Ambition Today: Rob Principe, Founder & CEO of Scratch On Partnering With Jam Master Jay of Run-D.M.C., The Future Of Music, And The Rise Of The DJ

Rob Principe, CEO of Scratch Music Group

Episode nine of Ambition Today finds us with the King of the DJ's, Rob Principe, the Founder & CEO of Scratch Music Group.

Young Rob Principe with Run-D.M.C.

Growing up on Long Island as a child Rob loved music, especially Run D.M.C.  One day the popular music group happened to sit down next to him on a plane as he was traveling to a tennis tournament. Afterword he took a picture with the group. Fast forward years later Rob had founded Scratch Music Group and after some hustle, Rob would show this very picture to Jam Master Jay of Run-D.M.C. in a greenroom at the Letterman Show in New York City while pitching him his vision. Jam Master Jay was in and together they co-founded the Scratch DJ Academy. I found Rob's story to be pretty incredible. During this episode we go over the history of Scratch as well as: 

• What is it like meeting your childhood hero's.

• How Rob and Jam Master Jay of Run-D.M.C. co-founded the Scratch DJ Academy.

• The importance of building credibility when building your initial startup's team.

• Recognizing that defining inspirational moment in your life that changes the path your on.

• How Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. came to collaborate on "Walk This Way".

• The moment when your startup becomes and feels real to you as the founder.

• Converting your initial traction into a paid business model.

• The importance of moving the chains over and over during the early years of your startup.

• The future of DJ'ing and Music

• How Music Festivals became so popular.

Ambition Today Question of the Day:

Do you think childhood plays a role in defining who people become?

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS and on Stitcher for Android. 

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Links from this episode: 

• Scratch Music Group

• @Rob_Principe on Twitter

• @princee09 on Instagram

• Herbie Hancock - Rockit

• Run-D.M.C. & Aerosmith - Walk This Way

• Kid Capri

• Run-D.M.C.

• Forbes DJ List

• A-Trak

Who should I interview next?  Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below.  It keeps me going…

Listen to this episode now: 

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Founder Institute New York

Careers Of The World's Best Founders

So you want to be the next Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, or even Colonel Sanders. Ever wonder where do the best founders come from? Well consider your self covered thanks to this new collection of careers of the world's best founders.

The journey to greatness is not always just sunshine and rainbows. It is a journey and along the way there are plenty of successes, failures, new ventures founded, and lessons to be learned. You hear some of those stories on Ambition Today. If you are wondering about societies late great founders of the past though, then here you go. Fleximize answers the following questions:

• How did the greatest entrepreneurs start out?
• What were their biggest successes?
• What failures did they have to overcome along the way?

Here are the answers all packed into one charted collection of the careers of 33 inspirational company founders, showing that there’s more than one path to success.

3 Minutes Of Your Time: I Dare You To Watch This Entire Video

We all know its happening. It started somewhere between 2005-2010 when you bought your first smartphone. Over the next year, the way your brain worked began to change.

You probably noticed that your brain had a new friend through out the day, dopamine. Constantly fueled by Angry Birds, E-mail, the internet, Facebook, etc. Unfortunately, around that time you also stopped using your imagination in the same way. Unless you worked in a creative industry, you didn't need it anymore. If you had a burning question about life or that meal you just ate you could simply reach in your pocket and Google it. Voilà, the answer and some more dopamine are a mere reach away! No more waiting for and wondering what the answer could be. No more using your imagination to come up with creative solutions to the questions in your mind. I am not quite sure what the long lasting loss of imagination will be on society as a whole, but I don't imagine it could be too good. 

That being said, the mass granting of access to information has been a powerful movement since web 1.0, but it has been a few years now. We need to ask ourselves is the knowledge we soak up like a sponge from the internet everyday the best use of our time, the most precious resource we are ever given. We must remember to protect our time.

So how bad have you gotten and how bad is your old friend dopamine affecting you today? Let's find out. I recently watched a video from Adam Conover who is the host of TV's Adam Ruins Everything, a pretty brilliant show if you haven't checked it out yet. In this video Adam asks for 3 minutes of your time. 3 minutes of your focused, attention, distraction free time. The best part of this video isn't actually the video itself, it is the self awareness that is created with every little lunge for your phone, browser tab you think to open, or fear of boredom you experience while you are watching. So give it a shot. I dare you to watch this entire video.

State of Startups Report: 2015

State of Startups 2015 from First Round Capital

First Round Capital has released their 2015 State of Startups Report. They asked the question "What does it mean to be a startup entrepreneur in 2015?".  The report was designed to share meaningful insights into what it's like to run a startup today. The full report is above. 

The key takeaways from the First Round Capital State of Startups Report 2015 include: 

1. Most think it won’t get easier to raise funding.
2. 73% say we're in a tech bubble.
3. No one has a clue about the IPO market.
4. Women-led companies are more diversity focused.
5. Founders see power shifting from entrepreneurs to investors.
6. Hiring the right people and revenue growth top the list of founder concerns.
7. Co-founder relationships change with age.
8. Bitcoin is overhyped while autonomous vehicles are underhyped.
9. Founders fear long-term failure, but not the short-term mistakes that lead to it.
10. Elon Musk is the far-and-away most admired leader in technology.

If you are a startup founder let me know on Twitter or in the comments below what you think some of the biggest lessons learned from running your startup in 2015 is. 

Tomorrowland: The Companies Building a Better Future

There is a reason the header image of the Siskar.co website is a futuristic city where anything seems possible. It is Tomorrowland. At the dedication of the first Tomorrowland Walt Disney declared it as: 

"A vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying Man's achievements... A step into the future, with predictions of constructed things to come. Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure and ideals. The Atomic Age, the challenge of Outer Space and the hope for a peaceful, unified world."

— Walter E. Disney, July 17, 1955

I wasn't alive post World War II when the greatest generation was building and believing in anything they put their minds too. When society as a whole believed in the future and that anything was possible. I would have loved to have experienced that level of optimism in society and technology. This is the future Walt Disney believed in and was inspired by. 

I think we could be returning to that time.  A great example of the potential of this mentality is what Mark Zuckerberg did this week with his pledge to give away 99% of his Facebook shares to charity.  

Even if all of society isn't on fully on board yet, there are some incredible individuals already building great new companies in order to make the future and tomorrow a better place. There is an infinite number of ways and methods to use your life to contribute back to the world. Over the past few years I have been working with some of these companies. I now feel it is time to share them with you. Hopefully, they inspire you to also help with building a better Tomorrow. 

Ambition Today: Jeff Wald, Co-founder of Work Market, talks Harvard, NYPD, Venture Capital, Startups, and Mentoring

Jeff Wald, Work Market

On episode eight Jeff Wald, Co-founder and President of Work Market join's Ambition Today. 

"The only thing I know with 100% certainty is that it ain't going down like this." - Jeff Wald

Jeff Wald’s background is nothing short of impressive. He started at Cornell University and then went to J.P. Morgan. He then went back to school at Harvard for an MBA. After Harvard Jeff spent time at Glen Rock Group before going on to Co-found Spin Back. The wild ride of Spinback, his first startup, took Jeff to almost moving back home after coming close to running out of money. The answer was to rebuild the business which later ended up getting acquired. After acquisition Jeff went to Barington Capital Group, and finally to his current company where he is the Co-founder and President of Work Market. Did I mention he was also an auxiliary member of the NYPD as well? This is an episode packed full of insights: 

• Is getting a Master's of Business Administration worth the return on investment?

• Should you start a company or get an MBA?

• The value of spending time with Entrepreneurs.

• How to break into Venture Capital.

• Leaving a job in Venture Capital to start a new company.

• How to attract high quality investors in your startups such as Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, and Softbank.

• The one question you should start every meeting with.

• The four different types of conversations.

• Differences between Advisors and Mentors.

• The importance of giving back to others

The Ambition Today Question of the Day:

Who would win in a fight, Batman vs Superman?

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS and on Stitcher for Android. 

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Links from this episode: 

• Work Market, Acquired by ADP

• @JeffreyWald on Twitter

• Spin Back

• Why I Mentor by Jeff Wald in the Huffington Post

• NYPD Blue -- What I Learned About Startups Patrolling the Streets of New York City by Jeff Wald in the Huffington Post

• NYPD Auxiliary Officer program

• Ambition Today on Youtube

• Ambrose Madison

Who should I interview next?  Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below.  It keeps me going…

Listen to this episode now: 

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Founder Institute New York

Education vs Experience

@TheSiskar

Many entrepreneurs, or just people for that matter, spend time educating themselves when they come up against an obstacle. They spend time researching online, asking friends and family, reading books, and more. Education can be a powerful force when you are working to solve a problem. The key word in that last sentence though is work. 

Education is a tool that can be leveraged through experience. Without acting on new knowledge, the energy you put into educating yourself with new information is not that useful. It could even paralyze your efforts without you realizing it. This is why it is so important to act on and work through your problems while you educate yourself. 

Here is the secret though. While education needs to be applied through experiences to be effective. Experience does not require education to make progress toward your goals. 

Experience through action can still be useful even if you are not educated. It is obviously not as powerful as when education and experience are combined, but still better than just endlessly educating yourself. On it's own pushing through with pure experience may be harder at first, but it will still result in progress toward your goals. Also an added bonus, experience can even sometimes cause education as a by product of jumping in. 

Have I mentioned before that I minored in Philosophy? I know this is a bit of a deep logic piece about casual inference, but if you are still following me here, the point I want you to take away is this. 

The next time you find yourself searching the internet for an answer while dazed and confused and all progress toward your goals has ceased, stop what you are doing. Take a step back and ask yourself if you can just move forward. If so, go for it. Jump in and move forward with the next or another step. More often then not, the best educational answers you were searching for will reveal themselves to you on the other side of experience anyway. 

P.S. You can listen to this for a little extra motivation when pushing toward those harder goals. 

Why I Mentor by Jeff Wald

Jeff Wald

This is a guest post from Founder Institute New York mentor Jeff Wald titled "Why I Mentor" as was originally published in Huffington Post. Jeff has asked me to share the post and it contains some incredibly valuable insight on the Mentor / Mentee relationship. My favorite quote from it is: 

"I believe we have an obligation to help fellow travelers."

Jeff Wald is Co-Founder and President of Work Market, the leading enterprise-class platform for the management of contract and freelance talent. Jeff has a long track record as a successful entrepreneur across the technology and services landscape. He has successfully built and sold multiple tech companies, including SpinBack to Buddy Media, which was subsequently purchased by Salesforce.com for $800 million.  

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Why I Mentor

by Jeff Wald

A startup founder recently asked me a simple, yet startling, question during our monthly meetings. We have been working together for nearly two years, and as with all startups she has had her ups and downs. We have had all manner of conversations over the years and yet, in this one instance, her simple question floored me - "When I asked if you would be my mentor, why did you say yes?"

The first thing that surprised me was that she said "mentor" and not "adviser". I have the pleasure of advising many companies. This means that I meet with them every now and again to offer some thoughts on a discrete problem, or I make an introduction or two. However, my relationship here was different. I was more than an adviser. I was a mentor to her. We meet once a month and I know a tremendous amount about her business, where she has been and where she hopes to go. I am proud to be her mentor so I wanted to provide an honest answer.

After collecting myself, I explained that there were three reasons why I said yes‎, in no particular order of importance:

• She was the first to ask.
• Mentoring helps reinforce the lessons I'm learning at my own company.
• I believe we have an obligation to help fellow travelers.

‎She was the first to ask. She and I met at The Founders Institute (FI), an organization where I have been teaching for some years. The FI is the world's largest entrepreneur training and startup launch program with chapters across 50 countries. In each chapter "experienced" founders teach a series of classes to aspiring founders.

Many of the students I have taught over the years will email and ask if they can discuss their businesses. I am always happy to help, so‎ I'll meet with them and offer candid feedback on their ideas. These aspiring founders frequently end our time together by asking to return when their plans have progressed. I would always say yes, but few have ever returned. Some never make any progress; some don't like the very direct feedback I am prone to give; some presumably just forget to follow up. So when asked why I agreed to mentor her, part of the answer was simply that she asked. I had time and she asked, so I said yes. If someone had asked before her, then I really would not have had the time.

Mentoring helps reinforce the lessons I am learning at my own company. I have learned a great many things on my entrepreneurial journey at Work Market: mistakes I hopefully won't repeat, important lessons to refer back to and valuable insights from colleagues. Mentoring this founder and hearing about her own struggles and breakthroughs has forced me to reflect on when we were at a similar stage as a company. Offering her advice and describing the opportunities we missed (we all miss many) helps to codify these hard-won lessons and prepares me for my next adventure.

We have an obligation to help fellow travelers. I have walked this tumultuous, crazy, startup path three times. It's one of the hardest ‎journeys you will ever take. It will test limits you never knew you had and then demand you to push beyond them. So, when the journey ends, regardless of the outcome, you have gained invaluable experience. Pass it along. I can promise you this: whatever outcome you had, you didn't get there alone. You had co-founders, colleagues, investors, mentors, advisers, customers, and of course friends and family that all helped in sometimes small, but many times, immeasurable ways. You owe it to them, as well as to yourself, to help others who are embarking upon that similar difficult path. No one can make it alone.

If you have made it to the end of a startup journey, and if you have the time, stretch out your hand and help the next traveler. They will be grateful and you will greatly benefit as well.

And in the meantime, check out what Beatriz and her team at DADA have built.

How Startup Funding Works

Venture Dealr

Most entrepreneur's are constantly looking to get their startup funded, starting from the very time of conception. The reality is that funding is just one part of a startup's life. Team, product, and execution are almost always more effective and powerful tools in a founder's arsenal than only throwing money at the problems your company working to solve.

Let's say though, that for the sake of this post, you got your company off the ground and funded. You even attracted enough investors to raise a Series A, B, and C too. Nice work! Then, some time after that you even exited your company as well! Impressive, I think you have the hang of this startup thing. 

If you have ever wondered how startup funding works and what it would be like to go through the process of raising venture capital and angel investor money to fund your startup, well wonder no more. Dan Lopuch and the team at Data Hero have created the "Venture Dealr". A pretty sharp Github project that allows you to visualize and turn the knobs on venture financing concepts such as dilution, option pools, liquidation preferences, down-rounds, and more. So go ahead, take your startup and shoot for the moon by clicking the button below. 

Ambition Today: Beatriz Helena Ramos, Founder & CEO of DADA Restores Power To The Artist

Beatriz Helena Ramos

On episode 7 Beatriz Helena Ramos, Founder and CEO of Dancing Diablo & DADA is with us.

Her most recent startup, DADA is a visual conversation platform for artists and art enthusiasts.

Founded 14 years ago, Dancing Diablo is is live action and animation production company based in DUMBO, Brooklyn, with a sister company in Caracas, Venezuela. The company has directed over a 100 spots including TV commercials, promos and videos for the web whose clients include: Coca Cola, Jet Blue, Chip's Ahoy, Bayer, General Mills, Kraft, PNC Bank, Tums, Oreo, Bronx Zoo , Movistar, Alka Seltzer, Ralph Lauren, University of North Carolina, Whirpool, Stouffer's, Toyota, Wendy's, Sesame Workshop, PBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, Disney, ESPN, among others.

After moving from Venezuela to find success in America, Beatriz thought that would be the hardest thing she ever had to do. Then she started her first business and learned that was not going to be true anymore. During this episode we go through: 

• Starting a brick and mortar Comic book store in Venezuela

• Moving to America to find success

• Working for MTV and Disney

• Who would win in a fight, Batman vs Superman?

• Running a remote office in another country

• How to restore power to the artists

• How to find impactful Mentor's and Advisors

The Ambition Today Question of the Day:

What is Ambition to you?

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS and on Stitcher for Android. 

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Links from this episode: 

• DADA

• Dancing Diablo

• Why I Mentor by Jeff Wald

Who should I interview next?  Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below.  It keeps me going…

Listen to this episode now: 

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Founder Institute New York

The Acceleration of Unicorn Startups

CB Insights just made this great infographic to help visualize the rate at which new billion dollar unicorn companies are being created. It seems to be as increasing trend since the start of 2014. There are now 142 total unicorn companies with a total cumulative valuation of $506B. This is up from 30 privately held technology companies worth more than $1B about 18 months ago.

Last month Mark Suster wrote on how he believes this trend is being driven by a fundamental change in the the structure of the Venture Capital industry and how money is entering the market. Let me know what you think is driving this change in the comments.  

You can click to enlarge the infographic below. 

View fullsize

Investing In Moonshots

There is a reason that the header image on this site is a scene from the movie Tomorrowland. I believe thats startups can work to build a better tomorrow. I believe when that work is applied to tremendous goals, like moonshots, it can result in incredible outcomes for a better world. 

Moonshots focus on a huge problem, a radical solution and breakthrough technology. It usually takes a particular type of fresh, audacious thinking to even conceive of a moonshot, and then an amazing team with passionate leaders to pursue it. 

Urban Enhancement

Human Enhancement

One of the best new ways to think about moonshots is the concept of 10x thinking or thinking exponentially. This weekend I mentored a Team X event in New York City which had 2 challenges. The Urban Enhancement challenge was to focus on a 10x improvement to resolve safety, security and health challenges through Robotics, AI and Biotech. The other challenge was to figure out a Moonshot solution for Human Enhancement, to resolve accessibility and mobility challenges through Robotics, AI and Biotech. Teams for both challenges had some BIG solutions that could change the lives of billions of people on earth.

It is always interesting to encourage people to think bigger. Exponential thinking is a mindset and when applied it can result in 10x or even 100x results. A great example explored this weekend was of what Tesla did with the electric motor and vehicle. Tesla committed to the moonshot. Their mission statement was to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible. Tesla is now the premier luxury vehicle. Recently it broke consumer reports rating system scoring the car 103 out of 100. 

Meanwhile competitor Fiskar built a hybrid gas and electric vehicle. Many investors played it safe and invested in Fiskar as it seemed like a smoother and safer transition to an electric motor future. However, Fiskar failed and went into bankruptcy. 

"If you invest in a bridge technology you are likely to be left behind, think 10x" - @jackhidary pic.twitter.com/G5a61dDCl0

— Kevin Siskar (@TheSiskar) November 7, 2015

A trend is happening where moonshots are increasing in their success rate over less ambitious ventures. This is enabled by the rapid growth in access to new and emerging technologies. If you invest in a bridge technology you are likely to be left behind. So if you are going to do something, it is time you start thinking bigger about it. Think exponential. Think 10x. 

Founder Institute Reviews From New York City Entrepreneurs

Last night we graduated twelve new companies from the Founder Institute in New York City. I couldn't be more proud of all the founders that graduated last night. Some of the new graduates recently published their thoughts and opinions on the program now that they have been through it. I wanted to share with you a few quotes from the thoughts they had. I am including links to the full posts below each quote so you can read those as well.

Thank you to all our mentors and congratulations again to the Summer 2015 New York Founder Institute Graduates! 

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Mise en place - Vicente DeReyes

"Initially, I wondered how an incubator program would help us achieve our mission of bringing the communal spirit back to dinner.  "Is the program designed more for tech heavy startups like emerging app companies or B2B service technologies?  Would our mission resonate with the program’s curriculum?”  These are a few of the questions I asked myself before joining.  As I write this post on graduation day, I look back at the past three months in awe of how much progress we have achieved.

Week after week, milestones were continually set and the bar constantly raised.  Have a B2B service? Go get LOI’s.  Have a B2C service? Create a landing page and get 500 signups.  Think your customers want “X”? Well go ask 200 of them and find out for yourself.  After many sleepless nights, countless pitches to mentors, and the reality-check of graduating with only 12 of my fellow companies out of an original class of 36, today is graduation day." 

- Vicente DeReyes: Link to full article

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Viozel - Roddi Simpson

"The training in lean startup methodology has been exceptional. Support has been excellently balanced. We were given the tools and enough space to figure it out ourselves but help was at hand if needed, challenges are given to strengthen weaknesses and it is all done in an environment of support between fellow founders that are literally (and I mean the literally!) invested in each other's success." 

- Roddi Simpson: Link to full article

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Bigger Dreams - Stefan Klotzbuecher

"Each one of us pitched our ideas about seven to nine times from start to graduation. While I sucked big at the beginning, you see everyone raising the bar and getting better, so you don’t want to be left behind. I invested a good amount of time in getting my pitch right, incorporating feedback and new insights along the way. I haven’t presented this much in a row before and think it is not only a helpful exercise, it’s also important as a founder, as you basically sell something (including yourself) all the time to someone (customers, investors, mentors, friends, employees)."

- Stefan Klotzbuecher: Link to full article

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Virtzy - Isak Mirzak

"For three months, influential mentors not only provided us with advice and their own experiences of being entrepreneurs, but also gave us invaluable feedback about our ideas and helped direct and guide us the right way to accomplishing our goals.

We've also developed great friendships with other founders that will continue beyond graduation. I want to commend other founders for their resilience, hard work, unrelenting passion and amazing support! This journey would have not been the same without my fellow team mates." 

- Isak Mirzak: Link to full article

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Ward eSports - Jose Lincuna

"One of the greatest challenges of your life..." "...You will meet some of the smartest and passionate people in your life." 

- Jose Lincuna: Link to full article

Founder Institute New York Graduates Twelve New Companies

With the 2015 Summer Semester of the Founder Institute coming to a close this week there is now twelve new companies formed in New York's Silicon Alley.

The Founder Institute is an early-stage startup accelerator and global launch network that helps entrepreneurs create meaningful and enduring technology companies. Through a four month program, existing and prospective founders can launch their dream company with expert training, feedback, and support from experienced startup CEOs. 

On November 4, 2015 we will gather graduates, mentors, investors, and friends to celebrate the twelve newest Graduates of the New York City Founder Institute. In addition to the Graduation Ceremony, guests will be treated to short business pitches from the graduates.

Here are the companies building a better tomorrow: 

Beginex -  Start your tech career with real work experience.

Bigger Dreams - Comprehensive career prep for High-School students.

Ballyhoo - Home of parody.

Collar and Kitchen - Real food, balanced just for dogs.

Easy Aerial Inc - Modular smart drones for industrial applications. 

Happy Heart Kid - Helping families "Play with Purpose".

Mise en place (mepNYC) - Bringing people back around the table.

The ffoodd company - Creating equal food access one order at a time.

Petvet Technologies Inc - Real time medical billing insurance claims for Veterinarians

Viozel - Find, quote, and track the progress of med tech services.

Virtzy - Connecting beauty & wellness professionals. 

Ward eSports - Find communities for every eSports game.

This Is How To Overcome Self Doubt

This is the face of self doubt. This is what it looks like in real time. You only have to watch up until the first minute in the video below to know what I am talking about.

This is Filmmaker and now also Youtuber Casey Neistat on March 30th, 2015. He had just come back from vacation and during that time made the decision to start vlogging everyday. Coming up with vlog content was not much of a challenge on the exciting tropical island this adventure started on, as it was upon his return to New York City. Being back home in New York he was realizing the commitment to himself would have to now work into his existing day to day of 8 hours at a desk, reading e-mail, and sitting in meetings. 

I have been thinking about this moment more and more recently. Especially as I work to make Siskar.co a consistent flow of insight into startups, ambition, and life growth. I have considered forcing myself to release content everyday. Watching that video you can see the moment in time, right there where a person doubts they can achieve the goal they promised themselves. It can feel almost like staring the mirror. So what do you do.

"So I can make today interesting and maybe even tomorrow interesting, but I do have some general concerns about sustainability. Anyways, here is my first vlog from New York City." - Casey Neistat

This is what you do. You put your head down and you make today interesting. And tomorrow you make tomorrow interesting. The day after that, you make it interesting too. And you keep going, and going, and going. You work. Then you work more. Some days are harder than others, but regardless you keep working. You just do it. The first step to greatness is taking the first step. 

Fast forward 200 days and vlogs later, Casey is still vlogging every day. It has paid off. The result of him putting his head down and fulfilling his commitment to himself has been incredible. His Youtube subscribers have increased over 1,000,000 since starting and his daily videos get over 500,000 views every day within hours of him posting them.

So in conclusion, I am going to just do it. Let's go make today more interesting. Hope to see you tomorrow. 

All of Casey Neistat's Vlogs since March 2015.

The Best CEO Speech Ever: Charlie Kim, Next Jump

At the Founder Institute in New York we have incredible Mentors come every week to mentor the founders of our startup companies. Sometimes we share some of those excellent Mentor presentations. This is one of the best CEO speeches of all time.

This motivational speech was given to the Founder Institute New York by Next Jump CEO Charlie Kim on Branding & Marketing. It includes over $200,000 of free branding knowledge, takes you to the future of the information economy, and also includes lessons from the entrepreneurial ups and downs of growing a billion dollar company. Through the Next Jump Leadership Academy, an invite-only full immersion workshop designed to share and teach programs around our learnings becoming a deliberately developmental organization, Charlie Kim works with some of the best leaders in the world.

A Complete Guide To The New York Startup Ecosystem

In local regions startup ecosystems can be fragmented, competitive, and sometimes hidden to newcomers, which can be detrimental for local startups and the growth of the community. The New York City Startup Ecosystem Canvas seeks to provide local entrepreneurs with a clear list of resources for every stage of their startup journey. A complete guide to the New York City Startup scene, Silicon Alley, all in one place for the community.

With applications for the next semester of the New York City Founder Institute coming to a close, we are excited to release the New York Startup Ecosystem Canvas. It was developed by the Founder Institute and local New York City leaders Kevin Siskar and Ramphis Castro.

View fullsize

If you know of a great resource that you feel should be added to the New York Startup Ecosystem Canvas feel free to let me know on Twitter @TheSiskar. 

Eric Duffy, CEO of Pathgather On What's Next For Learning Management & Startup Life In Silicon Alley

Eric Duffy, Pathgather

Eric Duffy, Co-Founder and CEO of Pathgather, a beautiful and engaging learning platform for the modern workforce joins us on episode 6 of Ambition Today. We get into the insights fast on this episode: 

"What do I think will allow me to have the most impact on my short time on earth" - Eric Duffy

For Eric, after some time abroad in Africa, the answer to his question was to start Pathgather. We discuss how traveling the world can lead to inspiration for new great ideas. From there Eric moved back to Silicon Alley and joined the Founder Institute in New York to launch Pathgather. His journey through founding a startup takes us through:

• How a great MVP tests user behavior and can attract your first customer.

• Graduating the Founder Institute New York.

• How to position yourself to enable meeting your Co-founder.

• Joining Techstars New York City.

• Disrupting a stagnate industry such as the Learning Management System (LMS) space.

• Fundraising your seed round and how a convertible note works.

• Attracting investors such as Bloomberg Beta, Contour Venture Partners, Techstars, The Vedas Group, Tigerlabs Ventures, Palm Drive Ventures, Jerry Wang, Thomas Wisniewski, and Michael Derikrava.

• And also:

The Ambition Today Question of the Day:

What should a new startup founders first step be?

Todays News:

What are your thoughts on Twitter naming Jack Dorsey, one of its founders, as CEO?

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS and on Stitcher for Android. 

Who should I interview next?  Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below.  It keeps me going…

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Founder Institute 

This Made In NY Drone Just Doubled Quadcopter Flight Time

Each year, The Founder Institute helps launch dozens of technology companies across the globe. Once founders graduate from our 4-month program, they quickly begin using techniques like crowdfunding campaigns to drum up interest and obtain funding.

Easy Aerial, a New York Founder Institute company, has recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for their newest addition to the Easy Drone family, the Easy Drone XL Pro. In just a few short days the company has raised $21,238 of it's $30,000 goal. This is their second time on Kickstarter with a new and updated drone that has been improved upon from the previous version with testing and feedback. Last time on Kickstarter, Easy Aerial successfully raised $45,627 and shipped all of it's rewards by its promised dates. 

What is incredible about this drone is that it is the longest flying personal quadcopter drone, with 45 minutes of flight time. It also has the ability to lift a pro camera, which many others drones are too small to do until you reach a budget of almost $10,000. The Easy Drone Pro XL only costs $1,495 to super early bird Kickstarter backers. 

Easy Drone’s frame is made from carbon fiber and aluminum and is extremely rigid, yet it can be taken apart completely without tools and carried in a small backpack. Because of the modular design it is very convenient for transportation. Easy Drone has the largest frame size relative to travel pack, flight time and lift capacity on the market.

The maker of the drone, Easy Aerial, is an up and coming modular drone design company based out of New York City. They have already built a bit of a name for themselves with the consumer version of Easy Drone that did really well on Kickstarter. They have also been featured on AlleyWatch, InsertCoin, InterDrone, TechDay 2015, and Maker Faire.  Check out the companies new kickstarter here.

Ambition Today: Cory Crosland of Croscon on Bootstrapping, Grammys, and the Future of Mobile.

On this episode of Ambition Today, I was joined by Cory Crosland. Cory is the founder of Croscon, an engineering company which partners with big thinkers to plan, engineer and support their digital business.

Today we talk about how to bootstrap a company from one person just doing freelance work to a growing team of almost 20 people. How you can stay motivated years into your company. What it is like being nominated for a Grammy and winning a Webby Award. Also, what is the future of mobile now that Android has 1.4 billion users and much more.

Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS and on Stitcher for Android. 

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