Startup singlet?

Do We Really Need More Blogs? For the last three years, Quora has been the site for headsdown homebodies to ask their fellow coding brethren about what it's like to go outside. But the company has recently announced two new developments that show a shift of attention to writers. The question site now has plans to include blogs. Quora has also announced the release of a rich text editor for their mobile app which should help Quora users ask bolded crazy questions while they're on the go.

Haute Hack Fashion and tech don't usually speak the same language, which is why all eyes are on Conde Nast's Decoded Hackathon this weekend. Designers and developers will be heads down at the Alley NYC in Midtown February 2-3 to create an app that lines up with the Council of Fashion Designers of America's mission to grow the fashion industry. The prizes are pretty sweet. The winning teams get $10,000 in API and product prizes and the chance to get their app launched by the CFDA. The top three finalists will get an introduction on stage at the NY Tech Meetup and a chance to present on the runway at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week after a keynote Dennis Crowley. Maybe the Fuelband will make its first runway appearance?

The New Flash Mob Proposals This is the first job offer we've heard of delivered via GitHub pull request, but we suspect it won't be the last. After honing his coding chops at the Flatiron School, Adam Jonas created a fan site for Carrot Creative, a Dumbo marketing agency, to show off his skills with Facebook open graph. Carrot responded by forking his project and turning it into an offer site, complete with an embarrassing photo of Mr. Jonas in a singlet. That's so Startup!™

Give Us More Specials Please Foursquare just released a companion app to its ever-changing mobile app for business owners. The company explained in a blog post that with the app's capabilities, "managers can create a Foursquare update and easily cross-post it to Facebook and Twitter at the same time. They can also use the app to see recent check-ins, turn specials on and off, and look at business data." Seems like a really good timesaver for a small group of people. Servicey!

Get Free Tickets Now FinTech Hackathon will be hosting its first hackathon aimed at the global community. The focus of the competition will be financial technology. It's going to be held in New York on the weekend of April 6th. 10gen, Betterment, Bloomberg, Caplin, Dwolla, are all among the list of sponsors. The first 20 developers to sign up at www.fintechhack.com will receive free tickets to the event.

Brooklyn Girls Dreams GOOD Ada Ng, a Brooklyn resident, is one of three finalists in GOOD's quest to add a member to their tech team through a contest called "Coding For Good." Her project was a hack of the Google Maps API and the Instagram API to create an interface where the user's travel time counts down to reveal an Instragram photo from the destination. All of Brooklyn is rooting for you Ms. Ng!

Always Be Closing (on Mobile) Online design shop Fab just released a new mobile app.  Not that they need the help, the company says 30 percent of sales already come from its iPhone, iPad and Android apps, compared to 10 percent for most ecommerce companies. Fab’s mobile customers also purchase 20 percent more items per order than its web customers and have a higher lifetime value. "It is not an understatement to say that Fab is a breakout mobile retailer," founder and CEO Jason Goldberg enthuses. Stop it, you're making Zuck jealous.

Primetime Ponies Back in November we introduced you to your new addiction: Derby Jackpot. The site, which lets you bet real money on live horse races, was like a fever dream Mark Pincus once had about updating off-track-betting for the casual gaming set, except it was launched by three brothers working out of General Assembly. Today the site is open to the public and includes enhanced chat features and a Facebook connection. Along with the grand opening, Derby Jackpot is also now accepting all major credit cards, but you'll still have to provide the cigarette smoke and pitchers of beer yourself.

Mr. Taub and Mr. Schonfeld

The Credit Card Killers

With an ever-crowded financial tech market and companies like PayPal and Google Wallet elbowing for industry dominance, the race to kill the credit card is heating up. But among the standouts is Iowa-based mobile payment startup Dwolla, thanks to an innovative pricing structure and a growing New York presence helmed by Michael Schonfeld and Alex Taub. Dwolla has raised money from two New York venture capital firms, Union Square Ventures and Thrive Capital. (Josh Kushner, a Thrive principal, is also part-owner of Observer Media Group.)

Much like PayPal, Dwolla seeks to disrupt the traditional money-wiring business and enable users to send payments with ease. Users set up a Dwolla profile, link it directly to their bank account, and can then instantly send money to friends and businesses through an iPhone or Android app.

The company also processes bank-to-bank transactions, eradicating the need for slow and costly credit card processing. “We’re building a human network based on how we think the future of payments will work,” CEO Ben Milne told Business Insider. “The current model needs to be blown up.”

PayPal, Dwolla’s main competitor, is far more established and is a trusted brand name in online payments, but its fee structure makes it expensive to use. Unlike PayPal, Dwolla doesn’t take a percentage of each transaction, instead charging a 25 cent fee for any payment over $10 (under $10 is free), making it much cheaper for businesses and consumers.

“PayPal is a pioneer, but it can only innovate so much on the backs of these 40- or 50-year-old networks that they’re using,” Mr. Milne told The Observer. “Dwolla is a new conduit to move money in a better way that anyone can use.”

Next: Mike Karnjanaprakorn, Skillshare: The Principal of New York

Back to the beginning

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Hola folks,

Batten down the hatches. Stock up on the liquor (and food). Bring out the candles and flashlights. Because Hurricane Sandy (a.k.a. #frankenstorm) is almost upon us. And now, at almost a thousand miles wide, it definitely has our attention. Hopefully by this time y'all are safely at home (and not still slumming in Zone A) with eyes glued to the twenty-four-hour news coverage, watching weathermen expound on "cones" and "surges."

As you know, the MTA has shut down all subway and buses, and pretty much every event on Monday has been cancelled or postponed including AllThingsD's Dive Into Mobile conference, Google's Android event, Facebook's engineering open house and our own Big Apple Smackdown Silicon Alley ping-pong tournament (which will be re-scheduled).

At this time, the Tuesday events (and the rest of the week) seem uncertain too. They're still listed below, but I'd highly recommend you confirm first with the event organizers. In the mean time, stay safe, keep your fingers crossed that the storm turns out to be a mild one and don't forget to check Miguel Bloombito's Twitter feed for the latest updates!

Lots of really awesome events coming up in the next few weeks ...

November 8 is the city's preeminent startup event, Ingenuity, organized by the New York Venture Capital Association (NYVCA). Who's coming? Tim Armstrong (CEO, Aol), Julius Genachowski (chairman, FCC), Mike Richter (New York Rangers), Bob Pittman (CEO, Clear Channel), Michael Barrett (Chief Revenue Officer, Yahoo) and many more.

Also on November 8 is Red Innova, an intimate event to create a better understanding of Latin American Internet market opportunities and trends. Featured speakers include Martín Varsavsky (FON), Fabrice Grinda (OLX), Andrew Mclaughlin (Betaworks) and Matías Recchia (Vostu).

On November 9 is Capital On Stage, an unconventional conference about funding where, in a twist, top-tier investors will present themselves to the world’s finest Internet startups. David Aronoff (Flybridge), David Teten (ff Ventures), Tom Wisniewski (NY Angels), Brad Svrluga (High Peaks), Lucas Nelson (DFJ Gotham), Jahan Ali (NYC Investment Fund) and others.

My friend Shaherose Charania (Founder of Women 2.0) is organizing the highly anticipated Women 2.0 Pitch conference on November 14. Keynote speakers include female founders of Match.com, Cisco, Oxygen Network, Urban Decay and talks and panels feature women entrepreneurs who've run super successful Kickstarter projects and grown massively successful companies from the ground up. Don't miss it!

The good folks at the upcoming Angelhack hackathon (on November 17) are offering a few free tickets to GarysGuide members. Just use the discount code GG.

When the theme of an event is 'Rise of the Machines' and the keynote speaker is author Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near and the recent How To Create A Mind), all I can say is--sign me up! That would be the upcoming TEDxSiliconAlley event on December 3. Other keynoters will be Bre Pettis (founder, Makerbot), Francessca Ferrando (Philosopher of Posthumanism and visiting scholar at Columbia), Jincey Lumpkin (Attorney and Huffington Post sex columnist) and Ken Segall (creative director of Apple's "Think Different" campaign).

And if you're a startup, don't forgt to check out the "Who Would You Fund" TechStartup Challenge 2012, where I'll be one of the judges. It's a contest to find the best startup pitch videos out there. Add your startup promotion video and you just might win the opportunity to make a live pitch to the ARC Angel Round Capital Fund.

And now let's see what might be going down in the Alley this week...

The {c}0dEd Costume Carousal!
A Halloween celebration of the New York coworking startup community.
Wednesday (Oct. 31), 7 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

NYC UNCUBED (Startup and Scale)
Bringing together emerging companies and talented attendees in an exciting and informative environment that showcases startup culture.
Thursday (Nov. 1), 1 p.m. @ The Altman Building, 135 W 18th Street

Food Network and Ad Age Present: Brand Hacks
Six startups will be selected to pitch partnerships, new tech and integration ideas to a panel of top Food Network execs and industry pros. The best idea receives $25,000.
Thursday (Nov 1), 6 p.m. @ Food Network Studios, Chelsea Market, 75 9th Avenue

Behind the scenes at Gawker: Publishers, Brands and Native Ads
Get the scoop on Gawker's native ad process, strategies around scaling, building effective, measurable products and more.
Thursday (Nov 1), 6 p.m. @ NewsCred, 27 West 24th Street, Ste 202

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here Part 2
With Josh Miller (founder, Branch), Ben McKean (cofounder & CEO, Savored), Vinicius Vacanti (cofounder & CEO, Yipit), Kathryn Minshew (CEO & cofounder, The Daily Muse), Kellee Khalil (founder, Lover.ly) and moderated by Rachel Sklar (Change the Ratio).
Thursday (Nov 1), 6:30 p.m. @ NYIT Auditorium, 1871 Broadway

State of the Startup: Politics
With Mattan Griffel, Harrison Weber, Alexis Ohanian, and Reshma Saujani.
Thursday (Nov 1), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Mashable Media Summit 2012
With David Carey (President, Hearst Magazines), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Kay Matadi (head of entertainment & media, Facebook), Jason Seikin (SVP, PBS Interactive), Bonita Stewart (VP Partner Business Solutions, Google), Raman Kia (Executive Director Digital Strategy, Condé Nast) and others.
Friday (Nov 2), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street

2012 NYU Entrepreneurs Festival
Rockstar speaker list including Jack Dorsey (cofounder Twitter and Square), Herb Kelleher (cofounder & former CEO, Southwest Airlines), Alexandre Douzet (cofounder & COO, TheLadders) and Rachel Sterne Haot (Chief Digital Officer NYC).
Friday (Nov 2), 12:30 p.m. @ Tisch Hall, 40 W 4th Street

NYC Startup Weekend FinTech Edition
Bringing together financial technologists with the goal of building consumer and enterprise financial applications with tools provided by several API and data partners.
Friday (Nov 2), 6 p.m. @ The Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Foursquare Hackathon
Build something amazing and you might just find yourself ringing the NASDAQ closing bell, rocking tickets to SXSW, partying with an action figure version of yourself, or wearing the infamous Foursquare hackathon TITLE BELT.
Saturday (Nov 3), 9 a.m. @ Foursquare HQ, 568 Broadway

November DemoDays
Part of the NYU Entrepreneur Week. Students take the stage to showcase what they've been working on.
Saturday (Nov 3), 5:30 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Founders@Fail: Pitching Publishers on Nov 5 @ General Assembly
Ad:Tech New York on Nov 7 @ Javits Convention Center
Daniweb Presents: Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer on Nov 7 @ Highland Park
Ingenuity 2012 on Nov 8 @ New World Stages
NYTECH Fall Networking Cocktail Reception on Nov 8 @ National Showroom
Capital On Stage on Nov 9 @ Goodwin Procter at NY Times
Hack & Jill: Hacksgiving on Nov 9 @ Etsy
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov 13 @ SNR Denton
Women 2.0 PITCH NYC 2012 Conference & Competition on Nov 14 @ Manhattan Center
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

Mr. Bloomberg. (Twitter)

Time Warner Still Sucks On Friday, Mayor Bloomberg made a big move toward ing promise to expand broadband in New York. He launched ConnectNYC, a contest for small businesses that will award free fiber cable wiring (overall value of up to $12 million) to 240 local businesses across the five boroughs over the next two years. But will it make slow cashiers go faster?

All Your Dwollas Belong To Us Dwolla, the way to pay people via smartphone, just rolled out a cool feature called MassPay. It allows you to pay up to 2,000 people at once, which is great for business owners or degenerate gamblers who have a lot of friends. Payments under 10 dollars are free, while anything higher than that requires a small fee of 25 cents per transaction. Parking Panda, VHX and Major League Gaming have all pledged to start using the service immediately.

Finna FinTech Startup Weekend is teaming up with the FinTech Innovation Lab and the NYC FinTech Startups meetup to put on the first ever FinTech Startup Weekend. It's set to take place on November 2 to 4 at Alley NYC. Throughout the weekend, there will be mentors, including VCs, lawyers and designers, stopping by to give teams advice on what they're doing.

Nick Gavronsky, an OpenFin employee who helps run Startup Weekend with Frank Denbow, spoke to Betabeat and said that he was surprised by the response the event is getting. "We've noticed over the last year or so that FinTech is growing and there's a need for engagement and bringing that community together--as well as around enterprise in general," Mr. Gavronsky said.

FinTech weekend, he said, is "not really like a hackathon, it’s more for first-time people” who want to start building something.

Costumes for a Cause! WeWork is organizing a Halloween party this coming Monday, October 29th benefiting Charity: Water that cofounder Matt Shampine promises will be a "crazy" good time, including "a lot of surprises and five hours of open bar." Better yet, you can feel good while throwing them back: WeWork will be matching everyone's donations to the event. WeWork generously offered Betabeat readers a 15 percent discount off the ticket price, which starts at a $35 donation. Just enter the discount code "betabeat" when you RSVP. While you figure out your binders of women vs. bayonets costume choice, here's a video WeWork put together to get you in the party mood.

Sexy Canadians Songza, the music streaming app that has a playlist for every mood, just reached 1 million users in Canada. To celebrate, we're going to listen to the "cold" playlist. The Songza team used its data and found that Canadians and Americans both chose "Mellow" more than any other mood. Americans' next most popular category was "Happy," while Canadians' second choice was "Sexual." The sexual playlist only works correctly if you're sleeping with Canada's finest export, Ryan Gosling.

Group Talk IRL Group messaging service GroupMe just launched a new service called Experiences. It lets you meet up and plan adventures with your groups and even helps you split the bill. The first round of experiences include a brunch at one of Todd English's restaurant and a zombie survival practice on Halloween. Sounds spooky enough for us.

Chatroulette With a Purpose Onswipe held its hackathon this weekend, and the overall winner created something really awesome. BlahBlahLearning is a language learning platform that works over video chat. A pair of speakers who are each learning the other’s native tongue are given five minutes to speak in one language, then five minutes to speak in the other. Take some notes, Airtime, these guys have the right idea.

Man Starts Blog internet gadfly Rex Sorgatz has just launched a personal project called Viewsource. He's posting one YouTube video a day and sharing his thoughts about it. The site has a really pretty layout, and Mr. Sorgatz's commentary is pretty spot-on. This one about Michael Richards is a pretty good read.

You Owe Us One Foursquare is hiring a PR director. If you get this job and you first found out about it through Betabeat, then you have to give us exclusives for the entirety of your career. It's only fair.

Publicidad Jun Group, the opt-in video advertising platform, has announced that it has new capabilities to specifically target the much-coveted Hispanic audience on the web. Jun Group says that it can now prescreen users to determine if they’re Hispanic and/or native Spanish speakers. In total, the company provides ads to 10 million Hispanic or Spanish-speaking users.

Advertise More, Save the World Pontiflex, another advertising platform, just released a new tool called AdLeads that helps nonprofits advertise themselves to prospective donors. The best part about the service is that organizations only have to pay when a person actually signs up to hear from them. They never waste money on wasted clicks or impressions.

College Admissions Suck Applying to college is the worst process in the world, but luckily things just got a bit easier thanks to Unigo. The site gives a free 15-minute private consultation to set you up with a plan, and then users can subscribe to Unigo's online college counseling services. If your child's guidance counselor is a total idiot, then this looks like a good option for you.

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Photo-sharing apps may be hot, but what's even sexier are startups that bring home the bacon. That's the basic premise behind 500 Startups' unSEXY, a 1-day conference, which covers verticals such as financial services, communications, email, data, infrastructure and more. It's all about tech startups and companies who are actually doing something incredibly sexy--they’re building scalable, sustainable businesses. So if you're in the Bay Area next week, definitely go check it out!

Speaking of the Bay Area, there are a ton of interesting events coming up there, including TechCrunch's Annual Crunchup, StartupGrind, Teens in Tech Conference, TwilioCon, GigaOm's Mobilize and more. Gary's Guide has an extensive list of upcoming events.

Rumor also has it that there may be a crazy, fun party happening later this week on my b'day on August 5. Stay tuned for more details ;)

And now let's see what shenanigans are happening in the Alley this week...

Inside BizDev: How Ad Agencies Can Make Big Brands Love You
With Christine Cook (advertising partnerships, Flipboard), Trevor Guthrie, (director, Ignition Factory East, OMD) and Shiv Singh (global head of digital, PepsiCo Beverages). Moderated by Anand Chopra-McGowan (General Assembly).
Monday (July 30), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Social Curation Summit
Speakers include Scott Belsky (CEO, Behance), Sim Blaustein (principal, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments), Sean Flynn (partner, Shasta Ventures), David Honig (founder, Vision Ventures), Elias Roman (CEO, Songza), Steve Rosenbaum (CEO, Magnify) and others.
Tuesday (July 31), 8:30 a.m. @ New Yorker Hotel, 481 Eighth Avenue

Entrepreneurs Roundtable 49
With Jeanne Sullivan, General Partner at Starvest Partners.
Tuesday (July 31), 6 p.m. @ NYU Stern, 44 West 4th Street, Rm 2-60

Future of Fashion–Emerging Startup Series
Presenting companies include Bazaart, Stylyt, Cloth and Swaag. Panelists include Steven Alan (fashion designer), Philippe von Borries, (cofounder, Refinery 29) and Keegan Vance Forte (chief of staff, AOL Ventures).
Tuesday (July 31), 7 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street, 3rd Floor

Digital Cocktails-Crowdfunding: New Opportunities, New Risk
Panelists include Slava Rubin (cofounder and CEO, IndieGoGo), Karen Freer Owner (creator, Free Bread), Brian Meece (cofounder, RocketHub), Jerry Spiegel Partner (Frankfurt Kurnit) and Sang Lee (founder, Return on Change and executive board member, National Crowdfunding Association).
Wednesday (Aug. 1), 6 p.m. @ Wix Lounge, 10 West 18th Street

August NY FinTech Startups Meetup feat. Second Market
FinTech founder story and Q&A with Jeff Stewart (Lenddo) and domain expert presentation by Adam Oliveri (Second Market).
Wednesday (Aug. 1), 6:30 p.m. @ Day Pitney Law Offices, 7 Times Sq, #20

BlogHer 2012
Rockstar speaker list including Katie Couric, Martha Stewart, Soledad O'Brien and others.
Thursday (Aug. 2), 8 a.m. @ Hilton, 1335 Avenue of the Americas

IDEA JAM for Developers/Designers
Investor panel includes Erik Nordlander (partner, Google Ventures), Hilary Gosher (partner, Insight Venture Partners) and Lawrence Lenihan (partner, FirstMark Capital).
Thursday (Aug. 2), 6:30 p.m. @ Venue TBD

eCommerce Hack Day 2012
Organized by Dwolla. In parnership with Etsy. With Gumroad, Kiip, Temboo, Terapeak, Twilio, Shopify and others.
Saturday (Aug. 4), 9 a.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Lowline Fundraiser at Water Mill
Come get the lowdown on the Lowline, the world's first underground park.
Saturday (Aug 4), 6 p.m. @ 675 Flying Point Rd, Water Mill

More events on the horizon...
Investor Feedback Forum on Aug. 9 @ Microsoft
August NY Enterprise Technology Meetup (ft keynote by Jive cofounder Bill Lynch) on Aug. 14 @ Cooley
Startup tours for Developers: Conductor & GetGlue on Aug. 16 @ Conductor
NY Games Conference on Sept. 5 @ Museum of Jewish Heritage
Comedy Hack Day on Sept. 8 @ Pivotal Labs NYC
FinovateFall 2012 on Sept. 12 @ Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
Design for Manufacturing Summit on Sept. 20 @ Dumbo Spot

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

A still from a recruiting video for Goldman Sachs's technology division.

Wall Street gets a lot of flak in the tech world for being boring, corporate and not world-changing enough. But the truth is that for many, cushy salaries are enough to overcome the drudgery and debasement that comes with a job as Goldman Sachs code monkey.

But getting a job on Wall Street isn't easy, and a first-person account by David Mandi in The Register goes so far as to compare the interview process to "gang sadism." The famously painful, grueling process involves hours of interviewing with prospective team members, which amounts to an intimidating interrogation-by-panel. "What this means is hours of interviews by a large number of people, many of them with big egos and very high self-opinions – people who sometimes see their goal as digging for proof that you don’t have what it takes to be one of their elite team," Mr. Mandi writes.

Even worse than the time sink, he says, is when interviewers fixate on "technical arcana," or minutiae that most programmers would look up in a reference rather than commit to memory.

"The team is not diverse. The person interviewed me didn't show much respect to people. He even laughed at me not remembering some technical detail," one interviewee who applied to be an applications developer at Citigroup wrote on the anonymous jobs dishing site GlassDoor.

To be fair, interviewing at Google isn't much fun either.