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Ask HN: Can I visit your tech business in NY City?

84 points by Nickste ↗ HN
Hi, I'm a techy business dev. working for an app development company in Cape Town, South Africa.

I'll be in New York City on Thursday 27th and Friday 28th September; and would love to visit any New York based tech companies.

If you're doing something interesting; have a great startup culture that I could learn from; or just feel like chatting to someone from the tip of Africa - please let me know!

Any referrals or introductions would also be sincerely appreciated!

More info about me here: http://nicksmit.co.za or http://touchlab.co.za You can also get in touch with me here: @nickste

edit: I'd really like to visit FourSquare - I'm really interested in what they're doing in the mobile space - so please let me know if you've got any contacts!

33 comments

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JshWright
New York in general, or New York City?

It's around a 7 hour drive from one end of the state to the other.

Nickste
Good point - New York City! I've edited the primary submission to reflect. Thanks for the headsup!
bmac27
Stop by General Assembly; (http://generalassemb.ly/) you can most likely get a tour of the place or sign up for one of the classes they have that day. Just let them know beforehand that you'd like to check out the space. Great vibe & atmosphere. Lots of other startups & incubators/workspaces in the area (Flatiron) as well.
Nickste
Thanks for this - will definitely get in touch with them.
sudonim
My company http://customer.io works out of General Assembly. Happy to give you a tour. Feel free to send me an email: colin at customer io
highace
Good job on your site, just had a look and I think it looks great. Interesting service too. Do you have many users?
omarchowdhury
Nice idea but you're pricing is outrageous.
patio11
In general, if you find yourself thinking that, consider that you may not be the target customer.

Many companies which had a need for customer.io previously a) hired out very expensive people to build it to them (I have a couple of five figure invoices attributed directly to it not existing as an off-the-rack option last year) and b) can trivially go through several hundred bucks just having a single meeting on what to say in the emails.

You can, of course, code it for yourself out of duct tape and bailing wire, and that will pretty much work if you never need the non-technical marketing team to touch it.

31reasons
If customer.io succeeds , how much time will it take for other people to duplicate it and bring pricing down ? If customer.io provide top notch copywriting with the automated emailing, then they may have something here. Even higher pricing only based on conversion makes much more sense and i would pay for it.
patio11
If customer.io succeeds , how much time will it take for other people to duplicate it and bring pricing down ?

I don't know, "other people" might have their hands busy, considering this prediction has been made about a hundred other apps on HN.

solutionyogi
If that were to happen, then it's great as all the business customers win.

But I think you are underestimating how much effort it is to build something which businesses want and for them, ROC is more important then what a particular software/service costs. A business will happily pay a million dollar for an extremely simple software if that software can either save them 2 million dollar OR increase their revenue by 2 million dollars.

blacksmythe
Customer acquisition is a significant portion of starting a business. You have to make a new market and/or get customers from your competitor. If your competitor is charging more money for their product, they can afford to spend more on advertising to let people know they exist.
31reasons
I don't have much karma on HN yet, but I don't see any reason for down voting my comment. Can someone explain to me why my comment is considered "not useful" or stupid ? am I doing something wrong by expressing my opinion in a genuine way I can ?
jasonkester
I could see your first comment getting downvoted, since it was short, negative, and incorrect.

Your next comment (and this one), no. You're absolutely right that you shouldn't have been downvoted. You're still arguing against a whole lot of existence disproof, but you make your point well and offer some constructive commentary and alternative ideas.

Stick around. You're providing more value here than whoever it was that went off on you with the downvote button.

erichmond
Agreed with patio11 on this one. If you think that pricing is outrageous you're not at a scale where you need this kind of service yet.
mergesort
If you're going to stop by General Assembly, I work for a company called Viggle on the 11th floor. joe@viggle.com is the best way to reach me.
ibejoeb
If you're around Friday evening, stop in for happy hour. There's always lots of folks hanging out, networking, showing off their stuff. Kicks off around 6.
intellegacy
Hey, I'd like to stop by. Which building is it? East or WesT? ie. the 902 broadway or the 915 broadway office? Thanks.
frankdenbow
For sure, I work out of there and can show you around. Email frank at startupthreads dot com
joshguthrie
Stopped by General Assembly while I was in NYC, had a good time. You should definitely visit this place :)
j45
FogCreek does tours sometimes from what I vaguely recall..
scottilee
You should make a list of companies you are interested in and email them to schedule a visit.

Tell them what you want to accomplish during your visit and make sure to research the company beforehand.

iamjs
Most NYC tech startups will be more than happy to visit with you for a bit and give you a tour. I did this just before graduating from University. I visited General Assembly, Betaworks, Etsy, and also some really small companies. Just email beforehand and try to arrange a time that works for both of you.
dblock
Feel free (you or anyone reading this) to drop me an email and come visit Art.sy, we're on Broadway & Canal (dblock[at]dblock[dot]org).
carterschonwald
I tend to work out of a space in the union square area near GA, feel free to drop me a line and time permitting I'm down for a fun chat.
lanej0
I don't work out of the NYC office, but if you're interested in checking out www.getharvest.com, I can see if one of my co-workers would be willing to chat you up.

jon at getharvest

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olidb2
Hey Nick - come and visit us at Datadog http://datadoghq.com We're on 26th and Broadway, next to a great many other startups. I'm oli@
abuiles
Hey, I'll be visiting NYC next week too, I'm from Colombia(South America), I'm attending startup weekend and trying to connect with some people over there, let's meet if you want, builes.adolfo at gmail dot com
Sidnicious
You’re welcome to check out OkCupid — just drop me an email (address in my profile).

If you stop by on Thursday afternoon, you can join us for lunch and a game of Catch Phrase. Or, come after work and challenge someone to Mario Kart or Smash. Or, stop by any other time and we’ll still be happy to show you around.