ATTENTION, MEDIA ORG CLASS: HELP!!!

This is directed to everyone in my Media Organizations class.

I don't know if any of you have been thinking about what you're gonna do for your final project, but I have already thought of an idea.  I work for a company called Campus Clipper, which offers discounts to local businesses for college students.  It also has a series of blogs and eBooks that offer advice for college students living in New York.

We have an iPhone app, but it was developed over two years ago and hasn't been updated since.  I was hoping to add a bit more functionality to it, like adding barcode or QR recognition or including a location function.  In any case, it has to be a hell of a lot better than it is.

I don't know who I'm working with yet, which is kind of why I'm posting this.  If anyone has any app or interaction design experience, or if anyone is good with photoshop, please consider joining me in this project.

I thank you for your time!

For reference, here's Campus Clipper's website, blog, tumblr, and iPhone app:
http://campusclipper.com/
http://blog.campusclipper.com/
http://campusclipper.tumblr.com/
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/campus-clipper/id372600206?mt=8

Kickstarter @ Union Square Ventures

Over the past few weeks, we’ve taken trips to several start-up companies in the media industry, as well as some well-established organizations that work in media.  It has given us a good insight on how one starts a media company like Course Horse or LocalUncle.  However, there is always the one issue that everyone faces; How do we fund this?  The answer is companies like Union Square Ventures.

Union Square Ventures is a venture capital company that funds several unique creative projects in the hopes that the project is a success.  They are based in Union Square, but the company funds project all over the country.  It was founded by Perry Stricker, who originally did it as part of a method of funding a jazz and in New Orleans to go to a music festival.  While he was unsuccessful, it did get the platform going.

General Manager Gary Chao and Community Manager Cindy Hu presented to us.  They worked out of an office in Union Square that was going under a lot of renovation at the time, but it was a decent-looking space.  It wasn’t exactly McGraw-Hill’s building in Midtown, but it served its purpose well.

Their presentation was mainly about Kickstarter, a a funding platform for creative projects.  To receive funding, one must do the following:


1) Pitch the project to the Kickstarter team
2) Put it on the Kickstarter site
3) Set an appropriate monetary goal for your project
4) If the Kickstarter team aproves your project, obtain funds.


Once the project is up on the site, visitors can choose to pledge a certain amount of money to the project.  The objective is to reach the monetary goal at a certain point.  These pledges can be as small as $25 or as big as $1,000.  Once the goal is reached, the profit comes in.

There are several different projects funded by Kickstarter, each divided into categories like art, film, photography, and film.  They have a 44% success rate, with over 1,300 successful projects and 1,000,000 total backers.  One that deserves special mention is the Greenaid Seedbomb Project. This project involves the use of clay seed bombs, which you can throw at an open grass area, and several different plants will grow there.  The seedbombs are dispensed in gumball machines, which were placed in flower shops around Los Angeles.  Their goal was $10,000 in pledges, and they reached it by July 2010.  

Union Square Ventures receives 5% of the profits from successful projects, and they do not charge anything for unsuccessful projects.  Also, charitable, non-profit organizations are not considered for funding, as there is a lot of confusion as to where the money is going.

This was an interesting look at how creative projects get their start.  I never considered the process of how a project is funded, and now I understand a little better.  The Kickstarter platform is an innovative way for creative individuals to get their foot in the door and really create something amazing.  Who knows, maybe further down the road, I will pitch a project of my own to Kickstarter, and see what happens.

McGraw-Hill

As this course is called “Media Organizations”, nearly all of the class is devoted to field trips to several different organizations in, well, media. The majority of them are start-ups, companies founded by either one person or a small group of people and providing a new media service to consumers. However, on this trip, we instead visited McGraw-Hill, a very well established media and publishing company known for their work in the fields of education and finance. This may seem like it has nothing to do with the purpose of this course, but in fact, it showed us a lot about how a large multinational organization like this one approaches New Media.

First off, there was the building. It's a huge skyscraper in Rockefeller Center, right across the street from 30 Rockefeller (home of NBC Universal) and the Radio City Music Hall. We walked in to a huge lobby, complete with high-tech security and marble floors. It really seemed intimidating, coming in to this giant building instead of a small studio office underneath The New School. It's a good thing we had people in the front to greet us as we came in.

We were received by Patrick Durando, Senior Director of Digital New Media at McGraw-Hill. Enterprise Community Member Edward Ford and Usability and Interactive Designer Ruth Neighbors also presented. These three looked a lot more corporate than our previous presenters, dressed in suits and ties instead of polos and jeans.

McGraw-Hill is probably most recognized for their work in textbook publication, but in fact, this is actually only a small part of the McGraw-Hill field. They also own consumer and energy rating companies like JD Power & Associates and Platts, as well as several S & P services in the financial sector.

As this company focuses a lot on education and finance, it is a bit of a surprise that they actually have huge projects in new media. One interesting one is Buzz, their inter-company social network, which was developed over several years. Ruth Neighbors and Edward Ford discussed what services Buzz offers, as well as the process that went through making it. It really is a very complex operation, but in general, they focus on Research, Evaluation, and Design. They also discussed a neatly-structures Experience Design Work Plan that analyzes the following: Key Activity, Assessment, Requirements, Modeling, and Development

Probably my favorite part of the tour was a look at the media studio at McGraw-Hill. They have entire floors devoted to media, complete with a green room and all the appropriate hardware and software. A lot goes on in this studio, including online lectures, interviews, and webcasts. Patrick Durando was actually one of the people responsible for starting this department, and it seems to be growing bit by bit. They even have a motion capture studio in London.

I loved hearing from start-up entrepreneurs, but I really had no idea what went on in the larger companies. Our visit to McGraw-Hill showed us how many huge corporations are starting to utilize digital and new media to great effect. Admittedly, I never thought much of working for a huge place like this, even less after our several other trips, but now that I see how places like McGraw-Hill are preparing for the future of media, I must say that I am intrigued.

Nihal Parthasarathi of Course Horse

For the most part, our trips in Media Organizations have been to companies who are established in the industry. We met entrepreneurs at the Varick Street Incubator, and we met executives at eMusic. On this trip, however, we spoke with a young up and coming entrepreneur, one who just recently started his company and is steadily growing it from the ground up.

On this trip, we met Nihal Parthasarathi, an NYU Stern Graduate who co-founded Course Horse, a web-based enrollment service for instructional and preparatory courses in New York. Users can sign their kids up for SAT courses, or find a Spanish class at the learning annex, among several other opportunities. According to Nihal, the process is a pretty simple one:

1. Customer searches for class
2. Course Horse chooses one
3. Course Horse books it
4. Course Horse can recommend other classes

There was quite a huge point for Nihal to start with, since most online registration systems are clunky at best, and completely unusable at worst.

Hearing Nihal speak gave us all valuable insight on how the life of an entrepreneurs goes. According to him, the business plan is often written in about six hours at a coffee shop, and is the passed on to the partner for editing. He and his business partner make good use of executive summaries in order to communicate to investors in the simplest way possible.

One great thing that Course Horse prides itself on is quality assurance. Users can give feedback on the courses they took that they registered for on the site, which helps in the process of referring other users to the courses. Not only that, but if a user isn't completely satisfied with the course they registered for, they can drop it within the first five weeks for a full refund. This helps give users an incentive to come back to Course Horse for registration of other classes.

Starting your own company may seem all glamorous, but Nihal mentioned several road blocks on his journey. For one thing, he noticed that networking is hardest when you need it the most, because when you just started, not many people are interested, and easier when you need it the least, when you have all the networking you can ever want. Investors often don't want to be a part of your company unless you are successful and have established yourself in the industry, which can take quite a while. Nihal's advice for countering this is simple: Make friends with people who can help you out in the long run.

Over the past few weeks I've had passing interest in starting my own media company. However, most of the people we heard from were established entrepreneurs or executives of huge companies. Hearing from Nihal, I really feel like I got to know what it's like to have your own start-up. It's good to know people who are in the industry already, but it is also important to have first-hand accounts of what it's like to be a young, up and coming entrepreneur, and I think our time with Nihal helped a little in that regard.

If you want to know more about his company, check out his website at www.coursehorse.com!

eMusic

                On this trip, we visited the New York office of eMusic, an online service of downloading music.  This was the first trip we had that was not to a place associated with NYU-Poly.  We all came to hear a few words from Max Smith, CFO, and Richard Caccappolo, CTO, about how an online company makes money. 

                Probably the first thing we noticed was the office.  It was hidden away on West 13^th Street in Manhattan, but when we got inside, it was like a totally different planet.  This place had hard-wood floors, glass walls, fancy overhead lighting, and everything modern under one roof.  I kind of envy the people that come in to work here every day. 

                Our presenters were also very experienced in the field.  Max was the co-founder or Talking Media Group (TMG), an and also led growth initiatives with Warner Music Group, LinkShare, TechRepublic, Gartner, and World Color Press.  Rich was one of the founders of iVillage Inc., and presided over the sale of iVillage to NBC Universal. 

                Max and Rich started the presentation by discussing how internet advertising works.  According to them, there are three ways to gain profit from internet advertising.  The first, Cost Per Thousand (CPM), is where an advertiser pays a publisher a set rate for displaying their ads to online readers, with pricing done on a “per 1000” basis.  The second, Cost Per Click (CPC), is where advertisers pay a publisher on a per-click basis, and the publisher runs the ad with no guarantee of payment except the possible user clicks.  Finally, there is Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), by far the riskiest method.  This is where the advertisers only pay when a user is directed to their site from a publisher’s site and completes a transaction directed by the advertisers.

                Max and Rich also talked about how a similar company, the New York Times Media Group, functioned.  New York Times generated revenue of over $2.052 billion this past year, with the newspaper alone generating revenue of $1.646 billion.  Their average circulation is around 1,137,429 subscriptions a year, and each subscriber was valued at around $1,448.  NYTimes.com made $15 million from display ads and estimated total revenue of $150 million.  The site also averages around 14.6 million unique visitors each month, and the per-thousand-visitors values were estimated at $7.81 each.

                The marketing strategy of eMusic itself is focused on five dimensions of music experience.  First, the user discovers the music, then they share the music with their friends.  Then everyone is listening to the music, and eventually owning it.  It isn’t long before the users are buying the music.  They also focused the consumer types along the axes of Mainstream-to-Offbeat and Leaders-tp-Followers.  This way, they know exactly how to market their music.

                I never knew how an online business really carried out their operations and made a profit.  Like most people, I just assumed that there was absolutely no thought going into it, where in reality, it’s like studying society itself.  If I ever start my own company, I hope I follow a similar path, because the path eMusic has taken has lead them to success.

A Reflection on Delivering Happiness

                In his book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profit, Passion and Purpose, Tony Hsieh looks at one of the biggest thoughts behind starting a company; “Will it make me happy?”  This is a really difficult question, and something that can’t really be answered by a simple “Yes” or “No”.  However, from reading this book, and seeing how Hsieh went from Harvard slacker to multi-billionaire, I can see that even he asks this question to himself.

                This book starts off with a basic biography of Tony Hsieh’s life.  It starts at the beginning, when he’s growing up in the Bay Area, California, and how he started thinking of ways to earn money even as a kid.  It then follows his journey to high school, where he tricks a phone sex line in the computer lab into thinking him and his buddies are over 21.  It even explores his college years, of him finding the best schedule to get good grades without much work, and how he even ran his own kitchen in his Harvard dorm. 

                After his early life is explored, Tony Hsieh discusses the things that were immediately contributory to his success.  After graduating Harvard, Hsieh got a job with Oracle, which he left after five months to start LinkExchange, an ad service that gave companies a presence on the internet.  Several years of hardship and struggle passed, and before he knew it, the company became a huge success.  He starting getting job offers from companies like Yahoo and NBC, but it was eventually sold to Microsoft for $265 million.  Afterwards, Hsieh realized the joy of starting a company from the bottom up, and decided to continue on to his most famous, and his most successful, venture; Zappos.

                When discussing Zappos, Hsieh really went in-depth on what he envisioned his company to be about.  He was pitched the idea about an online shoe sales company, and before he knew it, Zappos was born.  It started with only drop shipments to the few customers they had, but eventually, with the more customers they received, they were able to expand exponentially.  Further on in the book, Hsieh discusses things like poker and raves in relation to business.  Admittedly, they both seem completely different from business, but he finds a way to incorporate the nature of both into Zappos, albeit with a few fire alarms thrown.

Throughout the end of the book, Hsieh discusses the business practices and philosophies that he learned from his experience.  He speaks of how he kept his principle of focusing on customer service, and even focused on phone sales and inquiries when other companies were cutting back their telemarketing departments.  He also talks about how he made Zappos a community, and how he got all personnel involved in the company’s functions.

                Of course, there weren’t always good moments.  Several events, like the dotcom crash of 2002 and the later housing crisis of 2008 really hit Zappos hard.  There were several points where Tony Hsieh nearly lost his company, along with everything else.  However, through intuitive solutions, sound business practices, and a bit of money from his pocket, Hsieh eventually persevered, and lead Zappos to their “marriage” to Amazon on 2009.

                 Starting my own business wasn’t really the first thought I had in my mind when I started here at NYU-Poly.  However, after reading Tony Hsieh’s book, and how he started, I must say I’m inspired.  Maybe with a group of dedicated people by my side and a little bit of luck, I can start my own Zappos!

Varick Street Incubator

This week (Friday, September 16, 2011), as part of my Media Organizations class at NYU-Poly, I visited the Varick Street Incubator in Manhattan.  Here, several small business can get their start-ups and hopefully succeed in this troubled economy.  It was started by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYU-Poly in July 2009, as part of the Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan.  

We were first greeted by Steven Kayun, Operations Manager at the Incubator, who gave us a basic rundown on what goes on at the incubator.  He also discussed how one can start a business at Varick Street, and how several other students and entrepreneurs began there. 

Also present were three representatives of three different start-ups housed there.  Sai Punjabi, MIT alum and CEO of Baba Apps, spoke of how he started his mobile applications developer company.  Amanda Moritz, Social Media officer of Brainscape, introduced the many aspects of a technology start-up.  Philip Estrada Reichen, CEO of Local Uncle, spoke about the benefits of starting a technology and media company. 

                 

There were several bits of advice that the speakers gave us.  One bit that was very important was the idea of working with a team.  They all agreed that it was far better to start a company with a dedicated team of people than to start one alone.  While several great entrepreneurs have done so, it is always a gamble, even if it is successful.  All of the companies represented had about six employees.  They had a CEO, a designer, a back-end developer, a front-end developer, a content manager, and a marketing manager/social media specialist, with several freelancers and interns contributing as well.

               

Another important bit of advice was to be comfortable with complete chaos.  This is a key quality that anyone wanting to start a company must have.  There may be times where there’s going to be less clients than usual, or even no clients, but you have to remain calm even when things look bad.  I admit that I do have a bit of experience in this.  I have been in situations where I was the only one in the office at the time, and I had to learn on my feet pretty quickly.

                 

Personally, I never really gave much thought of starting my own company.  I mean, I always thought of how great it would be to work for myself, and I always wanted to be in a position where I can actually make a difference in an organization, but I just always figured I was going to end up doing menial, stable work at a larger company.  Now that I heard from a few people in start-ups, I can honestly say that I am definitely reconsidering this path. 

                

 This was an amazing trip.  I heard from people in the industry, and I have been presented with a new option for the near future.  I have a lot of respect for the guys at the Varick Street Incubator.  They put everything on the line for these small start-ups and came out strong.  Doing something like that takes ambition, bravery, and perseverance, three qualities that I find very admirable. 

                 

That’s it for this week.  Next week we’re going to eMusic!