Co-working spaces in New York: The Alley NYC

The Alley NYC is a coworking space started in August of this year located at 500 7th Avenue, Manhattan. Co-founded by Jason Saltzman and Jonathan Ende, it hosts over 200 entrepreneurs. A variety of coders and tech innovators walk the halls admiring the artwork, by local NY artist LA2, that drapes the walls. A vibrant, new space the Alley offers 16,000 square feet at $300 per month for desk space and $1500 and upwards a month for private offices.

Made in the USA: My Quest to Buy American

Made in America - Conscious Consumerism from Alia Fite on Vimeo.

I have spent the past three months on a quest to buy American-made goods.  From scouring the Internet to examining clothing labels at boutiques and produce labels at grocery stores, I have learned that finding American products on a budget is not easy.  But after speaking with entrepreneurs that are trying to change the way consumers shop, I am now willing to pay a premium on products--that is, of course, as long as it is within my budget.  This type of change in buying habits is part of the era of the conscious consumer.  It may be fairly new, but it's definitely here to stay.

The Nanny Diaries

The Rise of the Boutique Babysitting Agency

            It’s 4pm on a Tuesday afternoon. Bronte Sheffield, a tall, blonde 21-year-old from Colorado, adjusts her skirt and checks her makeup in her reversed iPhone camera as she walks through the entrance of the San Remo building on the corner of Central Park West and 76th St. “I’m here for the Vandersloot’s,” she tells the concierge at the front desk. “They’re expecting you,” the older man responds, smiling, and Sheffield takes the elevator up to the 30th floor of the historic apartment building. As she exits the elevator and walks towards apartment #38, two blonde children, screaming “BRONTEEE”, bound down the hallway towards her. “Hi guys!” she says, as Noah and Kyle, ages 4 and 6, wearing matching Ralph Lauren polo shirts, jump into her arms. The three of them enter the apartment, and Sheffield throws her purse and backpack onto the chaise lounge in the entryway. She greets Kim Vandersloot, Noah and Kyle’s mother. The statuesque, lithe brunette smiles, quickly glances approvingly at Sheffield's outfit, and says, “Hi Bronte! How’d your French presentation go this morning?"
            Like many college students in Manhattan, NYU senior Bronte Sheffield is a part-time nanny. When she’s not in school, at her internship, doing homework, or hanging out with her friends, Sheffield can usually be found at the Vandersloot’s $10 million dollar apartment looking after Noah and Kyle. She’s been nannying around Manhattan for three years now, but has been with the Vandersloot family since the beginning of this school year. “I’ve always loved kids and babysitting, and the extra money definitely helps as far as getting by as a college student in the city,” Sheffield says.

The Fall of Gowalla

The Almost Foursquare
 

Roughly half a decade ago, when the first mobile check-in apps were created, techies were satisfied with location-based services that merely allowed users to share their locations with friends. At present, a handful young entrepreneurs and veterans of the mobile check-in alike are innovating the practice to see how it can be used in a way that’s fresh and appealing to consumers, but this wasn't always the case.

Gowalla is an originator of the check-in app, which had over 300,000 users by June of 2010. The former iPhone, Android and Blackberry application used GPS to allow users to share their locations with friends. “It's a social adventure guide for people who like to go places, almost like having a passport or travel journal on your phone,” Josh Williams, the co-founder and CEO of Gowalla, describes in a January 2011 blog post.

“My fondest memories as a kid were road trips taken with my family and friends. I always found something a bit magical about packing up a car and driving someplace new,” Williams said. “This love for travel was no doubt the inspiration that fueled the creation of Gowalla.” 

Although the app may seem to be a copycat of the well-known Foursquare, Gowalla in fact predates Foursquare by over a year and a half, the former having been founded in August of 2007 and the latter in March of 2009.  However, while Foursquare has been able to maintain its presence in the app world as an innovator and champion of location-based check-in services, Gowalla has not. On December 5, 2011, the startup announced that it had been acquired by Facebook for an undisclosed sum.

In an interview with Mashable in April of 2010, a year and a half before the acquisition, Williams mused on the future of Gowalla: “We see Gowalla coming beyond just a declaration of ‘this is where I am,’ but ‘this is where I am, these are the people I was with, and these are the photographs that were taken,’” he explained. “So I can go in and pull up my buddy who checked into the Mavs and Spurs game in Dallas last night and see all the photos taken by fans there, and it becomes this snapshot of what happened in that moment.”

If only he could’ve known just how far beyond this vision mobile check-in apps would progress in a mere two-and-a-half years.

[Image via]

A Student Success

SleepBot: The Student Entrepreneur Project 

Photo courtesy: SleepBot 

What do college students say the never have enough of? I know, I know you're thinking monetarily, but take economics out of the equation and the answer is sleep. Lack of sleep affects your ability to work, think and co-ordinate, not to mention morphs even the sweetest of us into the grinch that stole Christmas. 

Jane Zhu, 22, would struggle with her sleep, or lack of it, when she studied Finance and Marketing at New York University. Spending her nights awake at five in the morning she would chat with her friend, and coder, Edison Wang. Eventually they started SleepBot, a mobile app designed to help you track and improve your sleep cycle. Edison was the tech architect and Jane the self taught design whiz. That was in 2010. Fast forward to 2012 and SleepBot has over 750,000 users and 200,000 daily users. All without any seeding money. 

"It doesn't require money to create the app," said Zhu, who graduated from NYU in 2012. "It requires time, and lots of it. And people value their time dearly." After setting up the app, the SleepBot team entered and won several entrepreneurial contests, most notably the 2012 NYU Stern New Venture Competition where they shared first place (winning $37,000). A few thousand dollars here and there from other competitions completed their "emergency fund". "That's not a lot of money to run a company," she says, laughing. "Thats only enough for living off ramen noodles for a year!"

Speaking fast and furious Zhu passionately described the difficulty and hard work that went into balancing being a student and entrepreneur. She had drawn a color coded graph of her last four years, and pulled it out of her bag to prove the work she had put in. At any given time she was doing at least three different things; her schoolwork, internship and extra-curricular activities or SleepBot. The one semester she did only focused on two things the grades would shoot up, and the semester she did four things her grades sunk. However graduating has not freed Zhu up as much as she has liked. "If you think you wasted time in school, try being your own boss!" she said. "There are days when you wake up and say 'oh my god I am a horrible founder'."

Fair Trade: The Balance Between Pity Products and Pretty Products

Sustainable NYC promotes foreign Fair Trade goods, while simultaneously catering to a customer base with a Westernized taste. 

Since opening 5 years ago in the East Village, Sustainable NYC has realized its goal in becoming a one-stop-shop and cafe for an eclectic assortment of fair trade, eco-friendly, and locally sourced goods. The store's marketing and events coordinator, Julia Falkenstein, has been working with the company since its inception, and attributes its success not only to its commitment of economic and social responsibility, but also to the quality, desirability, and stylishness of its products.

Sustainable NYC

From old bike chain-lined mirrors and chemical-free nail polish to 100% recycled aluminum foil and playfully-patterned tech cases made by the Ineza sewing co-op in Rwanda, Sustainable NYC has a bit of everything. However, Falkenstein says the shop's “biggest draw” is its impressive selection of accessories and jewelry. Boasting Fair Trade recycled wood stud earrings, recycled aluminum gold leaf earrings, and a slew of other necklaces, bracelets and rings from various countries across the globe, the shop's accessories are not only superior in number, but in fashionability as well.

The store's owner and founder, Dominique Camacho, came from a clothing-based background, and Falkenstein believes that it is her aesthetic that is partially to thank for the shop's success. While the store does want to support and promote foreign cultures through selling their products, it does not want to become a space that is defined solely by foreign goods that are bartered as an act of charity. “When you walk by there’s no blatancy of whats going on in here. You're not going to immediately go, 'Oh, that's another tree-hugger granola shop,'” says Falkenstein. Sustainable NYC seeks to sell goods that equalize the tastes and cultures of both parties involved in their production and consumption, not to sell pity products. “That's just not our platform.”

An oversized tote bag with pom poms reminiscent of Altuzarra's F/W 2012 collection, and a color and design scheme similar to that of a popular Matthew Williamson clutch. 

In recent years, Falkenstein has seen a notable up-flux of Fair Trade goods that have been produced with more of a Westernized style. She says that many products they sell have begun to cater towards the American aesthetic, but that they still “retain their identity of what they were and where they're from; they have just been stylized with a buyer in mind." Comparable in price to similar products that are not eco or socially friendly, conscious products are becoming increasingly demanded, and therefore increasingly produced.

Although the store is often contacted by various companies and organizations with product pitch letters, the majority of their Faire Trade Goods are found and curated by various organizations such as One World Projects and the NYC Fair Trade Coalition, which hosts its monthly meetings at Sustainable NYC. These organizations ensure that the products they sell are legitimately Fair Trade certified, and also serve as platforms that make finding such products a more feasible feat. Fashion moguls such as DANNIJO, Vivienne Westwood, Stella McCartney and J. Crew have aligned themselves with similar companies that foster a partnership between the brand and various garment-making co-ops around the globe, proving that sartorial economic and social responsibility is a movement occurring in both small local boutiques, and major global fashion houses.

Printed Pig-Out Sessions

3D Printing meets Fast Food

Tired of waiting in lines at your neighborhood Mexican restaurant or dealing with the crowds at Chipotle? Have no fear – the Burritob0t is here! The 3D food printer is designed specifically to print out the ingredients of the delicious comfort food in less than five minutes.

The printer, which took two months to create, was the thesis project of Marko Manriquez, a graduate student at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. As for where the idea came from, “I was just curious,” Manriquez says. “Sometimes you really need a burrito.”  

For now, the Burritob0t is about customization. A slider-based smartphone app allows users to choose their ideal combination and ratio of beans, rice, cheese, sour cream, corn and salsa (chunky, verde or picante). Link the app up to the printer and watch as it uses a syringe – as opposed to a typical 3D printer motor – to extrude the concoction onto a warmed tortilla. Might not be the most appetizing way to mix the toppings, but it sure is efficient.

Manriquez hopes to begin raising funds on Kickstarter to help expand growth and get the Burritob0t on the market, but he would also be content keeping it local. “My dream is to set up a taco truck,” he says. “How cool would it be to just have a truck with the printer inside, printing everything out as you order it?” 

Image via