I was recently asked to speak on a couple of panels at Internet Week New York (which is just about to wind down). Yesterday was lucky enough to join the stage with Jotham Sederstrom (The Commercial Observer), Ash Zandieh (ABS), Sacha Zarba (CBRE) and Jamie Katcher (Cushman & Wakefield) to talk about how technology and startups are completely changing the real estate world in Manhattan and beyond.
Come say hi at Brand Camp 2013
I have a handful of speaking events lined up for this year and one of them just released tickets for their May 20th event. Brand Camp is focused on changing how people build, launch, and grow ideas and use technology as personal brands, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs (employees), small businesses and corporations.
Why am I excited to speak at Brand Camp 2013? It’s simple — I believe that one of the best things you can do to increase your odds of success is to connect with others early and often. This means not only meeting and connecting with investors but also potential employees, advisors, partners, customers and even adversaries early and often. It’s something we focus on at WeWork Labs by holding office hours and roundtables with brands, mentors, advisors and other intelligent individuals who are open to helping entrepreneurs.
I’m excited to join a number of amazing people like Jessica Lawrence (New York Tech Meetup), Andrea Harrison (Pepsi) and Kathleen Warner (Startup America Partnership) on stage at The Riverside Theatre in a couple of months. I hope to see you there.
Nice Companies Finish First
I am super excited to finish reading my friend’s new book, “Nice Companies Finish First”. The ideas that Peter shares in his latest book are right on the money. Employers need to take a moment to realize that the biggest improvements in our world are not happening while locked away in an office, they are taking place out in the bullpen, sharing and working together. And that’s just what Peter’s book discusses, when it comes to management and growth.
We’re no longer stuck in silos by location, department, skillset or even language. Tools like Facebook, Trello, Jive and Google Translate allow us to share information faster than ever and connect with people in a way we never even imagined 10 years ago. It’s time the business world realizes this. It’s time we start working together.
That’s what we try to do with WeWork every single day. We’ve built physical spaces and virtual products to not only bring people together but also to help companies and even cities build more successful ideas and sustainable businesses. We believe that the future of work will be collaborative and it will look a lot more like what our community is doing than what some of the stodgier, cubicle-farmed organizations have been doing since the late ’60s.
I highly recommend picking up a copy of “Nice Companies Finish First” for you and five of your closest friends on Kindle, in hardcover or your Nook.
Learn about how WeWork Labs is growing. Check out my interview from SXSW 2013 with TechZulu and the amazing Amanda Coolong.
Two Years In The Making — WeWork Labs
I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since we opened WeWork Labs. What started as a small group of 47 people in a building in SoHo has grown into a community of over 400 amazing individuals across three cities including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles with a second NY location opening up just around the corner!
In 24 months our members have accomplished so much including raising over $50 million in funding, getting into almost every accelerator on the planet, multiple acquisitions and, of course, our Harlem Shake video (included at the bottom for your viewing enjoyment). But more important than all of these things are the bonds that have been built inside our walls. New companies have been born between neighbors, support has been provided across the room and across the country and we’ve even worked with our members to make awesome products that will benefit the community as we continue to grow.
We couldn’t have done any of this without the support of our awesome team (thanks Trista, Ted, Merewyn and Ross) and our sustaining partners (thanks WilmerHale, Microsoft, PepsiCo, TriNet and Digital Ocean) and of course, our members. Thank you.
Finally, I know that I couldn’t have done any of this without my partners in crime, Adam, Matt and Magda. I feel very lucky to have all three of you in my life. You’ve supported me through many an adventure and it’s only going to get even more amazing from here. Thank you.
Here’s to another successful year of growth, success and, if we’re lucky, awesome videos!
My office for the next couple of days
One of my goals this year is to make sure that I spend time with my family and friends. While building a company you can forget what’s most important in life.
Over the last couple of years my wife has been very understanding as I dove into work 24/7. Even when I did get away from the office my head was still in work. Well, not this year. This year I’m going to work hard and play hard. You should too. We only live once.
Everything is so shiny and new in 2013
WeWork Labs NY Hallway
It’s a little over a month into 2013 and I’ve finally decided to write a post recapping the year. This year is going to wind up being one of the craziest and best of my life. And I’m loving every second of it.
The biggest news of the year can be summed up in one word:
FOCUS
I couldn’t be more excited to share that Matt and I are 100% focused on WeWork Labs now! It’s taken almost 2 years to fully recognize how important this community is to us (no one has ever claimed I was the sharpest knife in the drawer) but we’re now in the drivers seat and ready to go.
It’s already begun with a ton of awesome events in NY and SF. From more office hours with investors to startup showcases and demo days, we’re making sure that the entrepreneurs in our community get everything they need to succeed.
In maybe even bigger news, we’re opening a third space in Los Angeles! Not only are we bi-coastal but we’re tri-city-al. We’re looking for great startups and great people to join us at WeWork Labs LA. Of course, I’ll be spending a lot of time on the West Coast this year so get in touch if you’d like to join or catch up in LA.
Learn about WeWork Labs and Jirafe from my interview on Bloomberg TV
I had a great time on Money Moves with Deirdre Bolton today. Check it out below!
Save the links, Save the web
Proofreading used to be all about making sure misspellings were no where to be found and punctuation errors were non-existant. Today, we should add one more thing to the list. Make sure all of the links actually go where they’re supposed to.
One error I see many sites make is to forget the http:// before a link to an external site. It’s a simple thing to leave out but it leads people to an error page (or a funny 404 page if they’re lucky).
While I don’t think that computers and code can replace an editor, I did whip up a simple block of code to fix these mistakes. Simply drop the code after the break into your jQuery document.ready block and away you go. No if you happen to create a link like this one that doesn’t work, it’ll turn it into this one that does.
Obviously this is a super simple example and it could be improved upon but it’s a first stab at making the web a little better.
A small headache solved for me (and I’m sure others)
Wish this still worked but after Google’s update to the Compose window it’s broke. 
Sorry. — Feb 8, 2013
I don’t know how many introduction emails I get sent each and every day. It’s got to be at least… 5! And every single time I have to do the same thing –
- Press “Reply All”
- Click “Add BCC”
- Copy the person in the “To” field (the person who made the intro) to the “BCC” field.
- Copy the person or people in the “CC” field (those that I’m getting introduced to) to the “To” field.
- Begin writing email with some funny/witty line (or a failed attempt at it) that says:
- Thanks [Insert Person Who Made The Intro's Name Here] for introducing us. Moving you to BCC so you don’t go insane due to even more email!
Well, I got fed up with doing that 5+ times per day (and apparently so did others):
4 every @500 intro email i get, wish there was single-click button that moved To: name -> BCC, & CC: name -> To: name. #IfWishesWereFishes
— Dave McClure (@davemcclure) January 8, 2012
So I made a quick Chrome extension that solves my problem. Go ahead and install it and open an email, press “Reply All” and then click the new blue button in your Chrome extension bar and you should be all set.
Let me know if it works for you and if it helps you at all by emailing me or posting in the comments below. And while you’re at it, look at what really keeps me (and my team going) during the day at GetBackstory.com. That product is wayyyy cooler than this extension.
Backstory enables websites to get to know each of their visitors and understand why they’ve visiting and how they’re interacting with the site. Then we enable those sites to customize their content on the fly for each and every one and increase conversions (from tweets, to likes, to sales). And we do all of this with a single line of Javascript code.
So if you haven’t looked at Backstory yet, what are you waiting for? I mean you’ll have lots of time now that you don’t have to copy and paste addresses in every email.
*Edited for grammer (because my wife said I should fix a few things).