Musings of a VC in NYC

iPhone - Going, Going, Gone

The auction of my brand new 1.1.2 firmware iPhone on this blog worked. I didn't set the rules particularly well, but you all got the gist of what needed to happen.

I know that Edgeio is now dead, but I still believe in the power of the blog to be a commerce platform. It's all about audience. If you have the right one, you can sell stuff. I sold the iPhone and four tickets to the Neil Young show yesterday. Pretty cool. I don't plan on turning AVC into eBay, but I like to use this blog to try stuff out from time to time and yesterday was a good day for selling stuff.

So here's the deal on the iPhone. It's going to flynch for $375 plus shipping. He bid $399 but that was after the midnight cutoff, so I am accepting the $375 offer. If flynch flakes out and doesn't come through then I'll go with the next best offer.  I'd like flynch to send me an email today (email is on the left sidebar) and we can work out the details.

There was a higher bid from Gilbert. It involved making a $251 gift to the charity of his choice and reading his pitch. Gilbert, send me your pitch. I'll read it and if I like it, I'll give $251 to the charity of your choice.

But flynch is getting the iPhone. For his wife.  For Christmas. I love turning lemons into lemonade.

Neil Young Tickets - Thursday Night - Two Tickets Available

If you are a Neil Young fan, you probably know that he's playing three shows this week in NYC, wednesday night, thursday night, and saturday night. I have tickets to wednesday and thursday night and need to unload two tickets to thursday night. Here are the details:

Neil Young
Thursday, Dec 13th, 8pm
United Palace Theater, Orchestra Left Center
Row X, Seats 5 & 6
they are two seats in from the center aisle, near the back of the orchestra
here's the seating chart for United Palace

I paid $117.75 per ticket. I'll take any reasonable offer. Please send me an email if you are interested. My email address is linked to on the left sidebar of this blog.

UPDATE: I sold these tickets. Got face value. Thanks for all the interest.

iPhone For Sale

I can't unlock this phone and it's driving me crazy sitting in the box it came in.

I have to get rid of it. So it's for sale.

A brand new 1.1.2 firmware iPhone. The best offer I get by midnight monday, Dec  10th gets the phone. The minimum bid is $249, a $150 discount. Hopefully I'll do better.

Paypal payments only.

This is the last iPhone I buy directly from Apple. From now on, I am only buying unlocked iPhones.

Fuck Apple.

Long AAPL.

Are You A Mobile Bus Dev Person?

If so, please give this job spec on the Twitter blog a read.

We need someone to talk to mobile and IM operators all over the world and manage those relationships.

Even if you aren't a mobile bus dev person, we'd love leads on good ones that you know.

The job is SF-based.

Looking For A Killer Sys Admin

Outside.in, a Union Square Ventures portfolio company, is growing rapidly and needs someone to focus on the scaling issues. Here's the job description.

Outside.in is looking for a system administrator to help us manage our growing collection of web and database servers. We are looking for someone with experience in load balancing and clustering web servers running Ruby on Rails and PHP. You'll be expected to identify possible bottlenecks and scalability issues before they happen, and work closely with developers to address the problems you find.

Outside.in is located in Brooklyn, NY. If you are interested send an email with your resume to jobs.outside.in.

Looking For A Killer Information Architect

Our portfolio company, Oddcast, is at the cutting edge of social media with their talking animated avatars that allow people to express themselves virtually on the web. They are seeking an information architect to help them take their products and technology to the next level. The job is in New York City and they are willing to do a relocation for the right candidate.

As Adi Sideman, Oddcast's CEO puts it,

…the position requires strong technical background, yet its a multi-disciplinary position of sorts, not only leading the product development, but working with the CEO and the business managers to shape new consumer products and features, the community structure and the revenue infrastructure…
 
…Its to be in the eye of the storm of developing the next generation Social Media Technology…

Here's the job spec in case you want a more detailed description of the job:

The position is a critical and key role in the company, driving product from the early conceptual stages through development, launch and ongoing feature enhancements and associated new consumer products.  The product allows consumers to express themselves through avatars within social environments.

Responsibilities include:
·        Responsible for creating product specifications

·        Lead product development working closely with the engineering team

·        Create product marketing schemes, viral features

·        Integrate CRM, Reporting and analytics tools

·        Review, analyze and incorporate customer/market requirements.

About the Candidate:

Experience in writing technical product specifications, a must.
Experience in information architecture, product management or product development required.
Background in development of state of the art internet applications critical.
Must have detailed knowledge of internet & graphics applications
Strong technical background including an Engineering degree or the equivalent.
Experience working in Media on Consumer products is a plus.

Company Contact Info:
Please send resume to Oddcast along with cover letter including salary requirements.

VP E-Commerce Opportunity

Alacra, a Flatiron portfolio company based in NYC, is looking for a VP E-Commerce.

I've been on the board of Alacra since 1999 and it is a great company that people love to work for.

This is a plum job as it involves leading the company in developing consumer facing services (like The Alacra Store) to compliment their best of breed enterprise solutions.

Alacra is particularly interested in people with deep experience in web analytics and search engine optimization.

If you are interested, please email your resume and salary history to [email protected].

Knicks Tickets

A friend of mine has had seasons tickets to the Knicks for a while. They are great seats, four of them, section 76, row L.  Here’s a link to see the view from the seats.

He used to split them with another person but that friend lost his enthusiasm for the Knicks. Last year I split them with my friend. But after last season, we’ve both lost enthusiasm for the Knicks.

So the renewal letters were mailed out last week. And we have until August 21st to decide whether to reup for what is surely another losing season under a terrible owner and a terrible coach/GM.

But as my friend reminds me, these tickets are real estate. If you don’t pay the rent, you’ll lose the seats and most likely won’t be able to get them back when and if the Knicks are ever good again.

So here is the deal we are looking to make. We want to find a partner for 10 games. We’ll split the tickets right up the calendar so nobody can cherry pick. And if you take 10 games from us this year, you can have 10 games every year, plus your share of playoff games when and if they every come again, for as long as my friend keeps his tickets.

Let me know if you are interested and I'll share the financial details with you. You can leave a comment or send me an email.

Looking For An Experienced CFO

One of my portfolio companies is looking for an experienced and energetic CFO to join its senior management team. The company is located in New York City.

The CFO will report to the CEO and will be responsible for all aspects of finance, corporate affairs and office administration.  Some specific duties include: working with a Big Four accounting firm to complete annual audit and tax returns; managing HR; preparation of all financial reports and Board meeting materials; creation of sales commission plans; and managing the employee stock option plan.  The company is a well-established, rapidly growing, and serves financial institutions and professional services firms globally.

If you are interested in the position, send an email to [email protected]

Where It’s At In Music Discovery

People talk about Pandora and Last.fm as if they are the holy grail of music discovery.

Bob Lefsetz moans the loss of FM radio and drives around in his car listening to XM play 20 year old music and thinks XM is where it's at in digital music.

XM and Pandora are for the over 40 crowd who like their music spoon fed to them. They aren’t anywhere near where it’s at in music discovery.

If you want to know where it’s at in music discovery these days, you have to be on the mp3 blogs. Because that is where the next big act is going to be launched. Hell it has already happened. Take my beloved Arctic Monkeys who I found on the mp3 blogs last year. That’s where the people who really love new music do their thing.

And there's a couple of hundred
Think they're Christopher Columbus

That’s all it takes, a couple of a hundred blogs, to discover cool music. They post it and we discover it. And all we have to do is click on the link and hear the music. None of that bs 30 second sample stuff. You get the whole song on the mp3 blogs and you get it as much as you want.

And better yet, there’s an aggregator out there called The Hype Machine which culls all the mp3 blogs and serves up an aggregated playlist. It’s like delicious (link density matters) and you can get recent or popular or just one act or just one blog. And Hype Machine has its own player so you can do the spoon feed thing if you want.

I find so much great music on the mp3 blogs and the hype machine. Just last week I found a great band called TV on the Radio. I’ve been listening to them on Rhapsody and am going to buy the record.

What mp3 blogs do is combine the best of radio, music magazines, and the web into one ecosystem that works to surface interesting new music. If you want to dive into mp3 blogs, start with the HypeMachine and start listening and clicking on the links. You’ll be entering the future of music discovery.