Great, I'd check it out.

I went home that night and spent some time browsing the site. Ohours is meant to be similar to college office hours. There are members from VC, start-up, biz dev, marketing, and programming communities all willing to sit down for 15-30 minutes and talk about anything. I decided to get the full Ohours experience by hosting an office hours and attending one.

Hosting: I opened up my office hours at around midnight last Tuesday. The hours were to take place on Wednesday at 3pm. I thought the odds of anyone attending were relatively slim. However, at around 11am on Wednesday I got an e-mail from a technical developer who wanted to talk about the business side of his product. He met me at a coffee shop, and we spent 40 minutes talking about his project. I had a great time learning about his business. I also realized that technical entrepreneurs need business guys almost as badly as business guys need technical talent. I explained to my Ohours visitor that in order to get funding, he'd need to put together a business pitch. We then spent 15 minutes talking about relative slides he'd need in his pitch deck. We ended with him saying he understood what needed to be done, but it was basically that last thing on earth he'd want to do. Surprising, because I actually enjoy putting together plans and talking about strategy. So far, Ohours was working great for me. 

Attending: I attended an Ohours hosted by Frank Denbow. Most people in NYC will recognize Frank Denbow from start-up digest. He helps curate the start-up events in NYC. Frank and I talked a bit about how he chooses his events. He also told me about key events that I need to attend in NYC. I also talked to Frank about the minimum coding ability necessary to enroll in a hackathon. Unfortunately, I'm not at that point and need to cancel my registration for a hackathon this Saturday. Anyway, I enjoyed chatting with Frank and found our meeting productive. 

Overall, Ohours exceed my expectations. I definitely plan on giving the service a try in the future. Please let me know about your Ohours experience below!

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New York Tech BD Breakfast and Lerer Ventures

Yesterday I decided to wake up a bit early and head to the New York Tech Business Development Breakfast. The breakfast was pretty much as expected. I'm starting to understand that these meet-ups are usually comprised of a handful of the same people with one or two new faces checking out the events. It was a cool opportunity to talk with some people who do business development at Etsy, Uber, and Secondmarket. The founder of Say It With A Condom was also there passing out business cards - which were hilariously wrapped condoms. I thought it was definitely a worthwhile experience to check this breakfast out, but I don't see myself rushing back anytime soon.

Later in the afternoon, I headed over to Lerer Ventures for their open house. At Lerer, I got to meet with a few of the venture investors, who all seemed like nice guys. There was also a dynamic mix of entrepreneurs in the room. I saw a couple of people that I met at the USV happy hour. The best part of the day was when I got to meet someone from Treehouse. Treehouse is an interactive resource to teach people how to code. I talked about my experience learning python, and the Treehouse employee offered to let me check out some of the Javascript stuff on their site. I watched a few videos. They seem cool. I'm still a big fan of Learn Python The Hard Way and Udacity.

Last night I also learned about Ohours, which is a site that allows you to schedule office hours with people involved with the tech community in NYC. I've already signed up for a few!

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My Experience at Birchbox

As part of the Brooklyn Beta events this week, I had the opportunity yesterday to drop into Birchbox for an office tour/open house. I had met some of the of the Birchbox team at the NYC Start-up Job Fair. For those who don't know, Birchbox sends members (primarily women) samples every month for $10. If the women like the high-end products, they're able to buy the full-size product through the site. Overall, Birchbox was very welcoming and nice to have us as visitors. 

Although I enjoyed the Birchbox products, I'm very interested in the direction the company is headed. During the Q+A at the end of the open-house, one of the attendees asked "what happens if Amazon or Sephora starts sending boxes out to their customers every month? How will you guys stay in business?" 

Their answer was interesting. A few of the employees chimed in and talked about how the samples were only part of their business. They are building a brand and a resource for various products. They pointed to their women's blog, which has plenty of followers. They also talked about reaching out to partner with celebrities. Birchbox is separating themselves by becoming more than just a box of samples. 

When we walked around the office, I got a feel for the amount of people working in each department. It was surprising that only ~12 of the ~75 employees worked in tech. A lot of the focus was on strategic partnerships, sales, and content. This made more sense after realizing that Birchbox wants to concentrate more on becoming a resource for people to consult when buying products than an online company trying to collect and sell analytics. 

I asked one of the data scientists what percentage of people who receive a box actually buy the full-sized product. He told me the answer was confidential but said something along the lines of "high enough that it makes sense for the vendors."