Ms. Hagan and Mr. Fisher

Politicos like Chuck Schumer and Marty Markowitz have been quick to claim Mallory Hagan's new pageant title a victory for "the borough of Kings," nevermind that the Alabama native and former Miss New York is a relatively recent transplant. But as it turns out, one New York City tech startup might also be able to bask in the bling of the Miss America crown.

"In case you haven't yet heard, the new Miss America is a @fitocracy community member + trainee of @DickTalens," LoyalCX founder Sarah Judd Welch tweeted this weekend. Mr. Talens--a former fat kid turned body builder--is one of the cofounders of Fitocracy, an addictive fitness app that motivates users by treating workouts like you're leveling up in Everquest or World of Warcraft. 

The app, which recently released an Android version, stands out in the crowded fitness market for its enviable user engagement numbers. Between the web version and online app, the average user is spending 3.5 hours a month on Fitocracy, Mr. Talens said. That's higher than Tumblr, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Mr. Talens said he was actually introduced to Ms. Hagan last April through Alchemy, another New York-based startup that helps users "unlock the power" of their network of contacts. Alchemy "also introduced us to our CPO, i.e. the Cocken in Dick/Wang/Cocken," he told Betabeat, referring to a delightful confluence of names among Fitocracy's staffers.

After meeting Ms. Hagan for coffee, he ended up working with her for two months prior to the Miss New York competition, which she won. "A lot of women have this notion that in order to lose weight, you need to do a lot of cardio, cut out all fat, all carbohydrates, etc.," when heavy lifting and getting the right nutrients yields better results, Mr. Talens said.

But when it came to a national competition on a bigger stage, he admitted, "I really didn’t know too much about optimizing for a women’s physique in bikini competitions." Mr. Talens continued to offer nutrition and dieting advice, but reached out to the Fitocracy community for suggestions. They helped her find a trainer named Sohee Lee, based out in California and Mark Fisher Fitness, a local gym frequented by Broadway stars.

At the same time, Ms. Hagan became active on the Fitocracy app. "She was talking to all the users. All of our community loved her," said Mr. Wang, who sent us to a video she made which shows her going through her training routine. "She created it for Fitocracy users, which was really cool. She’s become a little bit of a cult icon in the fitness world for women."

As the New York Times noted, Ms. Hagan's win has credited to her tap dancing, campaign against child sexual abuse and dexterous response to a question about gun control. But Mr. Talens pointed out that Ms. Hagan had been runner-up in Miss New York twice before she won. "I don’t know if it was necessarily because of the bikini portion of it, but it certainly helped that she got into fantastic shape," he said.

If Fitocracy gets a bump from its Miss America connection, it'll be icing on the cheat day cake. The app was recently featured on "The Dr. Oz Show," and has been focused on customer support to get data back from new users. Mr. Talens said he wasn't actually sure whether to attribute the deluge of new users to Dr. Oz, its recent Android release, or New Year's resolutions. "January is a very big time for fitness companies," he said.

(Photo: Hire Kenny Yang)

Fitocracy, the gamified fitness app that boasts a Dick, Wang and Cocken on its staff roster, has just added a new intern to the team; sadly, his name is Kenny Yang, so dreams of building out a staff with names derived solely from penis synonyms have flown right out the window.

Mr. Yang did, however, score the position in a rather atypical way. In order to prove his devotion both to Fitocracy and the healthy lifestyle it promotes, Mr. Yang created a single-serving website called "Hire Kenny Yang," complete with not one, not two, but six shirtless photos of himself. The photos illustrate Mr. Yang's progression from 260-pound high school student to ripped-as-fuck "level 25 ninja."

A source within the company told us that scores of people apply to intern at Fitocracy, but most fail to catch their attention. Mr. Yang, however, managed to do so by creating "a website targeted at us, complete with shirtless transformation pictures... :O."

Though Mr. Yang didn't lose the weight initially by using Fitocracy, he stresses that it's integral to keeping himself motivated. "Every time I log a workout I get an extra dopamine hit from seeing points (in addition to my actual workout!) and I’ve found that I push myself even more when I want to get more points!" he wrote.

We hear Mr. Yang was hired as an intern after the shirtless display. No word on whether or not he'll be required to wear a shirt in the office.

The Tipping Point Partners office. (Photo: Tipping Point)

Like cushy sign-on bonuses or drool-worthy stock options, perks are a potent recruiting tool for startups, dangled before potential hires like a treat before a ravenous animal. Expensive, Steve Jobs-approved gear and kitchens overflowing with every snack imaginable are treated like they’re the equivalent of platinum health insurance.

We get it--having a thriving, enjoyable work culture is integral to fostering a healthy work/life balance and not becoming consumed with resentment every time your shitty desk chair breaks. But is it possible that some of these perks aren’t all they’re cracked up to be?

Unlimited Vacation Days

One of the most frequently touted startup perks is the unlimited vacation day policy, under which, instead of receiving a finite amount of vacation days, employees are allowed to take however much vacation they want ... as long as they work super hard the rest of the year. It seems too good to be true: having the option to take three weeks off at a time to jet around Europe? Fabulous. And all sizes of company offer this perk: Adobe, Gilt Groupe and Tumblr are just a few that come to mind.

But some reports have shown that when people have unlimited vacation days, they actually end up taking less time off. Without a finite amount of days to use--think "Oh, it's December, better use my extra vacay days!"--employees are often unsure of what's the appropriate amount of time to take off.

As The Wall Street Journal wrote last year:

Some employers promote this as liberating, saying their workplaces are so flexible that old-fashioned constraints such as assigned time off aren't needed. But others say the lack of guidelines fuels a tendency to work all the time ... Americans have trouble taking time off even when they are assigned a specific number of days. Only 38% of U.S. employees use all their allotted vacation time, says a 2010 survey of 9,000 people by travel-booking company Expedia.com; the average worker took only 14 of 18 days permitted.

In 2011, Evernote--a startup based in San Francisco--began literally paying its employees to go on vacation. As soon as the company switched to an unlimited vacation day policy, "The first thing we noticed when we did it was that some people started taking less vacation," chief executive Phil Libin told Businessweek last year. In order to correct this, Evernote began giving employees $1,000 every time they took a weeklong vacation.

For many startups, encouraging employees to take the vacation they deserve often starts at the top. "It's all about creating a culture of flexibility so people feel O.K. taking advantage of it," said Kara Rota, director of editorial and partnerships at Cookstr, which boasts Tipping Point Partners as an institutional cofounder. "I think it’s the responsibility of people in executive and management positions to role model it and be very vocal about the things they have going on outside of work."

Unlimited Snacks

On a recent trip to the Vimeo offices in the soaring IAC building, Betabeat was asked upon arrival whether we'd like to indulge in some delicious snacks. The kitchen, situated right where you get off the elevator, was stocked with every kind of treat you could imagine: candy, cookies and other sweet things were tucked into one side of the island, while chips, crackers and salty items invaded the other side. It was a snacker's delight.

But there are downsides to all this food: for one, it can keep you from ever having to leave your desk for a lunch break. Even big corporations like Bloomberg LLP employ this strategy. As a Vanity Fair profile of Bloomberg pointed out, staffers there were "taken care of," but, as one employee put it, "The free junk food was great but it was there to keep us from going out for coffee."

There's also an important health aspect. Even if your startup stocks healthier snacks like fresh fruit and unsalted nuts, there's a chance that you'll eat more than you want to just because food is around.

"Your proximity to food has a huge impact on whether or not you're thinking about food," said Richard Talens, the cofounder of Fitocracy, a fitness social network. "This in turn impacts your desire to eat. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs have a scarcity mentality when it comes to food, especially free food. If they see that there's free calories lying around, they will likely prefer to go for that rather than paying for a lunch."

Mr. Talens said that in order to eradicate mindless snacking, the Fitocracy office doesn't stock snacks.

"There are no snacks per se at Fitocracy," he told Betabeat by email. "As a company, we're not big snackers, to be honest ... quite the opposite. Most people at Fitocracy try to remain within a caloric range on most days and we have the same philosophy: we'd much rather eat a few larger meals than snack constantly throughout the day."

If you can't convince your company to get rid of the M&Ms, Mr. Talens also advised how to hit the gym on the cheap. "Try to bargain with your local fitness club to see if you can get an employee discount for everyone," he suggested.

Food can be an important way to bring people together, though. "We provide a breakfast spread every Monday," Ms. Rota said. "It’s a good opportunity for people to check in at the beginning of the week and to have a good boost socially. It's important culturally and has an opportunity to let people sort of connect with each other in another way."

Working From Home

Allowing employees to work from home is a common perk, but frequently--if the office culture doesn't encourage it--it's one that can easily fall by the wayside.

"People used to do it, but then at some point it just became standard to work from the office, and now you can't really work from home unless you really need to (cable guy, doctor's appointment, whatever)," said one person employed at a well-known New York startup, who asked not to be named.

Different people work in different ways, whether it be collaborative--through activities like pair programming--or solitary. Different tasks also require various work methods. At the Cookstr offices, Ms. Rota said that there are couches and conference rooms set up for group work, while other employees prefer to work from their own private desks. She also argues that removing the emphasis from hours spent working at your desk can help employees flourish.

"A culture that is focused with how many hours you’re sitting at your desk puts the focus on the wrong place," she added. "It’s an artificial definition of what work looks like."

In the end, fostering a culture where employees feel comfortable to take advantage of the perks so many recruiters promote is key to maintaining a happy and productive office environment.

"It really is about setting a precedent to make people feel comfortable with alternative work styles," she advised. "If you’re an intern, or new, or if you’re not an executive leader, you’re not going to feel comfortable being the one person taking advantage of the work from home policy. But if there’s a real culture of that, and you trust in your coworkers that they're doing the things that they need to be doing, then there's really no concern about it."

(flickr.com/seanvenn)

Steps to success Moteevate, formerly known as Fitango and self described as “the motivational social network,” went live last week. The site makes achieving your goals sound really easy by breaking them down into three steps: choosing from over 600 action plans (or making up your own), inviting your friends to “motivate and cheer you on,” and, finally, following the plan to accomplish your goal.

Keep running Fitocracy, the fitness social network that lets you track your workout progress and compete against your friends, has made some changes to their team. Cofounder and former CTO Richard Talens is now the Chief of Growth and Analytics, and senior engineer Daniel Roesler is stepping in as the new CTO. The company has also hired Jay Patel as a new backend developer.

New and improved The Tumblr app for iOS just got a makeover and is now faster and also looks better, with support for higher resolution photos as well as redesigned notification tabs which make navigation much easier. The improved app also includes offline support, which allows users to write blog posts, reblog, and leave comments while offline, which will be posted automatically the next time the iPhone connects to the Internet.

Perfect pitch The Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York (HBSAANY) and the National Association of Investment Companies announced the finalists for their inaugural Venture Capital Access Program, intended to provide “women and diverse entrepreneurs” with access to venture capital through accredited investors. The six finalists, Castle Surgical, MetaLayer, Shadow Digital, Take the Interview, Tiger Trade, and Torsch, Inc. will present their to HBSAANY on Wednesday.

Better Homes and Gardens Hometalk, the online home and garden social network, just launched a redesign. The site also announced that it now has a community of over 100,000 homeowners, renters and home improvement professionals.

Hablo espanol ZocDoc en Espanol launched last week, providing Spanish-speaking users with a free online service that helps find nearby Spanish-speaking doctors and dentists and book appointments.

Now hiring We hear that MoviePass is looking for a Full Stack Lead Developer & Architect, Alta Investors needs a Graphic Designer, and Boxee wants an iPad and iPhone Developer.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg with Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley. The mayor declared April 16 NYC's official 4sqDay. (Ben Weitzenkorn)

2x2^2. April 16 is officially 4sqDay in New York and over a dozen other cities around the country. The fan-created social media holiday's official celebration will begin at 7 p.m. at The Caulfield. Check out the community blog and RSVP here.

CAPITAL IDEA. General Assembly is bringing back “Assembled Capital,” an all day event dedicated to getting startups funded. The $200 (plus a $4.97 fee) to get in is a bit steep, but breakfast, lunch and booze are totally included! The event will include talks, panels and plenty of elbow-rubbing time with the like of Squarespace's Anthony Casalena, TechStars NYC's David Tisch, Charlie O'Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Shane Snow of Contently and many others.

AIRbnFREE. Airbnb is teaming up with Thrillist and sponsoring Tour de Thrillist, a bicoastal race to discover all that LA, Vegas, Austin, Philly and of course NYC have to offer. Up for grabs is a five-destination trip and free Airbnb accommodations. Cross your fingers and enter the sweepstakes here.

SELL, SELL, SELL. New York-based Goodsie, a platform that allows anyone to setup their own store and sell pretty much anything, just announced the rollout of a host of new features to help merchants make smart business decisions including an integrated email marketing system, sales analytics and mobile optimization.

FIT FIGHT. Fitocracy, the fitness game that uses points and milestones to keep us motivated and moving, is now available on iOS. Users can see what their friends are up to and add and log new exercises right from the palm of their hand. To accompany the mobile app launch, Fitocracy has revamped their website, making it easier to see friends' updates, browse achievements, check scores and see how many points away from the next milestone they are. Slimkicker, a similar app, also made its iOS debut on the same day.

THERE'S ANOTHER MAPP FOR THAT. This week, MyCityWay, a mobile app that combines reference app information with city data, won the “Best Travel App” award at this year's Appy Awards. The app can be used for anything from job searches to driving direction to ordering Chinese food.

DEEP IMPACT. The next installment of the NYU Series on Impact Investing will be on April 9 at Vanderbilt Hall in Room 210 at 6:30 p.m. on the NYU campus.  The panel discussion will focus on legal and policy issues and how they impact investments.  This and future installments will focus on "issues related to the measuring of impact, the key regulatory questions raised by impact investing, and the role that development finance institutions play in impact investing." More information is available here.

STARTUPS 101. Last night, LEAN301 - Advanced Startup Metrics for Founders, the advanced version of the most popular class on Skillshare, held its first class. The class is taught by Lean Startup Machine founder Trevor Owens. Classes are limited to 12 students and future dates can be found here.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. Quotiply, a business app that connects companies and helps them collect, rate and assess offers from providers, just came out of beta last month. The app has profile, messaging and address book features built in and will even make suggestions to help members find good business partners. Quotiply is currently based out of Paris but CEO Paul Dupuy is currently in NYC with the team until the end of April. The company plans to move to NYC as soon as possible.

VIEWTUBE. Some pretty noticeable people including Hank and John Green, and Michael Aranda are using VYou, a video blogging platform, to answer questions and communicate with their fans. Annie Barrett of Entertainment Weekly uses the platform to do show reviews. Daily Candy has a channel where editors answer questions from the audience.

TECH SIDEKICK. Code for America needs a “Gotham Brigade Captain,” whose job will basically be to help bridge the gap between tech and government.  The job will involve high-visibility and a firm grasp of the complex relationship between government, the law and technology. It sounds like a tough job but we really need someone to do it.

WHISTLE... Shapeways is looking for a community manager with at least four years of experience to synthesize and advocate for user needs as well as a software engineer proficient with PHP, Apache, MySQL, HTML and Java. Beyond NYC, Shapeways is hiring all over the world. Lifebooker needs a lead software engineer and architect with at least five years under their belt, excellent OO skills and proficiency in at least one programing language. Submit your application here. Conductor, Inc. has put out a call for an entry-level QA engineer with a bachelor's degree and sharp analytical and communication skills. Development operations engineers are needed at 2tor to manage and monitor their hosted server infrastructure. QA internship opportunities are open at Aviary and BetterCloud, 2tor is looking for PR, tech and development interns, Foursquare needs a community intern and ZocDoc has internship openings in design, marketing and IT.

Fitocracy, the New York-based fitness gamification startup that recently graduated from the Mountain View incubator 500 Startups, likes to hire its users. The company announced it has hired a chief product officer today, Jared Cocken, a Fitocracy user and until now, the creative director of the high-profile web design agency The Wonderfactory.

Fitocracy's CEO is Brian Wang and its CTO is Dick Talens, so Mr. Cocken will fit right in. But besides the name coincidence, the startup just generally lucked out with the hire. Fitocracy was scouting for a designer, and Mr. Cocken had been helping them with screens for the iPhone app. "We noticed he was really really passionate about the product," Mr. Talens told Betabeat. They didn't have high hopes, and Mr. Talens says he's still not sure how they managed to woo the talented Mr. Cocken.

"I had a mutual friend do some recon to see if he would be open way, way down the line, and he seemed like he would be," Mr. Talens said. "Sooo we shot him an email at some point and were just like, 'yo dude, you're fucking awesome and Dick has a giant mancrush on you. Is there any way we can make it work?' Didn't expect him to say yes, but he did." (Memo to recruiters: please do not try this at home.)

Fitocracy's senior engineer, Daniel Roesler, was an early Fitocracy power user. "That means that 2 employees, an advisor and 2 of our contractors have now come from Fitocracy," Mr. Talens said by Gchat. "It just kind of happens... We've tried to source people from outside our userbase but our userbase has some of the smartest techies around and they really understand the domain, e.g. one of our contractors = one of the core Django developers."

He added, "Also it's really easy to run a query in our database for phallic names. Harder to do that elsewhere."

Fitocracy has been on a tear—the four-person startup has more than 250,000 registered users and more than $15,000 in revenue from premium features as "Fitocracy Hero," which includes early access to new features, exclusive badge and a "title," as well as unlimited routines and the ability to copy other people's workouts in one click. "The #1 reason cited for people signing up for Hero is just that Fitocracy's been life-changing and $5/month is less than a cup of coffee," Mr. Talens said. "So we're working on improving our feature set. But that was the top cited reason for upgrading."

(flickr.com/usnationalarchives)

Underlit bars and blaring techno set the scene at the Park Avenue Armory earlier this month, when a who’s who of New York’s tech scene gathered in the cavernous block-length building for the sort of startup event that bore little resemblance to the usual beer, pizza and Powerpoint office gathering. No, this was a fashion show; a nerdy fashion show, to be sure, but one with glamour and theatrics. Raise Cache, a fundraiser for the apprentice developer program HackNY, tapped local tech personalities to walk the runway outfitted in glasses from local e-prescriber Warby Parker, slacks from e-tailor Bonobos and accessories from e-jeweler Bauble Bar. Larger-than-life cartoon avatars lorded over the crowd from the DJ booth as amateur DJs spun tracks using Union Square-based streaming music startup Turntable.fm. Founders and VCs milled about in gowns, coattails, pinstriped vests, glittery tights and cowboy hats. A recording of Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has been pumping his pom-poms for the New York tech scene of late, boomed out at the close of the show: “Now more than ever, [New York] is the place for to be for tech soirees!”

That seems to be the consensus among a contingent of New York founders who made the pilgramge to the tech mecca of Silicon Valley but have returned to be part of an up-and-coming scene, as well as for the nightlife, the restaurants, and the higher baseline average peer attractiveness. “There's a lot more good-looking people in New York,” one founder told Betabeat. “Don't quote me about that, but if it's something you want to work that into the story, there's definitely something there.”

In the past, incubator programs in Silicon Valley contributed to a techie brain drain from East to West. Paul Graham, the architect of the prestigious startup accelerator Y Combinator, insists Silicon Valley is the best place to start a company, and often counsels his startup acolytes to set up shop nearby. The vast majority of the Y Combinator alumni network is in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View and San Francisco. Tales of New York-based founders like Matt Mireles, a Columbia graduate and uber-hustler founder of a video transcription startup, shipped out to the Valley when they found themselves struggling in New York are common. “But if you're a schmoe like me and you've got a big, world-changing dream, NYC is not the best place for you,” Mr. Mireles wrote in a heavy-hearted blog post about the move in February 2010. “The odds are already stacked against you. Being outside the Valley just stacks them higher.”

Whatever the reason, a passel of companies have recently boomeranged back to the city after a season on the far shore. The longtime tech mantra of ‘go West, young founder” is being revised for the simple reason that New York’s tech scene is up-and-coming, more social and more fun. Recent Y Combinator grads Codecademy, The Fridge, MessageParty, Hirehive and Tutorspree all moved back the New York within the past 18 months. Sam Rosen, plucked from Flatiron’s General Assembly for the Mountain View accelerator 500 Startups by superangel Dave McClure, returned after the program ended.  “My friends in New York City—one would be in marketing, my good friend was a producer at MTV, other friends are lawyers. Whereas in the Valley you go to the party and everyone is in tech,” he told Betabeat in January. “It’s not like I’m tired of talking about my company, but it’s all we talk about.” Josh Weinstein, founder of the Facebook competitor CollegeOnly who later pivoted to interactive web television with a startup called YouAre.TV, ventured out to the Valley to work with a cofounder and be closer to investor Peter Thiel. In September, he returned—mostly because the cofounder bailed on him, but partly because he felt “isolated,” he said.

Amanda Peyton, MIT business school graduate and proud owner of a 212 cell phone number, moved out to Menlo Park in the summer of 2010 to participate in Y Combinator with her cofounders of the mobile blogging platform MessageParty. “It reminded me of Westchester, where I grew up,” she told Betabeat. “We had a lot of space where we lived, and the grocery store was really big and nice and things like that.” At the end of the summer, she and her roommates found out they had been living in the three-bedroom house that Lisa Brennan Jobs, Steve Jobs’s daughter, grew up in. The house was also next to Sand Hill Road, where all the big VC firms are, but there were only two places to eat within walking distance: Safeway, and a well-loved bar called the Dutch Goose.

At the end of the program, Ms. Peyton started talking to friends and colleagues about where to go next. “I had two arguments for going back to New York,” she said. “One was more of a macro trends argument about how there's so many industries in New York that are going through truly fundamental shifts... but then I was talking to one guy, and he was like, why don't you just admit that the reason you want to move back to New York is because you want to live in New York? And I was like: you're totally right. I just want to.”

Ms. Peyton and her team are now ensconced in the former Williamsburg coworking space The Makery (currently transforming into the office of conversation-logger Bnter). “There's just more stuff to do in New York,” she said. “There's more places to eat, more people to hang out with. I just learned how to work smarter. Yeah I have cut down the hours a little bit, but I don't feel like I'm any less productive. I just don't feel like I'm only working.”

Same Same, but Different! 15 Parallels Between Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley [SLIDESHOW] >>

Beyond the pizza and the social scene, New York’s startup support network is booming. There are more tech companies starting, more investors scouting for tech companies, more rockstar startups—Foursquare, Etsy, Kickstarter, Tumblr, to name a few—and more developers teaching themselves the lightweight coding skills that power much of the consumer internet. There have also been some high-profile exits, including GroupMe’s $85 million sale to Skype and Hunch’s $80 million acquisition by eBay, both in the last six months.

New York also embodies a camaraderie and enthusiasm that derives from being a relatively unproven startup hub still forging an identity.

RRE Ventures principal Tom Loverro, who recently moved back to New York after four years at a startup in Silicon Valley and a stint in Chicago, was impressed by the Raise Cache techie fashion show. “The New York Tech Scene has not only arrived, but it is different and it is defining its own trajectory,” he wrote in a blog post. “It is characteristically and unabashedly New York. The event itself was a fashion show. It was young and full of 21-35 year old urbanites.”

Kirill Sheynkman, who heads up the U.S. arm of RTP Ventures, a $750 $700 million fund based in Russia, was more cynical. “It’s great to have that attitude, but it’s [like] a high school football team,” he said. “What was the line from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure? ‘San Dimas High School football rules!’”

Mr. Sheynkman spent most of his career in Silicon Valley as a former entrepreneur in residence at Sequoia Capital and venture partner at Greycroft before he moved to New York and became enamored of the city.

Traditionally there have been three reasons for starting a company in the Valley, he said. “For a long time the VCs in the Valley would only invest in local companies. That has changed,” he said. ”The old saying of, ‘I'm not going to invest anything unless I can drive to the board meeting’ … was in the days before we had Skype and iChat and Go To Meeting. Now you have weekly status meetings on video and they're just as great as being there. It was a little bit of an attitude. ‘You have to come to us and not us come to you.’”

The second argument is that when a company gets started, the top priority is hiring the right people. While there is more techie talent in Silicon Valley, he said, there is also a higher concentration of startups and significantly more established tech companies to suck that talent up. “Prices are higher in the Valley than they are in New York,” he said. “Although New York isn't cheap in terms of hiring people.”

The third argument is that there is a more active tech scene in the Valley, he said. “In terms of meeting people and hanging out, New York is much better. It's in the nature of the city to go out there and network and be social.” He pointed to Meetup.com, a ten-year-old New York-based startup that serves up tech rendezvous on every topic from Javascript to Hadoop to Twitter etiquette. “It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous,” he said. “There's a meeting every night somewhere.”

Indeed, the number of recurring tech events on Meetup.com has wildly accelerated: Startup Lunch, 193 members; Dumbo Tech Breakfast, 783 members; UWS Startup Meetup, 240 members; the New York Technology Bathhouse Meetup, 31 members; the Wall Street to Startups Meetup, 98 members.

And yet, “there's still a lot of learning that I think New York has to do,” Mr. Sheynkman said.  “A lot of the companies are in love with doing a startup for the sake of doing a startup. They're MBAs that think instead of a career at Goldman, we're going to do a startup company!” We imagined him rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. “You know, you actually might want to do your thing at Goldman Sachs, it might actually be better for you.”

By way of disclaimer, he added: “I'm a New Yorker, I'm never leaving Manhattan. I love the city. Let’s make sure we mention that.“

“I get the impression that there tend to be proportionally more folks in New York that are trying to start companies but have no fucking clue what they're doing,” Fitocracy CEO Brian Wang told Betabeat by Gchat. He and his cofounder, Dick Talens, are subletting their apartment in Clinton Hill while they complete a session at 500 Startups. “Granted, I don't think I have a fucking clue either.”

At any rate, he plans to head back east when the program is over. “We're pretty set on returning to New York,” he said. “Both Dick and I enjoy New York City as a place to live immensely. Honestly, that's 95 percent of the reason. The other five percent for me, is probably the hope and expectation that the New York City scene will continue to grow and mature and that we can call ourselves an important part of that.”

Same Same, but Different! 15 Parallels Between Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley [SLIDESHOW] >>

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article identified Tom Loverro as a partner at RRE Ventures; that is incorrect. He is a principal. Betabeat regrets the error.

New Work City.

HIP LIKE HP. New Work City just signed its newest sponsor: HP. "This is really great for us, as their support will play a huge part in helping us make ongoing improvements to the space and community. To consummate the relationship, we're hosting an event on December 5th. I'll have more details next week. In the meantime, come play with some new gadgets and help us help HP make printing suck less!"

FITOCRACY PUSH. "Fitness is something that people tend to take very seriously so it should be no surprise that when they embark on the quest to better bodies, they want their chosen tools to be the best they can be. Since the beginning, one of the most often requested features for Fitocracy has been a way to visualize your workout progress over time. And so it is with incredible excitement that we announce the official release of Graphs on Fitocracy."THE BIGGEST SALE IN INTERNET HISTORY. This is how you know Fab.com has made it. "Get Dealy has launched as 'Fab.com for Digital Goods.' We're really excited about launching our new platform, a daily flash sales site for digital goods, such as software, resources for designers and developers, courses and tutorials."

HATCHED. "Just wanted to give you the heads up that Hatch is officially out their private beta as of this past Tuesday, designed by Hard Candy Shell to make organizing activity plans fun, easy and seamless.

NOW EMERGING FROM BETA. "EZBZ is a New York-based startup that goes beyond  reviews by connecting area consumers with top-rated local business products and services.  EZBZ is built on a real-time open bidding platform driven by text message queries to compensate for the relatively poor Web infrastructure that typical local small businesses have, providing a mobile functionality that’s also convenient for consumers."

HIRINGS. Signpost needs a chief of staff. "As the 'Chief of Staff' you’ll be doing a combination of accounting, HR, stocking the fridge, and anything else we need help on." Wildfire Interactive seeks a senior account executive and Thrillist needs a web apps developer (work with the talented Michael Smith!) while meanwhile Rent the Runway is hiring for a software engineer, Linux engineer. SNAP Interactive needs a MySQL dev.

HEALTH TECH. Startup Health partners with New York eHealth Collaborative, "a public-private partnership that serves as a focal point for health care stakeholders to build consensus on state health IT policy priorities. We established the StartUp Health Pavilion at the NYeC Digital Health Conference to showcase some of the leading early stage health and wellness companies in the greater NY area at the event.  We have one spot left so if you are interested in this great opportunity to show off your offering to more than 500 HIT stakeholders and decision makers across the region, be sure to reach out to us!"

Hey Folks,
We've been getting a number of complaints from other tenants in the building regarding inappropriate language and behavior of some members of our community. We were sad to hear it.

Keep in mind that we share 902 Broadway with hundreds of other working professionals, so please be mindful of this and make an extra effort to be polite and courteous when in the elevators and lobby.

On a related note -- we have access to the building's freight elevator (accessible on 21st between Broadway and Park), which is oftentimes a faster and less crowded means of getting to and from the 4th floor. Feel free to use it during daytime hours.

Thanks,
The GA Team

Bummerzone! But Betabeat reached out to three GA residents, none of whom had any idea what the email was in reference to. "I'm surprised by it," said one resident. "I've never noticed untoward behavior in common building areas or even in GA really." He added, referring to the Canadian record label that has an office in the building: "I bet it was actually Nickelback and they're just trying to pin it on GA." Another resident was just as stumped. "I was confused too," he said. "Have no idea." And three makes a trend: "I'm sure just some old lady complained," said a former resident.

GET 'EM, BITS. The newly-expanded Bits blog kicks AOL's TechCrunch when it's down! Via Ben Kessler:

(Screencap via Ben Kessler)

DAY ONE: KARP IS BORN. Wired UK working on a massive profile and potential cover story on Tumblr wunderkind David Karp for an upcoming issue, Betabeat has heard. Whether it comes out before or after Vanessa Grigordiadis's profile of Michael Arrington remains to be seen.

VIRAL MARKETING. The boys at Fitocracy are using their 500 Startups time well. Cofounder Brian Wang sent Betabeat this clip, shot from a mobile phone, of cofounder Dick Talens eating a bowl of pho with 2 lbs. of beef. Enjoy the long intro of Mr. Talens walking to the pho shop.

General Assembly

FITOCRACY GOES FREEMIUM. Fitocracy, now a year old, just announced a subscription plan for $4.99 a month. Subscribers get unlockable titles, the ability to copy workouts, greater visibility in the stream and early access to new features.

YOUNG NYTM. Tonight's New York Tech Meetup will feature the annual spotlight on demos from college students and faculty. Here's the lineup: BodyJam, Commons, Grafighters, Codecademy, Lewis Dots, PlayPower, Hacker League, LoCreep, AdRunner, MidiPHON, Bluefin Labs, Upod, Imaginary Marching Band. At the 92nd Street Y. But if you go you will miss Ben Lerer talking about the story of Thrillist at General Assembly.

OH SNAP. "SNAP Interactive, a fast-growing NYC-based social media company, is proud to announce the appointment of Jon Pedersen, Sr. as Chief Financial Officer. Pedersen brings more than 15 years of corporate finance, SEC reporting, strategic planning and management experience to SNAP, having most recently served as Senior Vice President-Controller of Warner Music Group.  This is the first significant addition to the management team since SNAP was founded in 2005, increasing the company’s headcount to 32 employees, representing a 100 percent increase since last year."

BUY LOCAL. Fiesta founder Mike Dirolf is launching a new feature for his easy email listmaker, called Fiesta Custom. "It's basically a simple way for anyone to get a version of Fiesta for their own domain name. So far in beta it has proven useful for companies that need to create a lot of dynamic lists and want their own branding on the lists. We also expect it to see a lot of use in tandem with our API which is still in private beta now."

COMPETITION. The Verge, a technology-focused news blog launched by former editors of Engadget, launches officially (party Thursday!) Out of the box: Japanese supercomputers, robots, an interview with John Gruber. It's... so pretty...

XX IN TECH. "Angel investing bootcamp mobilizes women to invest US$105k in woman-led for-profit social venture! The Pipeline Fellowship trains women philanthropists to become angel investors through education, mentoring, and practice." The fellowship announced a new investment and the launch of its alumni network, Pipeline Angels.

GOING CORPORATE. General Assembly partners with American Express to host a two-day hackathon this weekend, Nov. 5th and 6th, for "small business." "The Hackathon is a kick-off event for an ongoing releationship between American Express OPEN and General Assembly, one that will aim to leverage assets of both organizations to bring new, creative approaches to educating small businesses and prepping them for success. American Express OPEN’s interest in General Assembly is the latest example of the company working with the New York startup community to innovate on behalf of small businesses."

NIGHT OWLS. New Work City's late night coworking experiment continues every Tuesday. "Join us as we crack open some beers, crank up the Turntable.fm room, and work the night away," invites the newsletter.