Yesterday hundreds of startups from New York City and beyond descended on the 69th Armory in Gramercy Park for New York Tech Day. At least three dating sites—not including one for doggies—and a ton of gaming, niche social networking sites, educational and financial planning services rounded the day out. Here are some photos and quotes from some of our favorites.
All photos by Ben Weitzenkorn.
New York Tech Day took place today in Gramercy's 69th Armory.
"The community in New York is really growing and supporting each other, and New York Tech Day is another great example of how the community gets together, celebrates startups, talks about innovations, finds ways to really connect and collaborate," Yapp founder and CEO Maria Seidman said.
"I got my dog three years ago," Michael Chiang, founder of MatchPuppy, said. "I have a little Maltese, purebred. His name is Louie. He's really cute and he's a purebred so all my cousins wanted to get puppies from him. I was like, you know what, being a single guy in New York, I can't really raise another dog with the expense and I don't have the time for it. I looked everywhere, Googled everywhere, really couldn't find somewhere I could just find him a girlfriend, so I slept on it and I'm like, maybe I should do this on my own. It could be like a dating site for dogs. Took that idea to the New York City dog community, realized there was a bigger need, besides just dating, which is just like a Meetup.com for dog owners. So I pivoted from just a Match.com to a Meetup.com for dog owners and really let them decide what the playdate will be, whether it's for dating, whether it's just playing around or whatever it is."
These are some weird cards from Cheek'd. Now, socially terrified people who couldn't even handle the safe haven of online dating have a further alternative. Cheek'd wants you to go online, create profile, create your own card with your own code and slip it into the purses or pockets of strangers you fancy but don't have the time or balls to be a normal person. Betabeat got one that said "This card could change your life." We doubt it.
"We're kind of an ambiance search engine. We'll find everything for you," Hoppit founder Steven Dziedzic said as he explained how the service he founded helps users pick restaurants based on more than just food. "If you want nice and cozy, you can find exposed brick, you can find a fireplace and we'll get that for you in your exact location. We did that because, the Yelps of the world, UrbanSpoon, they focus on cuisine and dishes but nobody's really done ambiance yet. For me, for instance, that's a huge factor," Mr. Dziedzic said. "The real way to do it is Pandora meets Yelp. To develop what we call the place genome project—a place has many genes. It could be exposed brick, Italian, etcetera..."
The crew from LifeBooker, a matching service for clients and beauty service providers, was there with free beer.
Tumblr was there too, but David Karp was nowhere to be seen.
