Posts from New York

Support E-Hailing in NYC!

Last year, at about this time, USV met Jay Bregman and Ron Zeghibe, who are two of the cofounders of Hailo, a mobile app for hailing taxis, that had just launched in London. If anyone has been to London in the past year, you probably know that Hailo has taken London by fire with over half of all cabbies in London accepting rides on Hailo. Hailo has gone onto launch in Dublin, Toronto, Chicago, and Boston, and they hope to launch in NYC in 2013. Imagine being able to hail a yellow cab in NYC from your Android or iPhone? I cannot wait.

But before Hailo, Uber and other e-hailing apps can hail yellow cabs in NYC, we need changes to our taxi cab regulations. And that vote is TOMORROW. So I've asked Jay Bregman to pen a guest post explaining to all of you, and hopefully all of NYC (and especially five reluctant regulators), why we need e-hailing to be allowed in NYC.

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Every ten seconds across the world a licensed taxi driver accepts a Hailo E-hail. And with each match, Hailo helps chip away at the millions of dollars lost by drivers and hours wasted by passengers due to inefficiency in the market. E-hailing apps help solve the line of sight problem – they are the natural evolution of the arm-flail, the doorman’s whistle, the light outside the hotel – and nowhere will our impact be greater than right here in New York City, my hometown.

Right now, cab drivers (and prospective passengers) are limited by their line of sight at any given time. A passenger can be very close by, but if a driver does not see them, they will not get picked up. As a result, the fare is lost, and the passenger misses out on a cab ride. Drivers currently spend up to half of their time cruising empty in NYC, desperately looking for passengers.

 

This does not make any sense.

E-hailing is now commonplace in cities across the globe – including London, Dublin, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco and many others. In London, half of London’s 23,000 drivers safely use apps to get up to 30% more business every day. Hailo passengers on average wait only two minutes from tap to taxi.

This Thursday, the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission’s nine-member board will vote on proposed rules which will allow E-Hailing in NYC, subject to a balanced and sensible licensing scheme similar to those already in place in cities such as Chicago and Toronto. If adopted, the rules would take effect in mid-February. But politics – in particular outcry from adjoining industries such as black car and livery companies seeking government protection against change – are currently threatening whether the rules will pass and therefore whether this technology will be allowed in NYC, where, like London, cabs provide a critical, cost efficient service.

Four commissioners have already expressed support for the rules – meaning New Yorkers are just one vote away from a substantial technology improvement to the iconic Yellow Cab. I am writing this post as the Founder & CEO of Hailo – one such E-Hailing provider – to explain why E-Hailing is important, why it is ready for NYC, and what you can do to help convince the commission if you agree. To be very clear, these rules do not select a single supplier or favor Hailo over anyone else; they merely establish an open marketplace in which E-Hail providers may compete for the hearts and minds of Yellow Cab drivers and the riding public.

 

There is overwhelming evidence that E-hailing works, it has been proven on New York style scale and sophistication, and it will do nothing but good for passengers and drivers – so why do TLC commissioners remain unconvinced?

 

The TLC must pick up the reins of innovation and competition and finish the task started when credit card machines were introduced in 2005, when the contracts with these providers first contemplated smartphone apps. We pledge our support to the drivers and people of New York, and the TLC, to make sure this time we get it right.

To make your voice heard, please email the TLC at [email protected] or contact the Chair here. The vote is Thursday, 13 December.

Further Information

Hailo’s testimony at a recent TLC Public Hearing on the E-Hailing regulations:

#mobile#NYC#Politics

Metainstability

I had breakfast yesterday with a friend who had recently relocated to NYC from SF. He told me he was taken with the hyperactivity of NY'ers. I asked him where he thought it comes from. He had a great answer and I am going to share it with all of you.

He said that NY is "meta unstable" meaning that it is inherently unstable and therefore in a constant state of imploding on itself. And NY'ers implicitly understand that. So they only way we can keep the city functioning is to be constantly seeking to upgrade it in real time. So that's why the city is in a constant state of construction. That's why NY'ers are always looking for a better way to do something and a faster way to get somewhere.

This may sound like psycho physics babble. In fact it is. But it also captures something inherent in the NYC psychology that I have felt since the day I arrived here in 1983. This city is in a constant state of seeking to get to a better place. And that is why it is such a great place to be an entreprenuer despite all of the challenges of operating a business in NYC. And it is why I felt at home here the day I arrived and why I suspect I always will.

I'd also like to wish a happy birthday to my partner in our Big Apple adventure. The Gotham Gal. Who brings a measure of stability to our metainstability.

#NYC

Blogworld Talk Between JLM, William, Arnold & Me

A few weeks ago AVC regulars JLM, Arnold, William and I did a talk at Blogword.

BlogWorld Panelists June 2012

We talked about blogs, social media, and of course, commenting communities. William kicked it off with some data that came out of the survey he did. About nine minutes in, the conversation starts.

We recorded it on SoundCloud and you can listen below.

#Weblogs

Mobile Native Services

One of the most exciting areas of Internet applications these days are applications that are "mobile native". That doesn't just mean mobile first. It means mobile native – the app could not exist if the mobile smartphone didn't exist.

A great example of this is the "book a cab ride on your phone" category. The leader in this category is Uber which does a great job and really nailed the experience. I've also used SideCar in San Francisco and Hailo in London. All three are great experiences.

These services work so well because the cab driver and the passenger both have mobile phones that are geolocated. The application matches up driver and passenger in real time and handles payment as well. That's a killer experience.

When thinking about new mobile app categories, we like to think about these mobile native services. They are very powerful.

#mobile

And Now A Word From Your Sponsor

I was going to post today on the brewing online privacy discussion in Washington but then I saw this video in my twitter feed. It was made by the New York Tech Meetup and is a three minute public service announcement about doing your startup in NYC. I did sit for the film but was left on the cutting room floor. That's just fine with me. It came out great and so today's post will be an advertisement from NYC to all entrepreneurs out there.

We will resume regular programming tomorrow.

#NYC#Web/Tech

NYC BigApps 3.0

I've been involved with NYC BigApps since its creation three years ago. It's a great program. NYC opens up some of its data sources to developers who use the data to build new mobile and web apps. The judges vote on them (I'm one of the judges) and there are prizes awareded which total $50,000. A number of startups have come out of this program and I've met quite a few great developers through this effort.

The submissions for year three are in and they are solicting public opinion on them here. There are 96 apps this year to be considered so that's a lot of product to review. You don't have to review all of them (I do) so just go take a look and let the organizers know which ones you think are the best. There are nine days left in the voting phase. There are two popular choice awards that will be given based on the public voting.

All the winners will be announced at the annual BigApps event in late March.

#NYC#Web/Tech

NYU Poly Speech

A few weeks ago I hopped on the subway and headed out to downtown Brooklyn to NYU Poly, the engineering school that recently merged with NYU. I got there a bit early, went to Starbucks and wrote down some thoughts. Then I got up on stage at NYU Poly and explained why I had recently become a Trustee of both NYU and Poly. Here's what I had to say (15 mins):

#NYC#VC & Technology

We Are NY Tech

Imagine if there was a blog that wrote about one person who works in NY Tech every day and over time built the seminal database (like Crunchbase) of everyone working in NY tech. How cool would that be?

Don't imagine it. Just head on over to We Are NY Tech and witness it in action. You can also follow We Are NY Tech on Twitter.

Unlike silly lists like the Business Insider "Coolest 100 People" which is bullshit and I hate it and wish they would stop putting out nonsense like that, We Are NY Tech is democratic, wonderful to look at and read, and is exactly the kind of service we need in NYC to identify who is who and who is doing what and why.

We Are NY Tech was build by the team at Simande, a creative shop that builds great websites. If We Are NY Tech is a anything, its a great example of their work. I suspect this is a labor of love by the Simande team, but if I were Silicon Valley Bank, Gunderson, Cooley, Ambrose, and a host of other service providers to NYC's startup community, I'd be trying to buy sponsorships of We Are NY Tech. No better way to show the support of the community than to support a living breathing database of the community.

Well done We Are NY Tech. I'm following you and I hope the rest of the NY Tech Community is too.



#VC & Technology#Web/Tech

Some Thoughts On Geography

Many people, including some of our investors, think of our firm as New York centric investor. That has never been true. We are focused on one thing, internet services of scale, and are willing to travel to find them.

But you can only spend so much time on an airplane unless you are Dave McClure or Joi Ito. And I am not in their league when it comes to air travel.

So I thought I'd show some data this morning. I went back over all of our investments since we started in 2004. And I added three term sheets we have signed but have not yet closed on (yes, we've been busy).

Here is the data:

Deal geography

What you see is that we have never been focused exclusively on NYC but over time we have started to stretch our wings. And our "wings" go in two places, SF and Europe. Basically, we fly the NYC-SF and NYC-London routes.

Europe is particularly interesting. We have sourced investments in London, Berlin, Holland, Israel, and Slovenia. I know that Israel is not technically in Europe but I put it there anyway. Of the six investments we have sourced in Europe, three are now headquarted in NYC and one other has significant operations in NYC. We like finding great teams in Europe and helping them set up the headquarters in NYC. I expect we will do more of that as well as more investments headquartered in Europe.

We will have eight SF based investments by year end assuming everything closes. That is roughly 22% of our portfolio by names. I suspect we will continue to do between 20% and 30% of our investments in SF for as far forward as I can see.

NYC is our home and where we do the majority of our investments. That is how it should be because we are primarily early stage investors and it is best to be close to our companies. We have 25 companies headquarteed in NYC, including two who have exited. I think that is one of the largest portfolios of venture stage (not angel stage) companies in NYC. Maybe the largest. We are proud of that fact and plan to keep adding to it as long as we see opportunity. And we see a lot in NYC right now.

This post might leave the impression that we won't go anywhere other than NY, SF, or Europe to look for investments. That is not true. We have companies with operations in Boulder and Austin and go there regularly. We see opportunity in Seattle, LA, Boston, DC, Chicago, Toronto, and elsewhere. But it is also true that once you start going someplace regularly, start working with the local investors and the local entrepreneurs, you tend to focus your energies there. We'd like to add a few more geographies to our routines so keep the opportunities outside of our big three locations coming. As I said in the start of this post, we are focused on internet services of scale and will travel to find them.



#VC & Technology

A Tale Of Two Cities

Yesterday my partner Brad told me that he thinks something special is going on in two cities, San Franscisco and New York. That something special is a creative culture that is leading to an explosion of new web services.

This post from Om Malik bears that observation out. Here is the money quote:

San Francisco saw 36 Internet deals that brought in $131 million, while New York City saw 31 Internet deals garner $126 million. In comparison, Mountain View, San Mateo & Palo Alto saw 21 deals focused on the Internet and they brought in a total of $174 million.

If you want to talk about capital efficient web servics, then there are two ideal places to start them, San Francisco and NYC. How about the valley? Well, there you apparently need to spend more money. The average Internet deal in SF and NYC was $3-4mm. In the Valley, it was over $8mm.

I'm pleased to see NYC getting the attention it deserves. NYC hasn't been a technology hotbed since Bell Labs left town in the 50s, but now in the age of Internet startups, it sure is.



#VC & Technology