Tech Boom Hits New York

I'm a very satisfied customer of Warby Parker.

A couple of things about their service / office that really stand out.

1. Completely paperless: Basically the place is rows and rows of people working on mac pros.

2. Fantastic customer service: If you don't like what they mail you, they send you up to 5 other models to try each one. You send back what you don't like.

3. Convenient sales process: They took a photo of my Rx with a mac and OCRed it on the spot.

4. A well manufactured product. I abuse my glasses heavily and have found Warby Parker's to survive drops, scratches, falling asleep with them on, etc.

5. Crazy price point: I'm not familiar with their supply chain, but for the quality I was shocked by the low price. I saw people going in and buying multiple pairs on the spot.

They may not be a software shop, but they're leveraging every inch of technology they can get to create a great product and pass the rather significant savings on to the consumer.

A glasses company with a website does not a tech company make.

Under every boom, real change grinds away. Markets reach maturity when there's no more room for development and instead there is only room for replacement. Until that point where new business only replaces exiting business, people either unable or unwilling to critically evaluate the quality and magnitude of change keep running in and out of the markets leading to the recurring booms and busts. Instead think of the public introductions of electricity at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893, which is comparable to the release of Mosaic 100 years later. Compared to electricity, we are in 1911, and realize all the things that still haven't been invented yet. Neither television, nor the internet itself had been invented. So while the booms and busts might swirl around any developing technology, it's vital to remember the key question is not "is it a bubble?" instead it is "where am I going?" & "where are we going?" In short Vision > Bubble. Now, since the real estate market is still slumbering, domestic manufacturing continues it's long decline, the financial markets have lost their public trustworthiness, the media will naturally follow what they think the hottest emerging segments are --> Bio Tech, Green Tech, Online Tech -- because that is their mission. So let's just promise to keep in mind that any report with the words boom, bust, bubble in them are not about the vision, or about the real changes that the technology actually brings. Those stories will be about the boom, bust and bubble itself. By ignoring those stories, and ignoring the related bubbles we can actually create the technological changes that we all promise in our work.

I'm NYC born and bred. The kind of New Yorker that just can't see himself living anywhere else, even the vaunted Silicon Valley or SF in general no matter the opportunity (so take this with the appropriate grain of salt). In fact, NYC has been nurturing an interesting tech scene which has just started getting "noticed" in the last two or so years but obviously has been here much longer before that. I think there are a number of conflated reasons for this. NYC is the nerve center for a number of industries not only in the US but internationally as well. There are many types of startups happening here but let's delve into a few that immediately come to mind. Healthcare and Biotech, Media/Entertainment/Music, Commerce, Fashion, Finance, and Government.

NYC has one of the best ratios of hospital beds to patients in the entire country. There are a huge number of medical institutions in the five boroughs not only serving a huge variety of patients but also performing a tremendous amount of research. I work at one of those institutions and I can tell you that if they weren't looking to capitalize on/spin off their in-house tech, they are now.

Media and Entertainment. All the major players have HQ's here and where they are so are startups trying to sell them goods and services. Boxee comes to mind (as an innovator and a partner). I dunno where to put Meetup, but I'll put em here.

Commerce. Gilt Group, Etsy, etc.

Fashion. Clothia, Warby Parker.

Finance. The money is here and half the players on Wall Street are looking to get off the Street and start a business with the right technical talent. Not to mention innovation in the trading and hedge fund space.

Government. Mayor Bloomberg is really pushing municipal data as a platform. Check out the NYC DataMine and places like OpenPlans. NYCBigApps is a contest (two years running) for developers to take advantage of municipal data for the betterment of the City and maybe make a few bucks/put a business together in the process. This is only going to grow and I expect some great things to come of it.

There are also tech plays like 10gen, Nodejitsu, various tech incubators like BetaWorks and K2 and cooperative groups like GeneralAssembly and NYHacker.

What I find interesting about the tech scene in NYC is that in addition to R&D there is a huge amount of applied technology due to the confluence of talent and industries. The stuff that is getting made out here has a revenue model out the gate because they are re-imagining and re-inventing pre-existing business with technology as a corner stone. At the end of the day, let's face it, people want to be here in NYC. You know what they say - If you can make it here...

Re: Warby Parker

$120 for well styled glasses was a no-brainer for me (even just to try out).

What they got right were: 1) Making a really well-designed website (aesthetics are obviously key in fashion) 2) Getting well-styled frames in their inventory 3) An amazing price point that is consistent across the board.

As a designer, I have a lot of designer friends, especially in NY. They aren't really into knowing about startups at all. But they all know Warby Parker (through GQ, word-of-mouth) and don't approach it as a startup but a hip 'small business.' Kudos to them.

How many fabless semiconductor startups are in NYC?