(UPDATED - HERE”S WHERE TO VOTE!) The New York Tech Meetup serves as the center of the New York Tech Scene. Each month, hundreds of people come together to see cool demos of new products and meet other innovators in our community. While the NYTM is already a great organization, I believe I could add a great deal as a member of The New York Tech Meetup’s Board of Directors.

Who am I? In my spare time, I’m a blogger for VentureBeat and an amateur rapper (see my raps about NYC startups directly below, the first one you need to endure my BRIEF campaign speech).

Watch live streaming video from nytechmeetup at livestream.com

My full-time job for the past six months has been as founder and CEO of Standard Start, a non-profit helping startups with the nuts and bolts of starting a business. In partnership with Gunderson Dettmer, we’re producing standardized legal documents from formation to financing with plain English explanations of each clause.

We’re syndicating content from bloggers like Fred Wilson, Mark Suster, and Matt Bartus and creating original materials breaking down the real life mistakes of entrepreneurs. We’re covering the stuff that is basically the same for everyone, allowing founders to easily discover and comprehend the basics of running your own business. We’re currently in private Alpha, with our full launch coming at the beginning of next year. 

I funded Standard Start out of my own pockets because I don’t want anyone making the same mistakes I’ve made starting businesses. In addition to working on the site, which is now in private alpha, I’ve personally advised a number of startups in areas including legal, communications, product, and financing. I’ve dedicated the past 6 months solely to helping startups and the the tech scene as a whole expand and evolve. This is why I’m running for the NYTM board.

So what do I want to do?

1.     Increase support for technologists looking to start businesses

While the New York Tech Meetup does a great job of showcasing the New York City Tech scene, I think the organization can do more to support innovators as they create businesses. I founded Standard Start to help entrepreneurs, I believe the time I’ve spent assessing the needs of entrepreneurs would help the NYTM community to better support them.

2.     I want to work with the New York Tech Meetup to further increase civic engagement by the New York Tech Community.

There are so many causes that could be enhanced by the skills of NYTM members, we need to make it easier for the community to give back. I have connected members of City government with prominent members of New York’s tech ecosystem. As a member of the NYTM board, I would work with the City to expand their burgeoning efforts to work with the tech community.

3.     Increase student involvement

The New York Tech Meetup’s student group has already been quite active, I think there are a number of ways we can further increase the number of NYC grads who flow into the tech community. I’m excited about the opportunity to build upon the NYTM’s and HackNY’s already stellar record here and further help NY universities expand the talent pool in the startup community.

If elected, I will work tirelessly with the other members of the board to help the New York Tech Meetup, as well as the broader tech scene, to expand and evolve. If you want to learn more about me, check out my bio here. If you’d like to vote for me, please click here and do so.
Thanks, Jacob

Congrats to the guys at Startup Visa. The Startup Visa Act of 2010 recently introduced in the Senate by John Kerry (D) and Richard Lugar (R) will only help create jobs in this country (here’s VentureBeat’s coverage). Some xenophobes might claim these foreigners are taken jobs that could be filled by Americans, but it’s actually the opposite. The terms of the bill means that anyone receiving a Startup Visa would actually be creating jobs instead of setting up shop abroad and creating them there.

The reason the Startup Visa Bill is only getting traction now because there’s no formal political presence dedicated to pushing the entrepreneur’s agenda. There’s the NASBIC and NVCA for investors, but those organizations are using their political muscle on tax legislation and finance regulation. While there are plenty of VC’s pushing this issue like Fred Wilson and Brad Feld, they can only do so much. The startup community needs a formal voice in Washington, which is why we need a Startup PAC.

A Startup PAC could lobby members of Congress properly, framing issues for elected officials so they are palatable to their constituents. Fiscal and small-government conservatives can be sold the Startup Visa as reducing regulation so businesses, not government, can create jobs. Elected officials in areas with high unemployment need to be convinced to support the bill openly as a way to create jobs, only bringing foreigners who will create jobs for Americans.

A Startup PAC would also able to lobby on a whole host of issues that affect startups like net-neutrality and patent trolls. It could also donate money to elected officials who support legislations that fosters entrepreneurship. Many people complain about how  the government isn’t doing enough to help startups. That’s because startups need better biz-dev people in Washington to give them more of a reason to act. For that we need a well-funded PAC.

I’d appreciate any thoughts people have, just leave them in the comments. You can check out the full language of the bill below.

Startup Visa Act Final Final 1

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• StartUp Visa Act Introduced By Senators Kerry and Lugar (feld.com)
• The Startup Visa (update) (avc.com)

As I go to events and visit startups, I’m amazed at the innovation and insight emanating from New York based entrepreneurs. With the decade coming to a close, I have a few resolutions NYC startups should follow to continue building the infrastructure for a successful startup ecosystem.

The NYC Startup Community:

1. “…will create products that appeal to more than just geeks.” Too many tech companies create products by geeks for geeks, limiting their potential userbase  and chances for survival. The beauty of a company like Etsy is that it built a tech company with a vibrant developer community around a marketplace for handmade items. According to CTO Chad Dickerson, Etsy developers are mostly boyfriends and husbands of Etsy sellers, increasing sales of low-tech handmade products by creating hi-tech but easy to use tools (one example is the Colormatch app by Olive Street). Many people turned their hobbies into small businesses using Etsy, a prime example of creating technology products for non-techie users. Lets hope we see more Etsy’s sprouting up this year.
2. “…will continue to treat our users as partners.” When Foursquare started allowing its most dedicated users to merge duplicate venues, CEO Dennis Crowley claimed, “it took less than 2 hours for users to go thru 90% of our merge queue.” Foursquare has been growing at such a prodigious rate because its users feel like their a part of a community. Why else would they spend so much time interacting with the service? While badges and mayorships offer small payoffs for their users. there is a big payoff in terms of user engagement. I anticipate we’ll see more and more successful businesses built on the blood, sweat and tears of their users
3. “…will create and expand open platforms.” Union Square Ventures managing partner Fred Wilson has said numerous times, “3rd party devs will show you the way.” By creating open platforms with read/write APIs, companies can continue innovating while focusing on their core products. Twitter has shown that small development teams can create dynamic products with compelling features. Many of these features, my favorite being Twitter lists, have been integrated into the core service. Boxee is another example of a strong 3rd party developer community, giving content providers from MLB.TV to Suicide Girls the capability to develop their specific applications while Boxee focuses on the platform. I can’t wait to see what the development community comes up with next.
4. “…will nurture fledgling members of the community.” One of the things I’ve noticed about the New York scene is how approachable and helpful its members are (Sam Rosen wrote a good blog post on this subject). The same way we need open platforms to spur innovation, we also need an open culture to nurture fledgling entrepreneurs and companies. The NYC Startup community communicates and works together, promoting each other’s offerings and providing excellent feedback. A bootstrapping entrepreneur with an pre-alpha product can approach the CEO of a $50 million company and solicit advice without feeling like they’re imposing. I’d like to personally thank Fred Wilson, Charlie O’Donnell, Dennis Crowley, Justin Shaffer & the guys at Hot Potato, Spencer Richardson, and all the other members of the New York startup community who have taken the time to speak with me this year.