Let’s set the stage.

On February 12, 2011, Hosni Mubarak resigned as President of Egypt. Just one month prior, on January 17th, a man lit himself on fire in front of Egypt’s parliament building in downtown Cairo – propelling the country’s people on a mission to overthrow Mubarak and his regime. Beginning on January 25th, the entire nation of Egypt rose up against their tyrant of a leader and demanded their independence… protesting around the clock for weeks.

The Egyptian revolution captivated the whole world. In some people’s eyes, Mubarak’s resignation represented the end of the revolution. But, while February 12th was a day to rejoice in Tahrir Square, it was only the beginning of Egypt’s renaissance. In this post, I interview Mustafa Eck about his Kickstarter project (*NOTE: Please pledge your support!) and take a quick, inside look at the state of the revolution in Egypt today.

Here’s the preamble: Egypt’s journey to independence the past 10 months has been rocky and inundated with misunderstanding – even within the country. Presently, it is still largely in disarray. The outside world has so many misconceptions about the Middle East. What, actually, is becoming of Egypt after Mubarak’s downfall? What is the state of the revolution? Enter Mustaka Eck.

MEET MUSTAFA ECK, THE EGYPTIAN-AMERICAN FILMMAKER

Mustafa is on a mission of his own, a mission to explain his own bi-cultural heritage (he was born in the U.S. and raised between Egypt, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia) while tackling the current state of the still unresolved Egyptian Revolution. How? By making a documentary called “The I Don’t Understand Movie“, which he has created a project for on Kickstarter.

His background is both intriguing and impressive. Currently, he is a student in the Film & Television Production program at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Previously, he studied at the Zaki Gordon Institute for Independent Filmmaking. His exciting track record carries with it a logical narrative: he explored misconceptions surrounding the Middle East while at the Zaki Gordon Institute. His first short documentary, titled Ana Mish Fahim, was shown in festivals worldwide and became a finalist for the prestigious Student Academy Award. In fact, he even scored a rare interview with Gihan Sadat, the widow of Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat.

His Kickstarter project is a compelling progression of what he is most passionate about.

THE UNDERDOG: SIX DAYS TO RAISE $7,000 ON KICKSTARTER

Aided by one of  my closest friends, Nour Ahmadein (whom I became tight with while we both studied at the Washington Semester Program at American University in D.C. last fall, 2010), Mustafa is currently in Egypt doing everything he can to bring his documentary to life. As of this morning, Mustafa had a total of 56 backers and had raised $2,317 of the $7,000 he needs to make his vision for “The I Don’t Understand Movie” a reality.

As MSNBC explained last night, Kickstarter works by enabling the creators of each project to collect their ‘crowd investment’ from the backers only if they raise enough money to meet the goal they set at the outset of the project. Additionally, the backers are given several different levels of ‘rewards’ depending on how much they pledge.

Mustafa Eck wants to shake things up. Having been in and out of Egypt since the beginning of the revolution, he wants to tell the whole story. He was in Cairo just days before the revolution began, directing an Arabic hip-hop music video in the heart of Tahrir Square (where the protests have taken place all year long).

THE INTERVIEW

1) Who are you? What is inspiring you to go out and make this documentary happen?

I am half American and half Egyptian.  This is a personal film I’m creating for cathartic reasons, in the pursuit of self discovery.  In short, growing up with parents from two different cultures can be very confusing. With this documentary I hope to clear up many issues for myself, but also for my two cultures at large.

2) It’s been talked about a lot, but in your opinion how would you describe the role that the social web (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) played in the Egyptian revolution?

As far as the Egyptian revolution is concerned, it could not have happened without the guidance (and guise) of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Prior to January 25th, gathering in a public space to voice one’s grievances was highly dangerous – and rarely attempted.  However, on the Internet, Egyptians were able to more safely pre-organize and successfully launch protests which would eventually culminate in the toppling of Mubarak’s regime.

3) I know this is a broad question, but what is it like in Egypt right now?

I just landed in Egypt today. Everything seems as it was when I left last year.  But then on the way home, I saw a banner for a presidential candidate – something I never thought I’d see.  Also, I’m learning that in my neighborhood, there have been some instances of heightened violence due to a lack of police presence. [*NOTE: Below is an image from the heart of Tahrir Square taken by Nour last week:]

EGYPT TODAY: AN UPDATE FROM MUSTAFA AND NOUR IN CAIRO

In an update he posted from Egypt on December 18th, Mustafa wrote:

“Already in my short time here in Cairo, I’ve seen the difference between what the state media is reporting and what is happening on the ground in Tahrir as we speak.  Many Egyptians believe that the people that are in Tahrir Square now are agitators who are being paid by Hosni Mubarak and his cronies to disrupt order.

I went down to Tahrir last night and was in the crowd as troops were firing live rounds at the front lines.  The government is also claiming that they are showing great restraint, even though ten Egyptians have reportedly been killed in the recent protests and more than 450 have been hospitalized.

The bottom line is that genuine information, even within Egypt itself, is hard to come by.”

Nour has been tweeting outspoken updates from Cairo of his country’s unresolved revolution:

Is tahrir a microcosm of the rest of egypt or is it the other way around? I don’t get, how do ppls trust/desire for the military keep growin

— Nour Ahmadein (@EntrepreNour) December 17, 2011

How many more attacks will it take for the Egyptian populace to learn that the military was never WITH us. They never were and never will be

— Nour Ahmadein (@EntrepreNour) December 17, 2011

I’m downtown – military roadblocks around arteries into tahrir, and police directing traffic – where’s the young revolutionaries

— Nour Ahmadein (@EntrepreNour) December 19, 2011

The media, alongside the military strategies taken thus far, have succesfully brainwashed the masses against human rights defenders

— Nour Ahmadein (@EntrepreNour) December 19, 2011

But the young originals (shabab al sawra el asleya) from tahrir are currently boiling in a tightly covered kettle that will explode…..soon

— Nour Ahmadein (@EntrepreNour) December 19, 2011

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I hope you enjoyed Mustafa’s story. If you believe in his cause, please pledge what you can on Kickstarter to support his fledgling documentary. Every dollar helps, and Nour and Mustafa are the real deal. I vouch 100% for both of them. If you want to get in touch with Mustafa, his email address is: eck@usc.edu. You can also Tweet him: @MustafaEck. Nour’s email address is: nourahmadein@gmail.com. You can also tweet Nour here: @EntrepreNour.

Thank you for reading and for supporting their cause and the continuing revolution in Egypt. Let’s help them make this documentary a REALITY (to pledge, click: here)!

Being that she is a mentor, boss, friend, and personal heroine of mine, the decision to crank out this video for her at 3:00am EST (the night before my exam) was clear: I had to do it.

The Raise Cache event was set to take place on Thursday night, November 17th. I shot my video on ‘Wednesday night’ (3am), the 16th, from my house off campus at Clarkson University. Somehow, Rachel found a way to include me in the final version of the music video that she debuted less than 15 hours later in NYC. For many reasons similar to this example, Rachel will always be a legend in my world.

THE BACKGROUND: RAISE CACHE AND HACKNY

Raise Cache was a benefit fashion show for hackNY that took place on Thursday, November 17th, at the Lexington Avenue Armory. Organized by Rebecca Zhou (member of the inaugural TechStars NY HackStar Program), the event kicked off with Rachel’s music video and was followed by a runway show that showcased designs by some of the hottest fashion startups in New York. The models included many of the city’s prominent technology entrepreneurs.

In addition to celebrating many of the most “disruptive companies embracing the city’s unique mix of tech, style, art, and culture“, Raise Cache raised $103,789.22 for hackNY (according to Courtney Boyd Myers, East-Coast editor for The Next Web)! Meanwhile, hackNY is a non-profit organization whose goal is to nurture the “next generation of hackers for the New York innovation community“. It was founded by faculty from NYU (Prof. Evan Korth) and Columbia University (Prof. Chris Wiggins) and includes a summer Fellows program along with student hackathons during the academic year.

THE CENTERPIECE: RACHEL SKLAR

Rachel Sklar has been a driving force in the renaissance of New York’s technology ecosystem, having a direct influence on many of the city’s top startups. She co-founded Change The Ratio, an organization which promotes visibility, access and opportunity for women in the media and technology worlds. She is also the Founding Editor of Mediaite; an advisor for Hashable on all things product, evangelism, marketing, and legal; a mentor for TechStars NY; and the former Senior Contributing Editor for the Huffington Post.

From what I can tell, she spends the rest of her time mentoring and formally advising a collection of startups (including Siftee, Lover.ly, and soon-to-be winter ’12 Y-Combinator startup DailyMu.se), entrepreneurs, and up-and-comers in New York.

The Raise Cache music video below is her brainchild – she wrote every lyric and utilized her extensive personal network to include cameos from Fred (Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures) and Joanne Wilson (angel investor, author of the ‘Gotham Gal’ blog), Dennis Crowley (Co-Founder, foursquare), David Tisch (Managing Director, TechStars NY), Jessica Lawrence (Managing Director, New York Tech Meetup), and Jason Kincaid (writer/reporter, TechCrunch; host, TC Cribs).

THE OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

Below is the official music video – created by Rachel Sklar, edited by Phil Di Giulio (Co-Founder, FrameSocket), and ‘mix-mastered’ by David Pakman (Venture Capitalist, Venrock):

Lastly, below are the lyrics to the song – as written by Rachel:

RAISE YOUR CACHE
(To the tune of Pink’s “Raise Your Glass”)

Hack, hack, get in the black
Get on the ball there’s no turning back
Show some stamina

Think, think, energy drink
Push some more code it’s swim or sink
Want some ramen, ya?

Founder, hacker
Venture backer
Maker, shaker
Firecracker
Trying, frying, odds-defying
This shit’s serious

So raise some cache if you’ll be here
To hack one more day
Startup underdogs
We’ll just iterate, iterate – lighting up the night
In New York City – til we get it right
But until then until then we’ll raid your stash
Just come on and come on and raise your cash!

Pitch, glitch, scratching the itch
Solving the problem to make us rich
Can’t we just cash out (cash out!)
Bootstrap, note with a cap,
Building the userbase, build the app
It’s so on right now (so fuckin’ on right now)

Rip it, zip it,
Ship it, flip it
Read the blog from that guy from Yipit
Flying, vying, Hack NY-ing
This shit’s serious

So raise some cache if you’ll burn on
Without a runway
Startup underdogs,
We will never be never be anything but lean
It’s better that than going to Wall Street
So just come and come on and make your splash
Just come and come on and raise some cash
If you’re dorky, New Yorky then raise some cash
Keep on wishin’ it, Tischin’ it – raise some cash

(Bubble? This ain’t no Y2K, baby.)

And if you’re short on the flow
And the going’s pretty slow
You can change that ratio
We can always, we can always,
Raise another round…

(Aw, foo!)

So raise some cash if you are in
It for the long haul
Startup underdogs,
Keep on making things making things – every single day,
In New York City
Techie little geeks
So – raise – some
Cache if you are here,
And you are staying
New York underdogs,
We can make it here make it here – only gotta try
In New York City
Here’s to us, NY
And together together we’ll raise some cache
With community, unity – raise some cache
Just come on and come on and raise some cache
Just come on and come on and raise your cache
For me

*******

Who was your favorite cameo? Did you see Mark Suster (Venture Capitalist at GRP Partners in LA and author of my favorite blog)? What did you think of the music video? Drop your insight in the comments!

Today, he found an email that I sent to him on June 4, 2010 and forwarded it to me. At the time, I had recently returned home from studying abroad in Singapore. In fact, I had just come home from volunteering at TechCrunch Disrupt in NYC. Collin was on a co-op (8 month long internship) with Johnson&Johnson.

I was thinking about how inspired I was by technology, and reminiscing back to where that inspiration initially came from. Reading this email again, just now, reminded me of how much Steve Jobs influenced my roommate – and in turn, how much my roommate sparked my own imagination with regard to technology. The email is below.

R.I.P. Steve… heroes are remembered, but legends never die. Steve Jobs was both.

******

From: Collin Yarbrough <yarbrocr@clarkson.edu>
Date: Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 1:35 PM
Subject: Fwd: Steve Jobs. The Godfather. A hero of mine because of you….
To: John Exley <exleyja@gmail.com>

THE VISION

Their vision is huge. They plan to take The DDP to every country in the world. They dream of creating a lasting global movement and hosting a “Simultaneous World Dance Party” – a Party transmitted to people all around the world, at the same time. Gary can see their Parties playing a role on positive social education one day.

They even have a particular philosophy for how to Party; a philosophy they spelled out in a must-read blog post titled “The Seven Commandments of Successful Partying“. Since, the rather epic post has become known as ‘The Party Manifesto‘.

“Our goal is to further the frontiers of Partying, bring joy to millions of people and ensure that Partying is legitimized, respected, and forever enshrined as a spiritual movement of paramount importance.“

THE BEGINNING

Gary and his co-founder Tom believe that Partying is “the most misunderestimated artistic medium in existence.” The difference between them and others who may share their beliefs about Partying? Tom and Gary dreamed up something I think is pure genius, and actually acted on it.

In 2006, Gary won an iPod Shuffle in a local Canadian bank promotion. With an old boombox laying around at home, he had a flash of inspiration. If he could connect the iPod to an FM radio transmitter and tune a bunch of battery-powered boomboxes to the same ‘Party broadcast’… he could throw a huge outdoor party where everyone would be in sync to the same music.

Essentially, this was the birth of the name ‘Decentralized Dance Party‘: there is no central audio source and no central location for each Party. Oh, and if you hadn’t noticed already, they have insisted on capitalizing the “P” in ‘Partying’. Always.

PARTYING AS ART

By 2010, Tom and Gary had seen as many as 20,000 people take part in a single night of The DDP – so they decided to go on a tour across Canada. Titling their tour the “Party Safari“, they threw 7 parties in 18 days while trekking coast-to-coast across Canada. Funding the entire tour by themselves, they shared the enjoyment and utter madness of The DDP with thousands and thousands of Partiers.

To Gary, it was evidence of what he has believed all along: that Partying in its purest form is art.

“Partying is a form of art. If you ask someone ‘what is art?’, they would say ‘human self expression’. The more you let loose with that, the more uninhibited you are when you are creating whatever art you are creating, the better that art is. Partying is uninhibited self expression, letting go of everything you’ve been trained to do. Society conditions us to be these scared, boring, homogenized, monotone people who’s main goal is accumulating wealth and working nonstop.“

With that, let’s get to my interview with Gary.

***********************

1.   Who are you guys, haha? What were you up to before you started the Decentralized Dance Party?

Two crazy guys from rural Canada who loved to Party and ran around in crazy clothes at night with boomboxes… freaking out and having the best times, every time, and all the time.

2.   What is the Decentralized Dance Party (“DDP”)?

It’s many things to many people – to us, it is a portable, battery-powered Party System. It consists of hundreds of Party People (carrying boomboxes) and a DJ who wears a backpack containing an FM radio transmitter. We want to redefine what can be possible in a public place… what can and can’t happen. It’s a social experiment with human behavior – how you can bring thousands of people together to have a good time, from all walks of life. (We laid out our whole vision here, and we show you in the video below!)

3.   You must have some crazy, crazy stories after throwing so many parties around the world. Can you share one of the craziest stories?

We have hundreds! We crashed a Santa Clause parade with a brigade of 300 Santas once, and there was the time I nearly lost my life backflipping off a tower into unknown waters… haha. We have thrown over 20 unauthorized parties for thousands of people, and every one has been an adventure . In fact, we even got my Grandma to bust a move (picture below)!

FOUR FAST QUESTIONS TO GET TO KNOW GARY AND THE DDP

1.   Give us an idea of the type of music you play at your parties. What genres, artists, or songs do you prefer the most?

We play Party music: Eurodance, Booty Bass, choice hard rock, Andrew WK, and Gary Low.

2.   What was the size of the biggest Party you’ve organized?

We threw a Party for 20,000 people in the middle of a blizzard in Vancouver (crazy pictures here)!

3.   In your “Party Manifesto”, you say alcohol is used for boring parties. With that being said, what is your favorite type of drink?

Either Finlandia vodka and water or beer/kratom.

4.   Best movie ever made is…?

The Peanut Butter Solution or El Topo.

***********************

Want more? Watch Gary discuss the explosion of the Decentralized Dance Party in the interview below. Don’t miss the end – the camera keeps rolling as Gary leaves the interview and makes his entrance to the 15th ever DDP, which took place in Calgary. It gives you an idea of the energy and enthusiasm at these parties:

***********************

In closing, I will give some background on my interview with Gary. This past summer, my boy Ian Spector invited me to this crazy art gallery showing in the Lower East Side in NYC called “Store Buyout“. They were auctioning off the longest receipt in the world. I met one of the organizers, Kyle McDonald (the guy who traded a red paperclip for a house), and he introduced me to Gary. It was inspiring listening to Gary tell his story of starting the Decentralized Dance Party and his vision to bring it to every country around the world. He was game for the interview and the rest as they say, is history.

I think this is one of the coolest ‘movements’ I’ve ever heard of. If you want to get involved, Gary says:

“We are seeking a broadcast/webcast partner to create a TV/web series featuring our Party exploits – including our plans for the Global Party Pandemic of 2012 and its daunting centerpiece, the ‘Stan Tour’ (Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Transnistria).“

If you have a crazy idea for Gary or a question about The DDP, please drop your knowledge in the comments below!

My mentor/friend Larry Chiang inspired me to write this story.

It is a story from personal experience of building genuine friendships with mentors, and the value of learning from them.

Last year at the inaugural TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City, I was unexpectedly introduced (via text message) to the famed man of technology influence, Robert Scoble. My interaction with him was intentionally brief: we chatted for about two minutes and then took a couple pictures on stage afterwards. I was careful to avoid taking advantage of his time. I also didn’t ask him for his business card. Why? Because Scoble lives a radically transparent life; he posts his contact info all over the place on the World Wide Web.

So, how did I come to be introduced to Robert Scoble? Larry Chiang.

A MEMORABLE MEETING IN 2009 LEADS TO A MEMORABLE TEXT MESSAGE IN 2010

Because I was a volunteer at the TechCrunch conference, my badge gave me access to walk backstage and cut to the front seats in the auditorium. At one point, I tweeted about how awesome it felt to be sitting just a couple rows behind several heroes of mine, including Michael Arrington, Ron Conway, and Scoble. About 20 minutes later I got a text from Mr. Chiang.

His exact text was (and I will never forget how pumped I was reading this): “I just emailed and texted Michael Arrington, Ron Conway, and Robert Scoble about you. Go up and say hi to them.”

So, is my point going to be that the secret is to use Twitter to make a wish, and then hope that a ‘dream-maker’ swoops in and takes care of the rest? Not quite.

Let me rewind the story. Let’s go back to one year before TechCrunch Disrupt. I was in San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Expo (you can see my pictures, here) with my brother Phil Exley and our friend Ben Henschel. It was my sophomore year of university, and I was at my very first tech conference. We decided to go to a ‘Birds of a Feather‘ event after the conference called “Peek Into a Secret Society of Entrepreneurs“. Albeit somewhat skeptical about the title, I was intrigued. Guess who was the dude running the show? That’s right, none other than Larry Chiang.

WHO IS LARRY CHIANG?

Long-story-somewhat-shorter: Larry is the Co-Founder and CEO of duck9, a writer for BusinessWeek, the author of “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“, and the unabashed ‘king of the afterparty’ (my words). In fact, I encourage you to sign in to Facebook and read his “How To Work an AfterParty” post.

At the event, Larry emphasized the importance of not leaving until you had met ONE person you aimed to keep in touch with long term. Larry said that if every person there built one strong relationship with a fellow entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur, he would have done his job. I was blessed to meet Ian Spector, and to this day we are good friends.

WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT TO STAY IN TOUCH

During the summer, I did my best to stay in touch with Larry. I hit him up on Twitter from time to time, read his articles, and even called him once while I was researching the concept of “moonlighting” from your 9-to-5 job to start a startup.

Fast forward. One last story-within-a-story before we come full-circle. It was the fall of 2009, and I was headed to New York City for the east coast version of Web 2.0 Expo. It had been several months since I first met Larry. I was on a Greyhound bus that was stuck in traffic in the midst of a 10 hour trip that began at Clarkson University and ended in Manhattan. Fortunately, there was WiFi on the bus. At one point, it occurred to me that I ought to check out Larry’s Twitter page. I notice that he’s in NYC, planning to attend Web 2.0 just like I am. Typical of Larry, he’s throwing an afterparty on the first night of the conference. I text him, RSVP for the party, and we meet up.

At the afterparty, Larry enlisted my help in preparing the venue for his signature Birds of a Feather event; offering to teach me some public speaking tips beforehand. I ended up taking the lessons he taught me and using them back at my university. They were the theme of my public speaking course’s final speech.

THE INTRODUCTION

Six months later I find myself sitting in the same room with many technology luminaries, including Robert Scoble. Although Larry is across the country in California, he finds a way to perform an unexpected act of awesomeness. Larry sends a text message that gives me the opportunity to meet the great Scobleizer. I build up some courage, introduce myself, and begin with how I am the friend of Larry. Scoble laughs and says hello, and then I proceed to mention how I just returned from studying abroad in Singapore.

To establish some rapport, I told him how I interviewed Ming Yong, the Founder and CEO of Socialwok while I was in Singapore. Socialwok is a company that he worked with at TechCrunch50 when they won the Demopit Award in September 2009.

I then asked if he would mind if we took a picture on stage. While I admit to simply being addicted to taking pictures, it’s also important to me for a number of reasons. First of all, it helps me to remember the people that I’ve met (and vice versa). In the future, Scoble may remember me easier if he can see a picture of when we met. Additionally, it adds a layer of credibility to be pictured with an influencer in the industry I’m so ridiculously passionate about.

So, the key lessons I learned? Build genuine, meaningful relationships. Help your friends and when appropriate, introduce them to people who they may be able to help or who may help them (but not before reading this!). If you have the opportunity, be confident in going up and introducing yourself to the people you respect. Do your best to ask compelling questions. Finally, follow up! Put in the hustle required to stay in touch. You never know when the day might come where you end up meeting a hero of your own.

****************************************************

Many thanks to Larry for everything he’s taught me.

Please share your insight in the comments, I’d love to hear your feedback. If by any chance Scoble is reading this, I hope we meet again!

In Boston’s tech startups ecosystem, StarStreet is the cool kid on the block. The founder is a 24-year old superhustler. The startup is brand new, having graduated from the TechStars mentorship incubator in Boston last June. It even caught the eye of the single most legendary investor in Silicon Valley, Ron Conway (IMHO), who invested in the startup last month.

StarStreet has built itself one of the stronger foundations in startupland. Nevertheless, not even Ron Conway and TechStars can guarantee the success of each company they work with. In my mind, the greatest indicator of StarStreet’s future success is the stickiness of their product. So far, the users are returning to the site consistently. Jeremy Levine (StarStreet’s Founder and CEO) told TechCrunch recently that around “25 percent of the traders are active every single day“. This is a very big idea, and I count myself as a very big believer in the team to deliver on their vision.

*************************************************************************************

WHY I BELIEVE IN THE FOUNDER OF STARSTREET

New York City. It was almost a year ago. The awards ceremony at TechCrunch Disrupt had just concluded. Abruptly, I happened to bump into this ultra-passionate dude who didn’t hesitate to introduce himself.

I was sold on Jeremy Levine’s pitch in the first two minutes. You know that feeling where you just know something’s gonna be big? That was the feeling I had when I got my first look at StarStreet. Since then, Jeremy has proven that he is the definition of someone who can take what he truly loves and build a business based on it.

This guy eats, sleeps, and breathes the market his startup is in. His seemingly instantaneous response time over email continuously blows me away. Even as a young kid, his hustle was evident. He collected sports cards (especially high potential rookies) obsessively. A sports stock market is something Jeremy has been dreaming about ever since he was little.

If Ben Greene created the bandwagon of believers in Jeremy/StarStreet, I’m jumping on board. In a recent vote of confidence for the startup, Ben wrote that their “complete commitment to user engagement and enjoyment has resulted in continually-increasing momentum towards building a world-class product for sports fans.”

HOW STARSTREET WORKS, AND WHERE IT’S HEADED

There is one primary difference between the way StarStreet and say, the New York Stock Exchange, work. The total value of the market remains constant, while the value of individual players goes up and down every day. Each sport has its own market on StarStreet, including the NFL, NBA, MLB, and the just-completed NCAA March Madness tournament. The markets on StarStreet are Zero-Sum Comparison Markets (they explain all the details here).
Wired describes StarStreet as “traditional fantasy sports kicked up a notch“.

The challenge to us as traders is to pick the right players in the market. When new players enter the market through IPOs (“Initial Player Offerings”), we have the option of bidding on them. This determines their initial value, which then fluctuates with each successive trade. The New York Post explains StarStreet’s process excellently: “An IPO is launched with 100 shares. Investors, who are limited to 20 percent of any player and can only invest up to $200, enter a bid price for the player’s shares. The highest bids covering 100 shares are accepted and the IPO is set as a weighted average of the bids.”

My prediction for where StarStreet is headed? Soccer. It is the most popular sport in the world, with billions of the most passionate fans on earth. If Jeremy and his team can navigate the intricate world of soccer and create an international stock market for it, StarStreet will bust through the ceiling and succeed on a global level. Guaransheed.

JEREMY’S JOURNEY AND WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM IT

Just 2 years ago, Jeremy graduated from Syracuse University (upstate NY baby!) with a degree in Entrepreneurship. Since, he was accepted into the prestigious TechStars mentorship program. Today, he’s the founder of a high-growth tech startup that could change the way we as fans engage with sports.

He has raised a seed round of financing from some of the most respected investors in the country; including Ron Conway‘s investment firm SV Angel (note: Ron is an early investor in Google, Facebook, Twitter, and more), Jarrod Yuster‘s investment vehicle Jarr Capital, and angel investors Don McLagen, Andrew Blachman, and Ben Littauer.

In a startling, inspiring interview with Xconomy last week, Jeremy gave three pieces of specific advice for young or aspiring entrepreneurs:
1] “Make sure you learn as much as you can as fast as you can.”
2] “Hustle like crazy, try everything, and don’t quit.”
3] “Stop whatever you’re doing and learn to code.”

*************************************************************************************

Seriously, what an awesome startup. All of us super passionate sports fans really owe Jeremy one for this. Do you have any ideas for StarStreet? What do you think will make or break it? [DISCLAIMER: Jeremy is a diehard New England Patriots fan. For that reason alone, I am rooting for him in every project he pursues.]

Do you know how much energy I have right now?

One post certainly won’t do justice to how pumped I am about the redesign Matt Ackerson, Paolo Roa and the PetoVera team did for my blog, ‘The X Factor’. I am fired up. Motivated. This is only the beginning. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Today, I will tell the story of how and why I started ‘The X Factor’.

HOW IT ALL GOT STARTED

Me? I am a people person. I love God, my friends, and my family more than anything on earth. My first love was the game of basketball, and I am as competitive and energetic as they come. Ever since playing from sun-up ’til sun-down in Bristol and Rochester’s inner city growing up, I have had a hunger to prove myself. I was driven to ‘make it’, and committed to never stop chasing new heights.

However, as I detailed in my letter to Lil Wayne, I had to say goodbye to basketball after dislocating my shoulder six times and fighting back from two surgeries. It was time to dedicate my passion and competitive fire towards a new art.

MY FIRST DREAM

When I was little I wanted to be a lawyer. My dad (affectionately known to people close to us as “The G”) told me that the best way to execute on making my dreams a reality was to ask lawyers to lunch and learn from their success stories face-to-face. As an entrepreneur (and a personal hero of mine), my dad had customers in Rochester, NY who were lawyers.

So, when I was 15 years old and still homeschooled, my dad took me to lunch with Kent Heyman. Kent was a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, and I will never forget that lunch. My dad and I asked him tons of questions and I left feeling very, very driven. Long story short, today I am a Marketing Intern for Kent’s startup, Syncables, working on a beta product called LivePlay.

MY PASSION FOR TECHNOLOGY

Fast forward to college. Outside of the classroom, I was obsessively researching the social web and studying different Internet startups. I had taken my dad’s advice to heart and was doing all that I could to build relationships with movers and shakers in the tech ecosystem.

In the fall of 2008, my good friend Ben Henschel introduced me to the phenomenon of unparalleled energy that is Gary Vaynerchuk. I was hooked. I watched (and re-watched) every keynote, interview, and video blog Gary had published. I read Crush It!. To me, Gary approached entrepreneurship the way Michael Jordan approached basketball. Having been blessed to meet him in person just one year later, he is one of my biggest heroes to this day.

‘THE X FACTOR’ IS BORN

Sometime in 2009, I discovered Andrew Warner‘s site for candid interviews with founders, Mixergy. I was learning a ton from Mixergy and suddenly I had the lightbulb moment: I have to do this. I was planning to study abroad in Singapore for the first half of 2010, and I decided to do everything I could to record interviews with the entrepreneurs and investors I was hoping to meet. That way, I could share what I was learning from these incredible one-on-one meetings with anyone in the world.

Ultimately, that semester abroad in southeast Asia changed my life. As I met inspiring people in Singapore’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, I started recording long interviews. I planned to begin publishing them on the blog I wanted to launch in the summer.

On July 23, 2010, Brian Shaffer (one of my closest comrades) finished designing my initial site and I launched ‘The X Factor’ while getting interviewed live on the Rochester web show ‘The CEO Hour‘.

WHY I WILL NEVER FORGET MY SEMESTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Then it all started to come together. Having been accepted into the Washington Semester Program in D.C., I spent the following semester studying at American University. I met someone there who saw right through me, who not only understood my drive but recognized my passion for writing better than I even did. Because of her, I thought back to the the point that Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 Signals made in their book, Rework: “Hire The Better Writer“.

It sunk in.

Jack Dorsey has talked a lot recently about his role in Square and Twitter as an “editor”. In the writing sense, editing is so important to communicate the story of your company so that people are able to more easily remember you, understand your utility, and connect with your mission. Editing is also crucial in developing a product. You could take 2 years and build a product with 30 features. Better move, from what I’m learning? Build a minimally viable product in 2-4 months, with only the single most important features. Edit, edit, edit.

THE REASON I STARTED ‘THE X FACTOR’

So that’s where we are today. I’m 21 and have one more year of university left until I graduate from Clarkson. I am pretty obsessed with helping friends (if I am able to) with their startups. Helping to communicate their product’s use-case, editing the product with the philosophy of a user in mind, etc.

As I chase my dreams, I am driven to continue learning from and helping the friends I’ve been blessed to meet in the ecosystem of Internet/technology startups. When possible, I aim to interview founders and investors so that they can share their lessons with you and me.

That’s why I started ‘The X Factor’. To study the patterns of those who are successfully starting, building, and investing in startups. ‘The X Factor’ is that tough-to-describe element that sets apart the leader from the followers. The ‘distinguishing component’ might be different across every successful artist who has become a leader in her craft. With this site, I want to help you discover ‘The X Factor’ that will serve as a catalyst for your own success story.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES…

This is what I’m doing in my journey as an aspiring entrepreneur. I hope we can hustle together. Let’s GOOOO.

Thanks for visiting my site and reading this lengthy post. If you have ideas for…
- making my videos//interviews//writing better;
- suggestions for what to write about;
or even if you just wanna share what you’re working on and hustling towards, I’d love to hear from you. Drop your knowledge in the comments below!

To everyone of you who’s helped me get to this point, THANK YOU.

Welcome to The X Factor’s brand new illmatic redesign! Let’s just say….thanks a MILLION to Petovera Design.

As an aspiring entrepreneur myself, I think one of the best ways to learn is to go directly to the source and study the stories of founders building startups. Wait ’til you read Natalie’s interview.

Natalie Kaminski was born in Russia, grew up in Israel, and immigrated to the US without her family when she turned 18. She climbed the corporate ladder for ten years before becoming the victim of the ‘entrepreneur bug’ that we all know so well. Today she’s the founder of Sponzu, a NYC-based startup that has taken an innovative approach to crowdfunding. You can watch her pitch Sponzu here.

SPONZU’S TAKE ON CROWDFUNDING

Sponzu has developed a new social fundraising platform with an innovative twist. Currently in beta, Sponzu allows individuals, communities, and organizations to self-promote their ideas among supporters and attract capital.

What makes it unique? In order to help fund small projects and ideas, users are encouraged to spend time (instead of money) engaging with sponsors. How? By watching sponsors’ ads, rating their videos, providing feedback, and even taking marketing surveys. Each of these actions kicks back revenue to Sponzu from the sponsors, and then portions of that revenue is sent to whichever project the user has chosen to support.

To give their users more options to help, Sponzu has partnered with TinyPass – a micro-payment solutions company. So users will also be able to contribute small amounts of money (less than $1.00) to causes.

With that, let’s get down to the goodness: my interview with Natalie. In addition to her solid advice, she offers a unique point of view on the ‘not enough women in tech‘ problem. Now, turning the mic over to Natalie…

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INTERVIEW WITH NATALIE

1. Sponzu has been described as “the first non-cash crowdfunding platform where people contribute a fraction of their time, instead of their money.” What is it that makes Sponzu unique, and can you explain your revenue model?

Sponzu is the only social fundraising platform that does not require people to contribute money. The downside of most crowdfunding platforms is that people are asked to give cash. It creates a barrier for those who are not able to do so, or to whom a $5 minimum contribution is a significant amount. Further, when people give cash, they only support a selected few projects; again due to financial limitations.

Sponzu offers people a choice.

Ideas can be funded by either small cash donations (under $1) using micropayment technology developed by our partner, TinyPass, or by social actions, such as watching video ads and answering short marketing surveys.
Our revenue comes from a number of sources. First, we charge advertisers an administration fee – which buys them a nice marketing report at the end of each campaign. This allows us NOT to retain any money from the funds raised by projects. Second, we charge a small fee for every TinyPass transaction. In the future, our revenue plans include a Sponzu API, mobile application, and market data analysis.

2. You have noted before that “many small ideas that could have a life changing impact, never get implemented”. How would you describe the ideal customer(s) of Sponzu, and what’s the best way they can get involved in your platform?

I believe that it is relatively easy to get funding for something grand and expensive. It is almost impossible to raise money for small projects because those who have the money don’t always understand the significance of small, grassroots initiatives and their impact on our world.

Our goal at Sponzu is to serve this niche and to help individuals, small organizations, and communities realize their ideas and make a difference.

Sponzu idea owners are often individuals looking to make a small difference in their communities. For example, one user is raising money on Sponzu to buy books for her son’s kindergarten class. We also welcome small to medium size non-for-profit organizations looking for creative ways to get funding (see an example here).

The process of joining Sponzu is very simple. Users fill out a short form that describes their initiative and indicate the amount they are looking to raise. Once submitted, the application will be reviewed by our staff. If their initiative meets our criteria, they will be approved and promoted on Sponzu.com within 24 hours.

On the other hand, we offer advertisers an opportunity to meet their cause-related marketing goals while receiving significant value on their digital video advertising. Aside from creating viral advertising through social networking interactions and promoting brands as a CSR contributor, Sponzu provides detailed analytics reports highlighting what people think of each video ad and how successful each one has been.

3. I read that in your case, you immigrated to the US from Israel as an 18 year-old with no interest in technology. In fact, you didn’t own a computer and had “heard about the Internet but didn’t even use it”. What sorts of things did you do in order to learn so much about tech and ultimately become the founder of a web startup?

I have to admit that I always was lucky in being at the right place at the right time and meeting the right people. My first employer, Steve Timmerman of SWAT Solutions, took a huge leap of faith by hiring me without any experience and teaching me a great deal about technology, software, and business management.

Another factor that played an important role and helped me advance rather quickly in the corporate world was my determination to make money. I immigrated on my own and did not have much financial support from my family, so I had to make sure that my paycheck covered my bills.

After a couple of years in the workforce I learned the importance of networking and began attending conferences and events that helped me expand my network and also learn about new industry trends. I ended up moving to Boston, where I worked for the Risk Management Foundation of Harvard Medical Institutions, and then to New York where I became the COO of a software development company. This last role was like a real-live executive MBA program that helped me prepare for entrepreneurship.

4. TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington said that the problem of having ‘too few women in technology’ is because not enough women want to be entrepreneurs. I’ve also read that it starts in elementary school, encouraging girls to pursue science and math. You started from scratch as an 18 year-old immigrant and navigated your way successfully to becoming COO of a technology service provider before your 30th birthday. Looking back on your journey thus far, how do you think we can get more female founders in the world of technology startups?

This may sound controversial, but I do not think that interest in math and/or science is a prerequisite for becoming a successful technology entrepreneur. In fact, often the best technology products are built by those who are not necessarily subject experts, but those who can identify a particular problem and come up with a user-friendly solution. Entrepreneurship requires many diverse skills, and in my opinion the most important ones (such as resilience and determination) cannot be taught in school.

Having said this, I think it is very important to teach kids, boys and girls alike, the importance of self-discovery. We have to allow them to explore and recognize their inner strengths and inclinations on their own, without the constant guidance of adults. Caretakers and educators should be there to simply support this natural process, not force it one way or the other.

Unlike many Gen Y entrepreneurs I did not step on this path right out of college. My journey began with a full-time corporate career; which lead me to gain the necessary knowledge, experience, and – more importantly – confidence to go on my own. Moreover, by the time I became a full-time entrepreneur I was already married and had a child. These are very important milestones that many women are looking to achieve in their lives. In this aspect, it was somewhat easier for me to focus on building a company.

I honestly do not think that there is a recipe for attracting women to the technology sector. It will probably happen naturally overtime, as more and more girls are growing up with technology embedded into their minds from the early ages.

5. While I’m sure it hasn’t always been easy, you’ve been able to balance your career as a serial entrepreneur with being married and raising your 4 year-old daughter in Brooklyn. If you could sit down and chat with some of the women out there who dream of starting their own startup, what advice would you give them before they make the leap?

Marry a good guy! Someone who would support you and help you juggle the many responsibilities you have as a mother, a wife, and an entrepreneur.

Next, be honest about your priorities and never feel bad about your decisions. It is okay to miss an important business meeting in order to take your child to a puppet show. And it is also okay to attend an after-hours networking event while your husband entertains the kid.

Finally, keep a flexible to-do list. Always start your day with the most important items, and if by the end of the day you have stuff that is not done, just move it to the next day.

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[UPDATE]: I should have mentioned when I first wrote the article, this entire interview came about because of Namesake. My first female founder interviewee (“The Milestone Interview“), Brittany Laughlin, recommended I ask the community to recommend other female founders to interview. My upcoming series is a direct result of that. If you want an invite to Namesake, I have plenty so just drop a comment below!

Want to learn more about Natalie’s journey? This is an awesome interview with her about her previous startup, Fincode Solutions.

What do you think will cause more women to breakthrough in technology? If you could offer one piece of feedback about Sponzu to Natalie, what would it be?

Welcome back to the 4th (very noisy – sorry!) segment of my interview with the Founder and CEO of Socialwok, Ming Yong! Socialwok is a collaborative social feed built on Google apps.

This is a story about what Socialwok learned from its private beta, and how it changed the way they thought about their initial product. During the aftermath of winning the 2009 TechCrunch50 Demopit Award, Ming Yong met with some some of Silicon Valley’s heaviest hitters. He discussed Socialwok with two of the most revered investors in the history of Silicon Valley: Ron Conway of SV Angel and Paul Graham of Y Combinator.

Before unpacking how Socialwok reevaluated its initial product based on the private beta, I was curious how aligned Ming and Paul’s philosophies were around launching a startup.

PAUL GRAHAM’S PHILOSOPHY FOR LAUNCHING A STARTUP

Paul Graham believes that there is only one way for founders to understand what adjustments they need to make in order to achieve product/market fit: listen to feedback from real users. So, his philosophy is for startups to launch at the moment their product has reached a “quantum of utility”. At Y Combinator, speed-to-market is of the essence.

At first glance, Ming’s advice in one of the previous segments of our interview seemed slightly different. He said that the best way for startups to leverage launch-specific events like TC50 is to remain in stealth mode for as long as possible; keeping product releases hidden from the public.

*Side note on launch events: Conferences like TC50 prefer to build hype around their event by keeping the startup launches as mysterious as possible. You can read/watch how Socialwok gained the attention of TechCrunch here.

MING’S ADVICE FOR LAUNCHING YOUR STARTUP

Ultimately, Ming agrees with Paul. He believes startups ought to work on building their product for 2 months and then quickly start getting feedback by testing it with people. Even if you’re letting some users play with your product through a private beta, that doesn’t mean you can’t remain in stealth mode. You don’t have to necessarily announce it to the world.

Ming and Paul’s worry? That most startups will take 6 months to ship their beta product and then wait another 6 months before launching publicly.

SOCIALWOK’S PRIVATE BETA REVEALS A KEY LESSON

So, here’s what Socialwok did. They built version one of their product quickly and went into a closed beta. The product was a microblogging platform that was independent of any workflow. They had 20 companies testing the beta at the beginning of the first week. By the end of the week, only 3 companies were still using it.

What was the problem? People are already consumed by email, and Socialwok was trying to get them to adopt yet another workflow. The extra hassle was made worse because version one of their product was not high-value. This is why Socialwok suffered from such an abysmal drop-off rate after their first week in beta.

SOCIALWOK ADJUSTS VERSION ONE, ACHIEVES PRODUCT/MARKET FIT

On their second iteration, Ming and his team determined that they needed to adjust their product to somehow improve the workflows that most people were already accustomed to. They recognized that a lot of their targeted users’ workflow involved Google Apps. So, Socialwok decided to offer sharing, microblogging, and collaborative features on top of Google Apps.

The difference?

Suddenly, Ming’s team wasn’t ‘forcing’ customers to use Socialwok purely for Socialwok’s sake. Instead, Socialwok was helping customers do what they were already doing better; adding value to their Google Apps workflow. If not for the private beta, Ming doesn’t believe they would have recognized the opportunity to incorporate Google Apps as a means of distribution.

DON’T MISS…

In the end of the interview, Ming provides some pretty cool tips for getting the most out of private betas. Having thousands of users of your early version product can lead to a high volume of feedback. It’s important to determine which of it is important to your future, and which should be set aside. Ming uses a rather entertaining analogy to explain how Socialwok distinguished relevant feedback from not-so-relevant feedback during its beta.

He also points out that the most important feedback is often unavoidable because scores of users will start telling you the same thing. If you want to know the origins of Socialwok’s story, you can read about it and watch segment one here.

THANK YOU TO…

Once again, I need to thank my French-Canadian friend Johanna Mortreux for her awesome help with the camera and for watching the time. Also, big thanks (and a belated happy birthday!) to Ming for his stellar interview. It’s a pity the venue was so noisy!

As part of my ongoing internship with Syncables, I’m currently working on a beta product called LivePlay. Got any advice to share on running an effective beta? Drop your insight in the comments!