startup adventures in nyc - Latest Comments

Re: The Nonprofit Model is Broken

hellosailor — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:13:31 -0000

Aha! My husband has worked in microfinance. Maybe that is why, but I still have a hard time believing that most non-profits are so incompetent. (Anyway, I'm really late to the party, but am enjoying reading your blog.)

Re: The Nonprofit Model is Broken

hellosailor — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:11:49 -0000

I think this is a little unfair. Sure, non-profits do face special challenges, but I don't think most are filled with "mediocre people." I do think that sometimes there is a lack of corporate business experience, but my husband came up through the non-profit world (because he cares a lot about doing good) and he and his colleagues (he is now on the corporate side) are very astute business people. Of course, he has done a lot of work with entrepreneurship, so maybe that's why.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Drew — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:18:49 -0000

Am I missing something? How can you come out of a 4 year university degree with 'no marketable talent'. Isn't that the whole reason you go to university? You study IT, you graduate with marketable talents in the IT field. I mean I can understand the reasoning if you go and spend $33,000 to get a degree in Philosophy or something. But surely most people going through university aren't doing that.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Red Holio — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:04:18 -0000

iOS developer = loser! It is not the debt that is overwhelming it is the application of compounding interest. Good for you that you have not taken out any student loans, neither have I. That being said, you are an uninformed wanker that should shut his face and go write some more useless programing for apple junk and leave the discussion to the grown ups. You have no idea what life is here in the states is like so your opinion is just that. Why do you not "write" a program for your crapple phone that bitch slaps you whenever you decide to speak on issues that are above your pay grade.

Re: Cargo Cult Game Design

claudia — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:50:29 -0000

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Re: Why They Don’t Answer Your Emails

Steve Bennet — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:56:40 -0000

A big one for me is making it easy to respond on blackberry (yes I admit I'm an addict and have been using bb for 13 years now...). If it is a long email or has an attachment, I won't be able to quickly respond on bb. The chance of responding drops if required to go to ipad or laptop. Write succinct emails with a specific ask.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Michael Hussey — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:40:57 -0000

Don't go to a school that costs $40K a year if you have to borrow that much money to be there. Many kids don't understand what debt is until they have to start paying it back, but blaming someone else is a child's reaction.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Kieran McGrady — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:55:42 -0000

After investigating the reasons behind the protests more, I finally understand why people are protesting. Trying to find out the reasons behind the protests is tricky because people are all there for different reasons. So I have setup a website to try and explain the #occupy movement better http://www.occupyexplained.com. If you want to help you can submit your own stories to it.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Trevor Owens — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:25:38 -0000

Clever ending. ie. GA = solution to Occupy Wallstreet. I hope you guys are right!

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

NotHannah — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 06:23:54 -0000

I agree. I'm writing a blog about it right now, and found your article in a Google search for "back up." So thanks for this. Articulation is key for the OWSers right now.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Nyyanks27ws2005 — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:00:37 -0000

The problem is that Sallie Mae can tack on large interest- it can charge whatever it wants for people who default because they own their own collection agency....there should be a freeze...people should only have to pay back what they owe plus so much interest that is fixed and not ridiculous...and Sallie mae collections should be shut down...it is a monopoly!

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Nadia Hassan — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 08:49:20 -0000

Brad, I, wonder how would your thesis that a social contract concerning a liberal arts degree unraveled over the past few years explain rising unemployment among citizens without a college degree? I think you can reasonably argue that these numbers underestimate the situation among college graduates because some young college grads aren't seeking a degree or doing interernships. However, how does it account for rising unemployment in other groups?

http://moneywatch.bnet.com/inv...

http://www.economist.com/blogs...

           Moreover, in surveys of small businesses, poor sales ranks above qualities of workers on questions about hiring. Why are all of these businesses talking about their weak sales challenge?

          Also, I wanted to ask about some alternative theses. Some say that the economic and employment situation results from the overhang of debt--primarily mortgage debt--that households took on during the bubble years of the aughts. After the bubble burst, it acted as a big drag on growth.

These researchers have found that in counties with low debt a stronger recovery is going on than in counties with high debt: http://www.frbsf.org/publicati...
       I suppose you could contend there are a lot of overleveraged liberal arts grads in those areas, however the counties specified as high-debt were areas with soaring house prices during the bubble years.

        Of some interest, the Dallas found US GDP trendlines are consistent with historical data on financial crises: http://dallasfed.org/research/...

         On this note, many people who share your view point to Germany. It has the kind of educational practice you suggest here. They don't have as horrible a jobs crisis. However, the German GDP #s from the crises to now, have not been dramatically better than ours. And forecasters are talking about sub 3% growth there next year, and Q2 was quite bad. Despite your suggestions, they're still having growth problems.

If broken education system--->young people unable to respond to market job demands-->economic weakness

How do you explain weak growth in Germany?

            It's possible that altering education and training would help a lot with jobs and that's good, but this evidence on debt suggests other factors drove our current situation and weak growth is here to stay for it.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Ben Buckman — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:38:51 -0000

I completely agree about "state education heads and politicians who have resisted a move toward more practical, vocational education" and the "colossal mismatch of skills and market needs." I made this point to someone recently, however - saying the problem was a lack of marketable *skills* - and was asked, what skills? I didn't have a good answer. I'm a web developer, which is a highly marketable skill, but not everyone wants to do that. Are we talking about "manual" labor like construction and manufacturing - when those are in decline? Should everyone be in marketing? I'm very curious to hear your thoughts.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Matt — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:17:00 -0000

I disagree- expecting students to forgo tertiary education simply because the government refuses to subsidize it (as they do in most countries) is ridiculous. How are Americans expected to compete with workers in other countries whose governments help them obtain college degrees?

The problem isn't greed; people feel squeezed because their wages aren't keeping up with the cost of living, and their decision to refinance their mortgages reflected more a sense of desperation that they needed some sort of break. In a fairer society, the government would make obtaining a college degree affordable for everyone, and middle class wages would be high enough so that people wouldn't have to use their mortgage as an ATM machine. In fact, we don't even have to imagine- look at Northern Europe, Canada, Australia, and other countries as examples of where this model is working.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

KB — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:02:41 -0000

Not all businesses in the US can be plumbing or auto-repair shops, nursing etc (i.e. service based). For a nation to be successful it needs to build something, create something. Not all are Bill Gates or Thomas Edison. A country needs engineers and scientists to be a world leader. With your mentality, the US will be nowhere in no time. I am not completely disagreeing with your notion of greed being the root cause. But why did the university fees jump all of a sudden. I don't understand how in the US college education can be so damn expensive ? If university education becomes unaffordable for the middle class, the US is going to be a hugely divided nation where class warfare is going to be rampant.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Nospam — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:18:38 -0000

Yeah, as soon as we develop college education that provides ten years of workforce experience and a willingness to work for $25K a year, we'll be just peachy. {rolls eyes}

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Ken Hillyer — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 01:28:15 -0000

Brad -

Maybe it's time to hand off that "puppy rental for hipsters" business plan. Could be the right match of skills and market needs...

Just a thought.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Kieran McGrady — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:58:34 -0000

"There's a mismatch of markets to skills"

So go create a new market. You can't hope someone invents a new business or market that suits your skills. You need to do it your self.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Startupgrrl — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 19:31:30 -0000

Who owns the debt? Who caused the "social contract" to evaporate in the past three years? It's not the universities-- it's financial institutions and globalized, gluttonous corporate "citizens". Claiming there's a mismatch of skills to market needs is backwards. There's a mismatch of markets to skills. Is a market that values high frequency vampire traders and golden parachutes for fuck-up CEOs really a market we should be chasing after?

Oh, and when you say the protesters aren't eloquent, you come off as a huge dick.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

Kieran McGrady — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:35:55 -0000

The problem they face is the same millions of people are facing. And everybody is trying to pass the blame. People who lose their homes blame the banks who gave them mortgages. And students are trying to blame Wall Street on the loans they took out. The real culprits are the people themselves. People were greedy, took out several mortgages on their homes and purchased homes they couldn't afford. Now they are in trouble. The same goes for the students. A university education is not essential or a right. Their are plenty of jobs that don't require a degree. And in this day and age is it not a stretch to look at starting your own business. But instead people who couldn't afford further education took out loans they couldn't pay back. The real issue at the heart of the current economic situation is greed and people refusing to live within their means.

I say this as someone who does not come from a rich or above average background, decided not to got to university because of the expense, and taught myself a skill so that I could start my own business. People need to take more responsibility for their actions. Every day they waste protesting they could have spent looking for a job, or learning a new skill.

Re: Occupy Wall Street is about student debt

e.p.c. — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:26:05 -0000

I was commenting on just this to a friend of mine. Over the last decade states cut back aid to state universities, forcing tuition up, the Federal government trimmed the Pell grant to near oblivion. The “reform” in the bankruptcy laws mid-decade changed these loans to be non-dischargeable in bankruptcy court. Colleges seem to engage in a mindless race to the top in tuitions (while the few faculty I know have seen negligible or even negative salary increases…so that's not the cause). Any one of these would suck, but the combination is overwhelming.

It took me nearly a decade to pay off my student loans in the 1990s, and I was earning a fantastic salary at the time and had at most $75k total across college plus grad school. I remember the distinct feeling of “oh shit” once someone actually sat down with me and walked through the debt I’d accrued (I don’t know how it’s done today but I had zero, absolutely zero information on the loan terms until just before I graduated).

It's incomprehensible to me that the parents and school administrators aren’t warning their kids about this as they go through school, let alone on the day they graduate.

Re: What we don’t know

EladSwifto — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:32:53 -0000

This blog is an unknown unknown to me. I had no idea what you were trying to say. Could you put it in more concrete terms?

Re: What we don’t know

Anand Chopra-McGowan — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 06:34:58 -0000

This is great, Brad.

The newer the business model, the more unknown unknowns there are likely
to be. Applied to startups or task lists, there's a strong need to take
the time to uncover what we don't know we don't know.

Re: Go Into Sales

Cheema Avtar — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:27:23 -0000

Hi, well put. Enterprise and sales are definately one of the same. I am an IT engineer of 10 years and contracted at a rate x10 per hour above the standard min wage. I hated it, not even the money gave me the satisfaction. I saved my money and undertook a renovation and new build. I loved it, but unable to continue due to the financial down turn and banks tightening up. I loved the enterprise spirit and the sale of the product. I am now looking to return to sales within IT as I now feel that I have really found my way. I love sales and want some company to try me out. Wish me luck and thanks for the encouragment. T

Re: Selling to Middle America

Scott Arneill — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:22:13 -0000

This is really interesting and made me think a lot about design and the sometimes arrogant approach we can subconsciously take, being as close to technology as we are (I say "we" because I'm guilty of it too.)

"But they don’t look like that for want of trained designers — rather, they are compulsively driven by analytics and build what works."

This statement brings to mind two posts by designers I respect a lot, and whose work I admire, where they are sending what are basically 'open letters' to big companies with suggested redesigns for their platforms.

http://metalabdesign.com/zappo...

http://www.dustincurtis.com/de...

In both cases, I prefer the designs submitted by the designer-blogger, and found myself nodding in agreement when reading their points. But this post, and particularly the statement above, made me realize that these aren't designed for techies or designers, they're designed for the rest of the world...

Great post, Brad.