Nate Westheimer, the entrepreneur in residence at the Silicon Alley VC firm Rose Tech Ventures and the organizer of the NY Tech Meetup, has taken a new position as VP of product at the New York/Jerusalem based company AnyClip.  AnyClip is a site launching later in 2009 that is building a legal database of scenes from movies.

Silicon Alley Insider

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NYConvergence ORIGINAL

The NY State Senate has relaunched its Web site.  Visitors can now find out more information about their representatives and their districts, as well as watch videos of debates from the Senate Chamber.  You can find the Web site here.

For Your Imagination is proud to be part of the first annual OnFronts on June 9, 2009 in New HYork City and will showcase the value of digital entertainment with keynotes, a panel discussion and multimedia presentations from leading digital content creators followed by an exclusive cocktail reception.

NYConvergence ORIGINAL

The NY Tech Meetup headed further uptown for its May gathering last night, hosting members of the local tech community at New World Stages in Manhattan's Midtown neighborhood. 

Six startups presented, including Apture from San Francisco.  The presenters included:

• Apture: Showed off their technology for easily embedding different types of media in existing and new Web pages.
• Zemanta: Demonstrated their tool for making it easier to embed links and other media in blogs where you have an existing account.  They also informed the attendees that they had just started a New York office, borrowing some desks from Outside.in in Brooklyn's Digital District aka DUMBO.
• exZact Data Collection: Their Web-based application allows users to create forms which can be used by utility workers or possibly, census takers, on their Apple iTouches.
• ActionMethod: This tool helps users organize projects, especially useful if all of your team members are not in the same physical location.
• SesameVault: They have developed a way for companies to more easily share different types of media across multiple platforms.
• RmbrMe: BeamMe Pitch, which they just developed, allows you to send files to mobile devices more easily, even through Twitter via secure links.

The presentations concluded with a talk by Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman on his recent trip to Baghdad, Iraq with other senior-level executives from the United States' technology industry, including Google, YouTube, and others.

Below is a growing list of Brooklyn Blogfest attendees. Click on "Full Screen" to see more detail about each one.

Below is a growing list of Brooklyn Blogfest attendees. Click on "Full Screen" to see more detail about each one.

From ‘Entrepreneurs Roundtable 13′ 4/22 with Albert Wenger (USV)
http://eroundtable13.eventbrite.com
and ‘Roadmap for the Entrepreneur’ panel 4/24 with Howard Morgan (First Round Capital), Albert Wenger (USV), Danny Schultz (DFJ Gotham), Gil Beyda (Genacast Ventures) and Santo Politi (Spark Capital):
http://nycentweekentpanel.eventbrite.com/

* In 2005, VC-backed companies accounted for 17% of GDP & 9% of private-sector employment - so the VC decision process is very important for the economy in general

* First Round Capital gets 2500 plans a year, 500 of these get 1-hour calls, 100 get due-diligence, 20 get funded (0.8% of all the applicants)

* First Round Capital has a CEO-only list of their portfolio companies, a very efficient channel for their companies to get help, suggestions, data, referrals.

* Worst thing in a board meeting is a “surprise”!

* Marketing is all about removing objections to your pitch. While you are pitching, think like the investor.

* The best way to get funding is to ‘not need it’

* VCs help their portfolio companies but they don’t want to feel like they need to help them constantly to get the business going.

* In the current economic environment, deals take longer, rounds are smaller and there are fewer angels (no more extra money because of the stock market)

* Metrics are very important. Track everything. Also present a ‘cohort analysis’, not just active users (1 month) numbers. Cohort analysis show that a user who signed up in January, is still using the service in May.

* There are 13M available tracks available for sale online, 10M of them haven’t sold once in the past year.

* VCs do not like industries with gate keepers where a startup would need permission from a gate keeper (like in health care). Mobile software used to be like this, not anymore.

* Amazon had 35% of their sales through their ‘recommendation’ feature.

* VCs sometimes actively go out there to find ‘a company’. USV invested in ‘indeed.com’ because they went out there and looked for a company with their business model.

* 2007 to 2009, infrastructure costs have come down by 10x.

* Find your value proposition. Targeting many features may end up looking unfocused/not useful.