NYC: The City That Never Sleeps...on Innovative Companies
Well, we at Horn Group could've told you that—we've repped some fantastic start-ups in the NYC-area during our 19 years in business. But so also says Kevin Ryan, founder and CEO of Gilt Groupe, who spoke to a packed house of tech professionals last night at HB Burger in Midtown Manhattan as part of The Masters Series sponsored by NYCTechnologyLadder.
Ryan's focus was on nurturing innovative companies in NYC and what that specifically means for tech careers in the future. His discussion was driven by several key observations he has made through his time as an entrepreneur which he hopes dispells some of the myths surrounding starting up a business in the Big Apple.
Most notably, there is a fundamental change in how venture capitalists are perceiving the region. Traditionally, places such as San Francisco and even Boston have seen the lion's share of VC funding, but things have levelled off a bit recently.
"New York City has the necessary infrastructure and ecosystem now," said Ryan, who also heads the NYC-based AlleyCorp, a network of Internet sites which includes The Business Insider, Gilt Groupe, ShopWiki, and 10gen.
He credits the shrinking gap to a second generation of investors who have proven that creating innovative Web-based businesses in the city is very possible. This, in turn, has attracted talent from Silicon Valley to make the move to Silicon Alley, as well as augmenting local interest in setting up shop in New York.
He pointed to the success story of Michael Walrath, former CEO of Right Media (headquartered in New York City), who was part of his initially small team at DoubleClick before defecting and starting the competing online advertising firm. Right Media was acquired by Yahoo in 2007 to the tune of $720 million. (Right Media is a former Horn Group client.)
Challenging start-up companies to acquire top talent, Ryan also told potential employees to not overvalue a salary and a position within an organization in its nascency, nor overvalue the sector within which that company resides.
"It's not only better to be in a company that is growing, but success is more fun and rewarding as well," he said, adding that if someone is not willing to share the pain of creating and growing a business, he or she probably isn't the right person anyway.
Other key observations he made during his discussion included:
- People overly look at what is a great trend; they should focus on what is a great company.
- A product is only good when you can get people to tell their friends about it.
- There are opportunities of varying sizes out there for successful new companies, simply by cutting into a $1 billion or $15 billion industry with a hyperspecialized business.
- If you have to do sophisticated research about a sector, you're not adequately knowledgeable with that industry. Stick with what you know.
- Sometimes you don't even need a good product, just a great and dedicated team.
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