MetaBronx @metabronx - Tumblr Blog

Build innovation ecosystems >> now!!

2024-09-10, Tuesday - USA: The Bronx, New York

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The real way to re-ignite true innovation is to invest in overlooked places and underestimated people

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Part I >> the innovation landscape

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It's an open secret that venture capital -- the primary funding mechanism for technology-based innovation -- has been going through a reckoning since the US economy rekindled a more realistic relationship with interest rates.

Despite the pain, this is a fundamentally positive outcome because funding "innovation" had become less about actual technical progress and more about the possibility of earning outsized returns from "the next round", regardless of liquidity.

To illustrate, over a 20 year period we've gone from fueling the all-around global revolution of the internet to really, REALLY hoping that AI does our laundry for us, and cleans the bathroom - for free. Say what you will about crypto, at least it kinda brought back the vital concepts of decentralization, interoperability and open standards, all of which are the absolutely required factors that made the internet possible in the first place.

photograph >> Winter 2023 Youth Cohort participants build the new media production and broadcast studio at the Bronx Innovation Center >> by Ashley Decamps >> 2023-04-19 >> MetaBronx

–– If you listen to some very famous venture capital luminaries and some of their even much more famous portfolio company founders, you will hear that it's all the government's fault for letting a culture of diversity and inclusion run rampant through the streets and classrooms, slowing down the incumbents from "pushing hard" to "find the real future talent" in the same places it's always been found: the offspring of your rich and/or privileged neighbors.

The flaw in this economic logic comes from History: true innovation requires patient capital, and historically that was available to only a select few. But the internet changed the entire paradigm because it enables us to find talent *everywhere*.

The investors who choose to be reactionary have not yet made the calculation that thanks to the internet, humankind can *finally* benefit from the innovation potential of *everyone*, regardless of ethno-cultural background, gender, or preferences in the bedroom - seriously, who cares what people prefer in their personal lives, as long as it doesn't directly do measurable harm to someone else? A market is a market, or at least it should be.

photograph >> Startup Cohort 4 mentor meetup at Bronx Innovation Center >> by Hannibal Royce >> 2023-06-06 >> MetaBronx + TagUp + Bronx Native

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Part II >> opportunity definition

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At MetaBronx we're offering a different view: the reason innovation has markedly slowed down compared to 30 years ago is precisely because instead of investing in the benefits of human diversity, we've put the vast majority of the money towards either bailing out incumbents or robotizing the extraction of data from unsuspecting citizens, neither of which constitutes a net benefit to humankind. Lest we forget, the reason engineering exists in the first place is to make stuff *actually work* in order to improve people's lives.

"We posit that humans always try to do what they want to do, and end up doing what they are most incentivized to do."

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Who in the United States has the biggest incentive to innovate?

-> People who benefit the least from the status quo. Whoever is under-represented actually has no choice but to innovate, frequently just to survive.

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Where is the massive increase in funding for those same groups who are innovating as a matter of survival?

-> Nowhere to be seen.

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Is there a significant financial risk investing in groups that traditionally haven't been trusted to manage these types of resources?

-> Yes of course there is, and the more we wait, the longer it will take for the returns from a truly inclusive economy to materialize - although it'll most definitely take less time than AI doing our laundry.

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map >> Backing the ecosystem leaders who back diverse founders >> Resource II Cohort >> 2021-11-23 >> Black Innovation Alliance + Village Capital

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Part III >> build innovation ecosystems

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When we started MetaBronx back in 2015, most industry professionals and innovation financiers were deeply skeptical about our community-driven model of accelerating startups and apprenticing young adults simultaneously, because in their minds the operational requirements of these two activities are incompatible.

And yet MetaBronx has experienced incredible success with comparatively almost no financial resources, serving as the engine of the Bronx innovation ecosystem.

>> https://www.metabronx.com/documents/metabronx_metrics.pdf

Here is MetaBronx co-founder Alejandra Molina speaking at the United Nations to explain the complexities of ecosystem architecture at a conference hosted by the Organismo Internacional de Juventud para Iberoamérica (OIJ) / International Youth Organization (IYO):

The First Interuniversity Conference on Youth, Education and Research brought together experts, leaders in education, and diplomats representing different countries along with students from The Bronx's very own Crotona International High School (CIHS) and International Community High School (ICHS).

On that very same afternoon, MetaBronx hosted the Advisory Roundtable for Startup Cohort 4, so Alejandra literally finished her intervention at the UN, ran out during the applause, and sprinted down 42nd Street to Lowenstein Sandler -- our gracious and longtime law firm partner -- to close out the proceedings of a classically over-busy New York weekday.

At the UN the focus was on MetaBronx Youth Cohorts, at Lowenstein Sandler it was MetaBronx Startup Cohorts. Alejandra's heroics were the perfect embodiment of the work MetaBronx does: running between current entrepreneurs (founders) and future entrepreneurs (youth) who all share the experience of never having the resources to make their talent thrive and invest in the biggest and yet most practical ideas you'll find anywhere.

lookbook >> Startup Cohort 4 advisory roundtable at Lowenstein Sandler Conference Center >> photography by Ana Francisco and Muhfasul Alam >> 2023-12-05 >> MetaBronx + Lowenstein Sandler

–– So! While as a society we eagerly await the liquidity and productivity returns from the current deep research in artificial intelligence and quantum computing, we can right here right now invest in the human intelligence that pervades our most overlooked communities.

Because the ones who are under-represented are the talent that will solve humankind's biggest problems - as long as they get the funding to do so.

On to the future!

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If you believe that building a community-driven ecosystem in The Bronx is important, support the work with a tax-deductible contribution:

>> https://www.metabronx.com/ecosystem/

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Links

https://www.metabronx.com https://www.diversitydemoday.com

https://blackinnovationalliance.com https://vilcap.com https://www.lowenstein.com https://www.instagram.com/tagupmusic

https://www.un.org https://www.oij.org https://www.crotonaihs.org https://www.internationalcommunityhs.org

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Authors

https://www.metabronx.com

Philip M Shearer - MetaBronx, The Glass Files, scenyc

Alejandra Molina - MetaBronx, WarmiShine, beepboop

Miguel Sanchez - MetaBronx, StackIt, Mass Ideation

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Class of 2023 >> Summer Cohort

2023-01-03, Tuesday - USA: The Bronx, New York

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MetaBronx launches Cohort 4 of the number one diversity-focused startup accelerator in NYC

Cohort 4 begins May 23rd and concludes with Diversity Demo Day 2023 on November 14th. Applications close Monday April 17th.

MetaBronx, a VilCap Community since 2019, structures its curriculum around the abaca startup assessment methodology developed by Village Capital, creators of the most innovative and inclusive investment model in the world.

>> https://www.metabronx.com/apply >> https://www.f6s.com/metabronx-summer-2023/apply

We're looking for startups owned and operated by founders who usually lack access to the resources and networks required to build their companies. To be specific, women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, ethno-cultural minority groups, immigrants, and low-income populations frequently lack the necessary access.

We’re also keen on entrepreneurs who are inventing technical and technology-based solutions to large-scale problems, regardless of the founders’ cultural backgrounds.

If your team and you are from a place or a population group that you feel typically has very little or no true access to these types of resources, you should definitely apply.

>> https://www.metabronx.com/apply >> https://www.f6s.com/metabronx-summer-2023/apply

If selected, you’ll be joining an illustrious group that includes the first ever venture-backed startup from The Bronx, companies that went on to accelerators like Techstars, and alumni that have raised 15.4mm in funding post-program (an average ~850K per startup).

One of the difficulties for startups to find the right investors - and investors to find the right startups - is that there is no clear and concise standard for startups to convey the stage of development they’ve reached, and therefore it takes investors way too much time to determine if any given startup is at a stage that the investor is looking for. The lack of a standard is particularly damaging to under-represented founders because of unconscious bias.

So Village Capital built abaca, a startup growth app tool that enables entrepreneurs to continually assess their investment readiness level. You can see a full-size version of the chart at http://www.metabronx.com/documents/chart_vilcap-abaca_startup.pdf

Cohort startups will be mentored by the Summer 2023 Advisory Board which is composed of 50 members from the fields of finance, law, marketing, engineering, and education. It makes for too many names to list here, but a number of the members are from the most successful and prestigious venture capital firms and tech law firms in New York City.

Joining this illustrious crew is the Founders Council of the Advisory Board, which is composed of all startup founders from previous MetaBronx cohorts.

The first 4 months of the 6-month accelerator are spent raising the abaca investment-readiness level of each cohort startup. The final 2 months are dedicated to refining pitches and financial models in preparation for Diversity Demo Day, our landmark online event where the startups pitch their wares to investors, peers, and the community.

Each startup accepted into the program receives $50K worth of work and services from MetaBronx and its partners, and MetaBronx takes no equity. Founders have access to the advisory board and an additional 150 industry mentors in our network, which extends to 53 VilCap Communities worldwide. It’s the deal of a lifetime, really.

For the startups that aren’t accepted into the Summer 2023 cohort, you will benefit from applying to the cohort because MetaBronx is the engine of a community-driven innovation ecosystem and as a result, we assist over 100 new entrepreneurs every year.

See you very soon!

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Links

https://www.metabronx.com https://www.metabronx.com/apply https://www.diversitydemoday.com

https://www.f6s.com/metabronx/ https://www.f6s.com/metabronx-summer-2023/ https://www.f6s.com/metabronx-summer-2023/apply

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Authors

https://www.metabronx.com

Philip M Shearer - MetaBronx, scenyc

Alejandra Molina - MetaBronx, beepboop

Miguel Sanchez - MetaBronx, Mass Ideation

The resilience and adaptability of diversity

2020-10-27, Tuesday - USA: The Bronx, New York

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MetaBronx Winter 2020 Startup Cohort in partnership with Village Capital supported by Travelers

A year ago MetaBronx fielded 100+ applications to participate in our accelerator program focused on under-represented founders. By early January we had completed the arduous task of selecting 6 startups:

beepboop Humanizing online language learning. http://www.beepboop.us/ founders: Devon Saliga, Alejandra Molina

Dashible Location-based deals worth dashing for. http://www.dashible.com founders: Marvin Johnson, Tony Carter

MoneyCaptain Become the captain of your money ship. http://www.moneycaptainapp.com/ founders: Sky Davis, Gregory Davis

Nimble Makes it easier to design using Revit. http://www.benimble.io/ founders: Preston Smith

Proneer Virtual try-on solution for apparel retailers. http://www.proneer.co/ founders: Nicole Faraji, Phillip Strefling

SaveAway Save money for important purchases. http://www.saveaway.net founders: Om Kundu

13 days after hosting our Mentor Meetup at the work space, New York City was shut down by the pandemic. The world as we knew it ended, with cataclysmic economic and social consequences.

And yet the 6 startups selected for our cohort not only kept going, but they thrived - all of them. How is this 100% startup success outcome possible?

In one word: diversity. Entrepreneurship is foremost about turning problems into opportunities, so the number one skill entrepreneurs need to possess - and continuously augment - is problem solving.

It’s usually extremely difficult to solve complex problems alone. No matter how proficient you are, no matter how much experience you have, 95% of the time you’ll get the inspiration to solve a problem from a conversation you had with another human being.

And the more diversity in the perspectives of people you work with and speak to, the higher the chances that the magic spark will come quickly. Someone with a different cultural experience from yours is going to shed light on a problem in a way that you never would have thought of on your own.

Meet the founders - from left to right: Om Kundu (SaveAway), Preston Smith (Nimble), Malik Smith (Nimble), Julian Rodriguez (Bazaar), Marvin Johnson (Dashible), Phillip Strefling (Proneer), David Hayes (Dashible), Alejandra Molina (beepboop), Devon Saliga (beepboop), Sky Davis (MoneyCaptain).

Then there’s our number one competitive advantage: under-represented founders, women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community have been continuously solving complex problems since the day they were born. Not because they necessarily wanted to, but out of pure necessity, since the current socio-economic construct never gave them a choice.

The honest truth is that if you’re from a population group that’s been under-represented in any industry, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to be taken seriously, raise capital, and access any and all resources that are required to make your startup a success. The ecosystem doesn’t cater to you, and the dominant culture of innovation doesn’t take your culture into account.

And yet... Just like the founders of the 12 MetaBronx startups that came before them, Devon, Alejandra, Marvin, Tony, Sky, Greg, Preston, Nicole, Phillip, and Om have proven once again that every investor on Planet Earth should be wrestling their unconscious bias and recognize that the spirit of innovation is strong in these founders.

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Links

Supporting the Supporters: A Continued Partnership with Travelers and VilCap Communities https://newsandviews.vilcap.com/posts/travelers-vilcap-communities MetaBronx becomes a VilCap Community https://blog.metabronx.com/post/189188826949/metabronx-becomes-a-vilcap-community

Class of 2020 >> Winter Cohort https://blog.metabronx.com/post/189272926379/class-of-2020-winter-cohort

MetaBronx Class of 2020 >> Winter Cohort https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/metabronx-class-2020-winter-cohort-philip-m-shearer

https://communities.vilcap.com/

https://www.villagecapital.com/

https://www.travelers.com/ –

Authors

http://www.metabronx.com

Philip M Shearer - MetaBronx, scenyc

Miguel Sanchez - MetaBronx, Mass Ideation

Class of 2020 >> Winter Cohort

2019-11-19, Tuesday - USA: The Bronx, New York

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MetaBronx launches startup accelerator program with Village Capital, supported by Travelers

The program begins January 14th and ends June 9th, 2020. Applications close Monday December 9th.

Cohort startups will benefit from the curriculum, methods, and global reach of Village Capital, creators of the most innovative and inclusive investment model in the world.

>> http://www.metabronx.com/apply >> https://www.f6s.com/metabronx-winter-2020/apply

We're looking for startups owned and operated by founders who usually lack access to the resources and networks required to build their companies. To illustrate, women, people of color, LGBTQQIAAP, ethno-cultural minority groups, immigrants, and low-income populations frequently lack the necessary access.

We’re also very keen on entrepreneurs who are inventing technical and technology-based solutions to large-scale problems, regardless of the founders’ cultural background.

If your team and you are from a place or a population group that you feel typically has very little or no true access to these types of resources, you should definitely apply.

>> http://www.metabronx.com/apply >> https://www.f6s.com/metabronx-winter-2020/apply

Cohort startups will be mentored by the Winter 2020 Advisory Board which is composed of 40 members from the fields of finance, law, marketing, engineering, and education. It makes for too many names to list here, but a number of the members are from the most successful and prestigious venture capital firms and tech law firms in New York City.

Joining this illustrious crew is the Founders Council of the Advisory Board, which is composed of all startup founders from previous MetaBronx cohorts.

To get a peek into the advisory process, we’ve published a video of the Advisory Roundtable from last month, which was graciously hosted by Marie DeFalco and Kristin Taylor at the Lowenstein Sandler Conference Center of their New York office. Note that only about half of the advisory members were present.

For the startups that aren’t accepted into the Winter 2020 cohort, you will benefit from the cohort anyway because MetaBronx is the engine of a community-driven innovation ecosystem and as a result, we assist over 100 new entrepreneurs every year.

See you very soon!

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Links

http://www.metabronx.com http://www.metabronx.com/apply

https://www.f6s.com/metabronx/ https://www.f6s.com/metabronx-winter-2020/ https://www.f6s.com/metabronx-winter-2020/apply

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Authors

http://www.metabronx.com

Philip M Shearer - MetaBronx, scenyc

Miguel Sanchez - MetaBronx, Mass Ideation

MetaBronx becomes a VilCap Community

2019-07-30, Tuesday - USA: Hartford, Connecticut

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The south Bronx innovation ecosystem arrives at a landmark that will benefit The Bronx and communities like it for the next 20 years

Village Capital is the most influential impact investor in the world. What does that mean? Over the past 10 years, it has become clear that venture capital is only one of the sources of capital for innovation.

MetaBronx co-founder Philip M Shearer’s work desk area at Travelers.

Venture capital focuses on startup companies that can become gigantic, such as Google and Apple, or on startups that can be sold relatively quickly to a much larger company in order to generate a very large return for the initial investors. For the second case, the best example we know of is Amazon competitor Jet.com, a startup that received 220 million in funding in 2014 and was acquired 2 years later by Walmart for 3.3 billion, a 15x (1,400%) return.

When the deals go through, the financial returns for startup founders and venture capital investors are fabulous; but what about all the innovation that doesn’t fit the objectives of the venture capital business model? There are two types:

the innovation will deliver potentially even larger returns, but not quickly enough to be a VC fit (think submarine communications cables)

the innovation will deliver returns that are not necessarily just financial in nature (think penicillin)

Once simply referred to as investment (in the future of humankind), these days the label that is applied to capital funding such innovations is impact investment.

At MetaBronx, we take the view that venture capital is the special case, the result of the finance industry simply not having caught up to the notion that assets don’t necessarily need to be physical.

As far as we’re concerned, Village Capital runs the most innovative and inclusive investment model in the world.

So you can imagine our thrill when MetaBronx got selected as one of six accelerators around the country to be a 2020 VilCap Community, along with:

WEPOWER, St Louis, MI

Lunar Startups, St Paul, MN

Goodie Nation, Atlanta, GA

Black Girl Ventures, Washington, DC

reSET, Hartford, CT

All of a sudden, MetaBronx and our alumni startups, founders, partners, funders got validated on a national scale, providing an opportunity to put The Bronx definitively on the map for innovation rather than the blindingly negative press coverage that our home town receives on a daily and worldwide basis.

The VilCap Communities cohort is sponsored by Travelers, so the founders of all six accelerators got together in Hartford, CT for two days at the end of July for a series of workshops on integrating the VilCap curriculum into our existing programs.

The depth of Village Capital’s curriculum goes way beyond the scope of this post, a veritable library on entrepreneurship, alternative investment models, inclusion, diversity, and quite simply the future of innovation financing.

Day 2 of VilCap Communities workshops at the Hartford Times Building of UConn’s (University of Connecticut) Hartford Campus.

The result is that the Bronx community-driven innovation ecosystem now has access to the latest methods of growing great ideas from all the population groups that are woefully under-represented in the technology industry and the innovation economy in general.

Thank you to Village Capital and Travelers for giving The Bronx this phenomenal opportunity to make a quantum leap forward, and thank you to innovators from The Bronx who, every day, turn very little resources into large scale solutions to systemic problems.

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Sources

https://impactinvestingmap.com/explore/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet.com

https://communities.vilcap.com/

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Authors

http://www.metabronx.com

Philip M Shearer - MetaBronx, scenyc

Miguel Sanchez - MetaBronx, Mass Ideation

Apprentices: Next Generation

2018-12-02, Sunday - USA: The Bronx, New York –

In The Bronx, startups partner with high schools to create a new apprenticeship model for education

Our introduction to the program happened in school. For many of us this was a totally new experience and our very first job.

This summer, 40 high school students from Bronx Academy for Software Engineering (BASE) were accepted to work at MetaBronx to develop our skills as future entrepreneurs and business owners.

MetaBronx is a startup accelerator and entrepreneurship education program that helps startup companies grow by investing in them. MetaBronx works with companies such as The Glass Files which is run by CEO Sarah Poyet.

The Glass Files is a website in which you can post stories about your family through photographs, videos and other media and connect them to History. When you enter this website you can read amazing stories and see stunning photographs that have been shared about people’s families and their History. Many times you can even relate to their stories and experiences.

“I enjoy being my own boss but it’s also very difficult… What motivates me is my grandfather’s story and the fear that if we don’t learn about History, we will repeat the mistakes of the past. It’s easy to sink into hopelessness and cynicism, but the question is do we believe in progress or not? Simple as that. That’s why History is important. It is for our own future. If there is no learning about the past how will we have a positive future?” – Sarah Poyet

An illustration by BASE Junior Carlos García inspired by the characters in this Summer’s apprenticeship program.

MetaBronx and The Glass Files work together to give us new experiences and create new stories about ourselves that we can document on The Glass Files.

We have also been able to network with significant institutions that exercise lots of power such as UBS, a Swiss investment bank where we met people who work in different departments and even the COO of the company, Barry Hurewitz. While we were there we did a speed mentoring session in which we got to go around and ask the employees questions about what they do and how they got there.

UBS staff were really excited to meet us and bankers outnumbered students at this unique event.

We also went to the headquarters of the United Nations. Thanks to Juan Reyes, a senior security officer, we got an exclusive tour of the whole building. We went inside the conference rooms where world leaders talk about their issues, and we went to the garden, which is ordinarily off limits to visitors. The garden is a place where gifts given to the U.N. from other countries are displayed. It’s not everyday you see gifts from other countries like the “Sleeping Elephant” given to them by Kenya or the“Japanese Peace Bell” given to them by Japan.

BASE Sophomore Sha’nya Pereira, future leader of the world, flexes her power.

Now getting into more of what we do inside the workplace. We work in multiple groups: media production, software development, hardware, marketing, and writing.

Another artist in the group, BASE Sophomore Christian Pavia, drew artwork for the Bronx Senior Storytellers project.

The Media Production team is currently working on a project called Bronx Senior Storytellers where small groups of students go to the Mid-Bronx Senior Center and record interviews there. The seniors always welcome them with warm smiles and they always have so many stories to tell that it’s incredible. Hearing Stella Savage who was directly affected by racism, Ann DeVaughn, and how she was part of a labor union, Mary Smith and her travel from Ghana to America, and Nina Allen and how she felt about Martin Luther King Jr.’s death was inspiring; you really connect to the seniors and what they have been through.

Multiple generations of BASE students take a photo with Mary Smith, aka Mama Tech and everyone’s grandmother. Her story will be published in Families and Community on The Glass Files.

“I enjoy being an apprentice to Sarah because she’s outgoing and at the same time proper when using the editing software. She has really taught me the way of trial and error. I feel like the first 2 weeks I was gonna do nothing and I wanted to do editing. But then after the first 2 weeks I started having to work extremely hard just because it’s my passion.” – Anthony Carty

Many of us got to participate in transcribing after capturing the 2 hours of interviews we filmed with the seniors at Mid-Bronx.

The Marketing team focuses on posting stories for The Glass Files about trips, work days, and day to day experiences. They have put together a thank you letter to UBS, invitations to community members to come visit the work site on Presentation Day, and they are also posting on different social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Instagram. It’s nice to use other social media platforms for education purposes and not just for fun.

Miguel Sanchez of MetaBronx, Mass Ideation and The Rize talks about how what we post on social media reflects on us as individuals.

“I’ve learned how to use different social media websites and it has helped me develop social skills and how to share information more efficiently.” – Shamar Folkes

The Writing team works on the writing aspect of different projects such as a Corporate Social Responsibility document where we acted as CEOs and had to manage a group while writing it. We also helped the Media team on transcribing footage of the seniors, and the Marketing team with posting on The Glass Files. The Writing team has also been working on assignments like writing narratives of interviews with people like Stella Savage from the Mid-Bronx Senior Home and Esmarlin Fernandez, a student from BASE, and then posting it on The Glass Files.

“The writing team has been a learning experience and has taught me many skills in the aspect of writing. The corporate social responsibility document was a big project for us. I found out that writing isn’t as easy as most people think.” – Joseph Vito

Super-apprentices who have a year or more of working at MetaBronx under their belt support Sam Clegg and the Writing team with their experience.

The Software Development team brainstormed ideas to fix bugs on The Glass Files website. The team then sends that information to the senior developers to code and fix the website based on the analysis they came up with. An example of an issue we solved is a notification error that wouldn’t let you know that you’ve been invited to a Family. Those small flaws can drastically affect your experience on the website so that is what we aim to fix.

“A challenge has been finding a way to a fix a problem… I find that the information I learned here has been useful because if I get a job in coding I can use what I learned.” – Shaheed Ganie

Juniors, Seniors and recent graduates from BASE reconvened at MetaBronx this Summer to lend a hand and share their knowledge with the new Sophomore arrivals.

The Hardware team is a small group that keeps all the computer and media equipment in good working order, and helps with fixing up the building both inside and outside. The Hardware team doesn’t have a set office space, they are based in the hallway so they can rapidly get the necessary tools and go wherever their skills are needed for everyone’s work to continue smoothly.

Their biggest projects were to configure the work site’s computer network to connect all the laptops, doing partial refurbishing of one of the local file servers, upgrading the lighting and ventilation systems in the bathrooms, and building a suspended shelf in the music studio.

“My biggest challenge was coming early, from nine to two, and another problem was our supervisor being strict – but a type of strictness that i hadn’t experienced before, more productive. I also had a problem with adjusting to a new personality.” – Edryan Canario

We have learned an immense amount during our time at MetaBronx. Being in this program has helped us develop new skills. Like any new experience, we had ups and downs. In general we were all really overwhelmed working in a new environment, working with new adults that aren’t familiar to us. This job has helped us learn what to do and expect in the real world when we’ll have to go out into the workforce. We are so lucky that we have this amazing opportunity to be involved here and to work with extraordinary people!

Takhim, valedictorian BASE ’16, currently a college student at SUNY Buffalo, was one of the first students from The Bronx to become an apprentice at MetaBronx and The Glass Files. In this photo, he troubleshoots the Wi-Fi network while CTO Philip Shearer and BASE Sophomore William Madigan do maintenance on the servers.

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Authors

Story by the Writing team: Tomi Adetunji, Joseph Vito, Christian Pavia, Esmarlin Fernandez, Edryan Canario. Media preparation by the Media production team: Anthony Carty, Jonairy Castro Audain, Ruth Mejia, managed by Alondra Flores. Event production and business development by the Marketing team: Dylan Montero-Zamora, Emely Leon, Ijay Browne, Jose Mejia, Mohammed Islam, managed by Sha’nya Pereira. Liaison between Marketing and Software teams: Shamar Folkes, Iyani Walcott. Coding and technical implementation by the Software team: Edward Yeboah, Handruliz Nova, Joshua Otto, Muhfasul Alam, Shaheed Ganie, William Susman, Yabraj Jassi, managed by Takhim Haque and Elias Gabriel. Equipment and work space made possible by the Hardware team: Abhishek Heer, Amit Dhar, Jayden Rivera, Freemen Black, William Madigan, managed by Alejandro Daniel. Special projects (the sanity team): Carlos “Slime” Garcia, Isaiah Lee, Fernando Silverio, Victor Rodriguez, Elias Alvarez. Photography by Jon Mannion and just generally everyone.

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Sponsors

The MetaBronx Summer 2017 program and the MetaBronx Fellows cohort were made possible by a collaboration between:

CareerCLUE, a joint program between the NYC Department of Education Office of Community Schools and the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development https://cye.cityofnewyork.us/initiatives/careerclue/ https://www1.nyc.gov/site/dycd/services/jobs-internships/summer-youth-employment-program-syep.page

Riverdale Country School https://www.riverdale.edu/

Bronx Academy for Software Engineering (BASE)

Here to Here https://www.heretohere.org/

DreamYard https://www.dreamyard.org/

SoBro https://www.sobro.org/

scenyc https://www.scenyc.com/

Mass Ideation https://www.massideation.com/

Ozzie Coto

Facebook - Instagram VS. Shutterfly - Kodak

2017-04-25, Monday - USA: The Bronx, New York

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The staggering difference in deal economics between the acquisitions of Instagram and Kodak Online

In April 2012, Facebook agreed to buy Instagram at a valuation of $1 billion. At the time, Instagram had 30 million users. A simple math calculation of 1,000,000,000 divided by 30,000,000 means that Facebook paid $33 per user.

No more than one month later, Shutterfly agreed to buy Kodak’s online photo sharing business for $24 million.

At the time, Kodak Online had 75 million users.

A second calculation of 24,000,000 divided by 75,000,000 means that Shutterfly paid $0.32 per user.

These results mean that in the same month, Facebook paid 33/0.32 = 103 times more per user than Shutterfly.

For the sake of simplifying the discussion, let’s round that number to 100 times.

Ok! So now we’ve established that in April-May 2012, a user of the Instagram service was worth roughly 100 times more than a user of the Kodak Online service.

Why did Facebook pay 100 times more per user than Shutterfly?

To put the price difference in perspective, it’s as if you paid $100 for a Kit Kat chocolate bar, instead of paying $1.

The only reason we can see for this gigantic difference in user valuation between the two acquisitions is that Instagram was growing extremely fast at the time, and therefore Facebook could expect Instagram to continue growing into a much larger user base - 5 years later, Instagram has 600mm users, so Facebook was absolutely correct in their assumption.

Om Malik, one of the savviest, most well respected and successful thought leaders and tech venture investors in the media industry, now calls the Instagram acquisition “the bargain of the century.”

But if the acquisition of Instagram was such a fantastic deal for the buyer, then what would Om Malik say about the acquisition of Kodak Online, which was 100 times cheaper? Surely the acquisition of Kodak Online would be too cheap to describe in words!

–

Our analysis is that legacy businesses like Kodak simply have no idea how to correctly assess the value of their assets in the digital age.

Compared to venture capital investors focused on growth and sexiness, the Kodak board of directors was totally clueless as to what a user of an online photo sharing service might be worth. Faced with a need for quick cash, they decided that selling their hard-earned online users for pennies on the dollar made sense.

This heartbreaking outcome for one of the most storied media brands in history underscores the immense gap in digital understanding between young new digital-first brands, and legacy historical brands that invented an entire industry (in this case, photography), but then completely failed to make accurate calculations as to how they could leverage their history in the 21st century.

Those who ignore History are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905)

MetaBronx Cohort 1 startup The Glass Files, focused on crowdsourcing History, creates an opportunity for storied brands like Kodak - founded 128 years ago! - to document and preserve their very long stories through media items (audio, video, photography).

https://www.theglassfiles.com

The TGF software is focused on privacy control, so a company like Kodak can determine how they want to present and share their contributions to human History with the public.

It’s grand time that Kodak celebrate its history rather than sell it off for 30 cents on the dollar!

–

Sources

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303815404577333840377381670

http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/shutterfly-making-digital-photography-a-snap/240489/

https://om.co/2017/04/18/instagram-facebook-5-years-later/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak

–

Authors

http://www.metabronx.com

Philip M Shearer - scenyc, MetaBronx

Sarah Poyet - The Glass Files

Miguel Sanchez - Mass Ideation, MetaBronx

The first ever venture-backed Bronx tech startup - and it isn’t run by white men

2016-11-28, Monday - USA: The Bronx, New York

–

Bronx-based MWBE tech startup Bazaar makes history by becoming the first ever Bronx startup to secure venture capital funding in a Series Seed investment round

Bazaar is the digital B2B marketplace for recurring small business purchases.

http://www.accessbazaar.com/

Bazaar is a one stop shop that allows retailers to see multiple wholesalers, compare prices, product, and inventory, to help retailers make the best purchase decisions for their businesses.

The $1mm round was led by Charlie O’Donnell at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, co-led by Bill Benedict at Alpine Meridian Ventures, and hatched by renowned New York Angel investor Joanne Wilson from Gotham Gal Ventures. Additional firms participating are Lattice Ventures, Caerus Investment Partners, Transcendent Holdings, and Rostrum Capital. This funding outcome is a huge milestone for the Bronx innovation ecosystem, the Bronx Tech Triangle, and the entire borough of The Bronx.

It is a testament to the fundamental strength of the Bronx tech community, as well as the indomitable motivation of the MetaBronx and Bazaar teams.

The Bronx Tech Triangle is formidably efficient at fostering and sparking innovation

Julian Rodriguez, Founder and CEO of Bazaar, grew up in The Bronx and Long Island. He then went through each point of the Bronx Tech Triangle:

studied Computer Science at Fordham University

worked as a software developer at scenyc in Mott Haven, simultaneously laying the groundwork for Bazaar while MetaBronx was building its program

has direct access to the Hunts Point Cooperative Market through Mass Ideation at the BXL Bronx Business Incubator in Hunts Points

Now that it is adequately capitalized, Bazaar is a participating employer at The Knowledge House (TKH), hiring TKH graduates as apprentices at Bazaar. This creates local jobs for local talent in the 18-24 age group, and so the circle of community-driven innovation begins again. – As the founding architects of the Bronx innovation ecosystem, Philip M Shearer, Miguel Sanchez, Chanez Baali, Jerelyn Rodriguez and Andrew Kingsley extend their warmest congratulations to all parties involved. Beginning in late 2013, the impetus behind the ecosystem was a deep experience on the ground in the south Bronx, and reading the book Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City by Brad Feld.

–

Sources

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bazaar-2#/entity

https://angel.co/bazaartech

https://gust.com/companies/bazaartech http://www.motthavenherald.com/2016/02/07/tech-ecosystem-booms-in-the-bronx/

–

Authors

http://www.metabronx.com

Philip M Shearer - scenyc, Metabronx

Miguel Sanchez - Mass Ideation, MetaBronx

The $618 billion dollar cost of excluding women and ethno-cultural minorities from the innovation equation

2016-01-19, Tuesday - USA: The Bronx, New York

Data points

Investment from US venture capital (VC) firms between Q4 2005 and Q3 2015: 318,792,800,000 or USD 318 Billion source: PWCMoneyTree

83% of VC-backed startups are all-white (Jan to Jun 2010) -> therefore 17% of venture-backed startups have at least one non-white team member 5% all asian 1% all black 86% of VC-backed startups are all-male (Jan to Jun 2010) -> therefore 14% of venture-backed startups have at least one non-male team member sources: Forbes, CB Insights

Calculating percentage of venture-backed startups that are entirely composed of white men:

percentage of Female OR Non-White = percentage of Female + percentage of Non-White - percentage of Female AND Non-White

Rate of Female OR Non-White is therefore: .14 + .17 - (.14*.17) = 29%

Rate of White, Male VC-Backed teams is therefore: 100 - 29 = 71%

Percentage of White Men in US population (Oct 2014): 31% source: Washington Post

For the purposes of these calculations, we define successful startup as a startup that has led to some form of exit. Note that this is a relatively narrow definition of success.

Less than one percent (0.62%) of startups become successful by this definition. sources: Quora, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, PWC’s MoneyTree

75% of venture-backed startups do not return investors' money, which means 25% actually exit. source: Finfacts Multimedia

[ Among other things, this means a venture-backed startup has a 40 times higher chance of success than a startup that is not venture-backed. ]

Value of average successful startup goes from 41mm to 243mm, meaning a 243 / 41 = 5.926 = 600% average increase in value. source: TechCrunch

Calculations based on data points

318 Billion * .71 = 226 Billion invested in White Male teams

318 Billion * .29 = 92 Billion invested in Non-traditional teams

Knowing that 226 Bn was invested in 31% of the population, and assuming we invested along demographic lines (proportionally to demographic reality), we should be investing a total of 226 * (100/31) = 730 Billion in all population groups combined.

Which means should be investing 730 * .69 = 503 Billion in Non-traditional teams.

503 Bn - 92 Bn (currently invested in Non-traditional teams) = 411 Bn

So by not investing in MWBE startups proportionally to their representation in the population, we missed out on 411 Bn worth of investment opportunity over a 10 period (2005 to 2015).

25% of venture-backed startups actually exit, so 318 Bn (invested in all white males) becomes 318 * 0.25 = 79 Bn, which increases in value 600% to a 474 Bn value.

Along the same logic, the 411 Bn that should be invested in anyone who's not a white male becomes 411 * 0.25 = 103 Bn, which increases 600% to a 618 Bn value.

Conclusion

By not investing in women and ethno-cultural minority groups proportionally to their representation in the population, the US economy missed out on 618 Bn worth of economic value over a 10 year period (2005 to 2015).

Time to invest in MWBE startups - now!

Sources

https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/HistoricTrends/CustomQueryHistoricTrend

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidteten/2014/04/29/why-are-venture-capitalists-ignoring-the-future-the-emerging-domestic-economy/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/08/65-percent-of-all-american-elected-officials-are-white-men/

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/14/crunchbase-reveals-the-average-successful-startup-raises-41m-exits-at-242-9m/

https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-ALL-start-ups-raise-angel-seed-VC-funding

http://www.finfacts.ie/Irish_finance_news/articleDetail.php?Most-global-tech-startup-exits-have-no-venture-capital-funding-187

Authors

http://www.metabronx.com

Philip M Shearer - scenyc, Metabronx

Miguel Sanchez - Mass Ideation, MetaBronx

Charles Summers - Notary, MetaBronx

#economics #innovation #venture capital #mwbe #accelerator #calculation #tech startups #opportunity #economic development #finance #startups #women owned #minority owned businesses #investment

First MWBE startup accelerator launches in The Bronx

2015-11-17, Tuesday - USA: The Bronx, New York

A long-standing collaboration between four Bronx-based corporations leads to the launch of MetaBronx, the first accelerator program in The Bronx and one of the first ever accelerators for Minority and Women Owned (MWBE) startups.

Mass Ideation, scenyc, The Knowledge House, and Mainland Media, all run by founders under the age of 40, have been building a 21st century media and technology ecosystem from scratch, and from within the community.

According to Philip M Shearer from scenyc, the first tech startup in The Bronx (2005) and a founding partner of MetaBronx, "Over the past 2 years, we've experienced more digital technology innovation in The Bronx than in the preceding 8 years. And the type of innovation accelerating here is unique because it's community-driven. If we want the United States to be competitive in a global economy, we must immediately include MWBE population groups in the innovation equation."

The MetaBronx mission is to leverage the extraordinary creativity and diversity of The Bronx by mentoring Minority and Women Owned (MWBE) startups, preparing these entrepreneurs for venture funding during a 6-month part-time program tailored to the needs of communities that are typically excluded from the production side of the digital economy.

Miguel Sanchez from Mass Ideation, the first MWBE tech startup in The Bronx and a founding partner of MetaBronx, explains "What i see is a dramatic shift in local economic development patterns due to the increasing domination of digital technology in our lives. But it's not likely that problems in The Bronx are going to get solved from downtown; I've been on both sides of the digital divide, and i'm starting MetaBronx as a practical and realistic path for MWBE startups to access venture capital. "

To date, MetaBronx has raised over 250K in seed capital from private investors.

The startups in the current cohort include: • The Glass Files (History on the Internet) - theglassfiles.com • Neture (broadband in The Bronx) - neture.co • NYCNAK (online retail for distributing local artists) - nycnak.com • Vibrints (augmented reality marketing) - vibrints.com • grupo (community exchange and remittance) - getgrupo.co • Concourse Markets (loan syndication) - concoursemarkets.com

The program takes place in two locations in The Bronx: - scenyc's 4,500 sq ft complex of media and technology studios, in Mott Haven - the BXL Business Incubator's 12,000 sq ft co-working space, in Hunts Point

Startups accepted into the program receive access to physical and digital work spaces, and daily mentoring from entrepreneurs and experts in: - business strategy - finance - media and content production - technology engineering - marketing and community engagement

The MetaBronx program is a 21st century extension and partner of existing business development programs at SoBro (South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation) and the BXL Business Incubator, with the principal evolution that digital technology is at the center of startup accelerator programs.

In addition, startups can source their talent - collaborators, staff members, and apprentices - directly from a number of local education and workforce development partners, led by The Knowledge House.

Jerelyn Rodriguez, co-Founder of The Knowledge House, elaborates: "We've been training young Bronxites who are particularly interested in becoming software developers and digital media producers, towards local employers like Mass Ideation, scenyc, Duro, and all the companies headquartered at the BXL Business Incubator. Inspired by our network of diverse entrepreneurs, some of the Knowledge House students have launched their own startups. This further substantiates the need for MetaBronx and community-driven economic development."

Additional education-centric collaborations are certain to include the Digital Media Program at Hostos Community College (CUNY), Bronx Academy for Software Engineering (BASE), Bronx High School for the Visual Arts, DreamYard, Code/Interactive, and Per Scholas.

Assemblymember Michael Blake is the most ardently supportive and inspiring elected official in The Bronx when it comes to embracing 21st century digital technology as the most effective tool for local economic empowerment:

"Support for MWBEs has been a focus of mine for many years," said Assemblymember Michael Blake from the 79th District. "We need entities like MetaBronx to support MWBEs not only with access to capital, but all of the other needed services to help them grow and sustain their businesses. This is a game-changing social innovation opportunity, and the fact that it's coming from The Bronx is in and of itself evidence of how much untapped potential is in our Borough."

Not only are jobs in digital media and technology readily available, but they are attractive, high paying, and employers often do not require candidates to have college degrees. In fact, the salary of an entry-level position as a software developer can lift an entire family out of poverty.

The MetaBronx program culminates in Demo Day, during which startups pitch to successful entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors. The second program is scheduled to begin March 1st, 2016, with applications due by February 15th, 2016.

http://www.metabronx.com

For more information, contact Philip M Shearer at [email protected] or Miguel Sanchez at [email protected]

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