If you love New York City and are curious about Augmented Reality...

A very entertaining sales job posting

I recently received a phenomenal job posting.

Loved it (except for the macho & ageist comments of course)...

Here we go:

Hey there,

This is a job post for the first non-technical hire in an established software startup. 

Our 2 founders are full-time coders and have built a profitable product in the financial software sector -- operating income about $250k in 2010.

We have reached the point where we can't grow it any more on our own, and we aren't very good at sales anyway.  We should focus on the code while someone else does the bizdev.  We have outsourced everything that can be outsourced and need someone to step in as head of marketing/sales.

This is what you will be doing:

? selling stuff and making money, in the financial services / legal space
? getting partnerships and marketing/distribution of the product
? social media - blog posts, tweets, facebook crap..or get interns to do it
? team recruiting, particularly of other business-type people and interns
? client relations..you will be the face of the business
? figuring out which features we should code next based on customer feedback
? take us from $250k profit to $2 million in next 18-ish months.

You will not be fundraising or talking to VCs.

Pay is some mix of equity, salary, and commission.  You will have a marketing budget to deploy.  You will live in New York.  You will work full time and not have any other jobs or companies on the side. There will be a 3 month trial period where you show us how awesome you are and take less cash / more commission.  We work remotely but if you need to get an office of some type we could get you one if you convince us it's necessary.

You should probably have some sort of business experience, as most of the people we sell to are pretty sophisticated professional types.  Software sales experience is good, but so is experience in the client side of financial services.  Because our product deals with securities, financial analysis experience is helpful but will not be the focus of the job.  You should look polished or hot and be good on the phone -- we will send you to conferences and give you lists and expect results.  You should follow up with people reliably and quickly and go to a lot of networking events.

However, you should also be up to date.  Like, if you don't have an iPhone 4 or recent Android phone, or if you use Windows at home, don't apply.  It sounds arrogant, but you need to be comfortable with our stack and with the increasingly mobile nature of software.  We trialed one person who was older and didn't jive on this particular point, and it didn't work for us.

We are essentially looking for Alec Baldwin's character in this scene: 

We will build/install software tools to make your life easier and whatever apps you convince us will sell.  We will use our designers to build you marketing materials.  We will use our large network of connections in the VC/nerd world to get you the right introductions.  We have a curated list of 15,000 sales leads.  One of us has exited a company before, and we hope to flip this one within the next 18 months.  We are operating in a highly acquisitive space with a lot of old, cash-rich companies and few innovators. 

You should be comfortable with the idea of working in an extremely small team, and you should expect the team to remain small (< 10) and possibly distributed until we exit. 

This is a good opportunity as most of our competitors suck and we are rapidly gaining market share despite being gigantic nerds with no sales initiative, and we are already making a lot of money.  

Thank you,

X

Manhattan NY 400 years ago: back to the future

I recommend you watch it until the end. Fascinating!

Photos of the MoMA MiXX Premiere

During the event I snapped a few pictures (and a brief video). This slideshow is a selection of non-edited photos (+ the video).
Also, Time Out released some nice pictures of the FLY16x9 crew.
Flavorpill, who co-produced the event, published a set indeed. Do you recognize anyone on this one? ;-)

Press Clip: FLY16x9 in Vanity Fair

During this past MoMA MiXX, I was introduced to Becca, a very friendly woman who turned out to be a reporter at Vanity Fair. Read her take on the event here.

Excerpts of Artists D.J. at the MoMA MiXX Dance Party by Rebecca Sacks - September 30, 2009

"MoMA MiXX experienced perhaps its greatest success. Early in the evening, painter Mickalene Thomas and mixed-media artist Derrick Adams got the party going with their playlists, while upstairs the mood was made ambient by a mesmerizing video installation by FLY16X9—flowing clips showcasing scenarios largely of the predatory or desirous variety. (One sequence had models eating entire cakes, which, much to my embarrassment, I immediately recognized to be baked goods from Black Hound, in the East Village.) Downstairs was dominated by a dance floor and the standard open bar (upstairs there was a Pernod Absinthe bar, where barkeeps carefully crafted cocktails according to the drink’s strict ratios). The museum’s priceless canvases were monitored by alert security guards, who were also in charge of steering mixers back into the fray after the obligatory smoke breaks on 53rd Street. As the party wore on, resident D.J.’s Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter carried the baton until D.J. Andy Butler, of Hercules and Love Affair, took it and ran into the evening.The transformation of the Agnes Gund Garden Lobby from hallowed halls to a near-bacchanalian dance party truly re-invented the space, and undoubtedly caused revelers to re-evaluate their relationship to the art world. At least for the night."

MoMA MiXX Video Invite by FLY16x9. Party is this Saturday!

During MoMA MiXX's premiere dance party, the walls of the Atrium will be filled with large scale video projections provided by FLY16x9.
This promises to be quite a special event indeed :)
See you @ MoMA tomorrow night!

Click here to watch the official video invite.

More about the event:

Join FLY16x9 and The Museum of Modern Art on September 26th for the premiere of MoMA MiXX dance party. Hosted by the Junior Associates in association with Flavorpill, this ongoing MoMA series will pair major artists with world-class musicians and DJs.

For this historic event, MoMA will transform their lobby into a giant dance floor with an open bar, while guest artists and DJs: Derrick Adams, painter Mickalene Thomas, Hercules and Love Affair, Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin spin sets that have been influential in their lives and work. During the event, the walls of the Atrium will be filled with large scale video projections provided by FLY16x9.

MoMA
11 West 53rd St, Manhattan
8pm-midnight.
$75 including admission and open bar.
The money raised from the MoMA MiXX parties benefits exhibition programming for the Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

To purchase tickets online visit www.moma.org/momamixx

From an elevator to a fashion show party...

A couple of weeks ago, I met this very cool girl on the elevator and she invited me to her party which happens to be tonight at 9pm, featuring a fashion show.

This gorgeous lady turns out to be Melky Jean, a Grammy-nominated songwriter and... she speaks French.

RSVP tracey[at]carmafoundation.org
Fashion Show Sept. 14 2009 starting at 9pm
M2 Ultra Lounge Club
530 W 28th Street, NY NY 10001 (bet. 10th and 11th ave.)

See you tonight!

Magazine on Asian Art

Lately a few friends in the art business expressed their interest in Contemporary Asian Art (from Indian, Japanese, etc. artists), and this morning I discovered this on-topic magazine: , via my friend Paul Laster's facebook page.

So my friends, in case you haven't heard of it yet, please get your hands on a copy of ArtAsiaPacific, coincidentally published in New York City. For those already familiar with it (the magazine has been around for the past 16 years), would you mind sharing your feedback by posting or emailing your comments?