Sam Lessin, the 25-year-old
founder of Drop.io, talks about the New York tech startup scene in this episode of The Deal's Behind the Money online video show.
There's more kinship than competition among the Big Apple's 20- and 30-something entrepreneurs, says Lessin, who is friendly with, among others, Charles Forman (OMGPOP, previously called Iminlikewithyou), Mike Hudack (Blip.tv), David Karp (Tumblr Inc.), Charlie O'Donnell (Path101 Inc. and nextNY) and Nate Westheimer (AnyClip and NY Tech Meetup).
Drop.io creates "simple, private spaces where individuals and businesses can share files -- documents, pictures, music, love notes, whatever! -- via the Web, but without fear of attracting millions of other eyes," as The New York Observer's Gillian Reagan put it in a recent
profile of Lessin.
Lessin also reports turning to his investors for advice, especially RRE Ventures' Stuart Ellman and Jim Robinson IV and DFJ Gotham Ventures' Danny Schultz. Drop.io has raised $3.9 million from RRE and DFJ Gotham since November 2007.
Even investors who aren't directly involved in Drop.io are impressed by its service, which was featured at a recent NY Tech Meetup.
"Sharing on the real-time Web has been Balkanized to date, with services asserting rights over your content," Betaworks co-founder John Borthwick tells The Deal. "Drop.io is starting to open up the way we can get data into a platform, share it and then get it back out if need be."
On Thursday, Drop.io is expected to launch a new service.
Watch the video interview below or download it at iTunes. -
Mary Kathleen Flynn
Behind The Money: Iminlikewithyou's Charles Forman on selling virtual goodsBehind The Money: Tumblr's David Karp on raising Series BBehind The Money: Path 101 founder Charlie O'Donnell on seeking $2M in tough timesBehind The Money: NY Tech Meetup organizer-elect Nate Westheimer and what he wants to do nowFor comments or suggestions about Deal Video please contact mwoehr@thedeal.com. If you would like to embed this video on your website the embed code is:<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYGBrXEA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="330" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
that's the nyc startup scene? please mary get out more often - we know you love to write about the same set of 5 people in nyc - all male - all under 30 but there's so much more going on in nyc
let's see
dropio - no income
omgpop - no income
should we go on?
its tooo bad that this is all people see of nyc