Mr. Westheimer

Serial entrepreneur Nate Westheimer is something of a renaissance technologist.

Picturelife, the photo startup he cofounded with OMGPOP founder Charles Forman, recently raised a $4 million round led by Spark Capital. Picturelife's concept is timely: the service focuses on backing up, storing, and accessing all of your photos from the cloud. That got the attention of a number of other notable investors, including Crunchfund, Founder Collective, Lerer Ventures, Highline Venture Partners, Betaworks, David Karp, SV Angel, and Chris Dixon. Mr. Forman put some of the "way more" than $22 million he earned from OMGPOP's sale to Zynga and former Zynga GM Nabeel Hyatt, a partner at Spark, joined Picturelife's board.

But that venture is hardly enough to keep the prolific Mr. Westheimer, who once penned a sweat lodge manifesto about teaching himself to code, fully occupied. He's also an advisor at Flybridge Capital and has been executive director of  New York Tech Meetup since 2008. (Coincidentally, the last time we made a list of "Insurgents" to watch--all the way back in 2008!--Mr. Westheimer made the cut.)

Today, Mr. Westheimer reached out to announce that he is launching a "small seed fund" called Red Bud Partners that will invest in the New York tech community that he actively helped grow. The fund, which will have an average investment size of $25,000, has already made one as-yet-undisclosed deal, he said.

On his blog, Innonate, Mr. Westheimer explained that the fund, which he launched with his father Dick, will focus on "networked technology."

This idea comes from my observation over the past few years that “information technology” and “web technology” no longer describe everything that’s interesting. “Networked Technology” encompass not only incredible new web and mobile technology, but also the array of new hardware projects which are springing up showing great promise to change the world we live in. We want to invest in all of it.

By email, Mr. Westheimer clarified that the fund "has absolutely no affect on Picturelife being my 24/7 100% job and life," he said. "Now I just have a vehicle to make investments in companies I come in contact with during the course of Picturelife and everything else I do."

Was anyone really worried Mr. Westheimer couldn't multitask? Oh ye of little faith.

NY Tech Meetup January 2012 from NY Tech Meetup on Vimeo.


• PunchUp - www.punchup.com – @PunchUp
• YouNow - http://younow.com – @younow
• Deaftel - www.deaftel.com – @deaftel
• Buyosphere  - http://www.buyosphere.com – @buyosphere
• Chat & - www.chatAND.com
• Sonic Notify - www.sonicnotify.com – @SonicNotify
• ObscuraCam (Witness & The Guardian Projet) - http://witness.org – @witnessorg
• Fluidinfo - http://fluidinfo.com – @fluidinfo
• Memberly - http://member.ly – @memberly

Mr. Gupta

This is a guest post from Nate Westheimer. Nate is an engineer, entrepreneur, and angel investor. Currently, Nate serves as Executive Director of the NY Tech Meetup, Advisor to Flybridge Capital Partners, and Founder/Advisor to Ohours.org. He blogs at innonate.com.

As the NY Tech scene has gained momentum over the past few years, I find myself talking to a lot of journalists who are trying to understand what’s going on here and how we arrived at this point.

In these interviews, I always highlight NY Tech’s unique culture, and in so doing I point out that this culture is both native to New York itself, but also cultivated and defined by folks in the tech community 5 to 10 years ago, before this Great Boom showed up in Gap ads and magazine covers.

In my opinion, the culture we have here has been defined by three people:

Scott Heiferman, the NY Tech Meetup, and the culture of building “interesting things.”

Let me be clear, I’m talking about the NY Tech Meetup I became a member of, not the one I run now. Scott created a culture, from the very beginning (2004) of “show the demo, not a PowerPoint.” Scott set the tone in this City that building amazing software that did amazing things was more important and intellectually interesting than who your investors or partners are. When Scott picked people to demo at the NY Tech Meetup there was never a question of “is this a business” — it was always, “Is this interesting?”

Charlie O’Donnell, nextNY, and the culture of coordinated, decentralized community.

When I was elected to run the NY Tech Meetup, it was on the platform of supporting a decentralized community, not creating a traditional, monolithic trade association. Saying “no” to doing more, and instead using the NYTM platform to nurture and support other groups (hackNY, TechiesGiveBack, NYHacker.org, etc) is the thing I think we’ve done best at NYTM. That idea and those values came from the community in nextNY, the non-incorporated, non-hierarchical Google Group-based “organization” Charlie founded in early 2006 and which served as the back-channel conversation and organizational tool for many of the leading entrepreneurs in NYC from 2006 to 2009.

Amit Gupta, Jelly, and the culture of working together.

And this brings me to Amit Gupta. When Amit started Jelly, there were no co-working spaces or hacker spaces or Barcamps or people hosting office hours in NYC. If you wanted to jam out with people about what you were working on you had to show up to a meetup and talk about it, but you’d never just open your laptop, show a stranger some code, and ask for help. Jelly created the idea in NYC that literally opening our homes (or offices) and having other people come work along side us could make us better at what we do and that in turn we could help others do what they do better. We owe the culture of working together to Amit…

AND SO, this brings me to another matter. Recently, Amit was diagnosed with Leukemia.

This Friday, there’s a big event in NYC to get people swabbed to see if there’s a potential genetic match to donate bone marrow to him. I can’t make the event, but I’ve already followed this link from Seth Godin’s blog post on the matter and requested a free home-swab kit.

You see, while chances are slim that I’ll be a genetic match for Amit (chances are higher that a South Asian person would be a match) there’s absolutely no reason not to get swabbed yourself in honor of Amit, especially given his incredible role in shaping the NY tech community — a community which supports my career and likely supports yours as well.

So, please, if you’re appreciative of what Amit has done for us, do something for him: either attend the swabbing party on Friday or order a kit for yourself today.

It’s a super easy way to send a big thanks to Amit for all that he’s done and I know you’ll feel good doing it.

The tech powers-that-be reached out to me over the weekend with a desperate plea: "Gary, as u know two of our blowhards superstars were unceremoniously booted regretfully let go last week. Now we love these kids, but God knows what kind of crazy mischief they'll get into if we don't find them a new gig, pronto. Can you help?" So I put on my red tie, summoned my super powers and went searching for some answers.

The Boutique VC Firm
If you thought Andreeseen-Horowitz was the gold standard in Silicon Valley, wait till ya get a load of Arrington-Bartz. With Bartz's take-no-prisoners approach and Arrington's friendships cemented at Bin 38, dealflow should be a cinch. And I believe A12Z.com is available.

The Buddy Movie
Think an R-rated version of Jackie Chan + Chris Tucker but with way more colorful language and just a hint of romance. If that's not a sleeper hit franchise in the making, I don't know what is. You're welcome, unimaginative overpaid Hollywood studio execs.

The Crime Fighting Super Duo
Worth it just to see all the prancing around the valley in tights and capes. Bartz's trademark one-liner? "I'll dropkick you to (bleeping) Mars."

The Swap
It's a no-brainer! Arrington takes over the reins at Yahoo while Bartz assumes blogging duties at TechCrunch. It'll be like nothing ever changed. Bonus: Bartz and Arianna face off in a boardroom cat fight! But thats a story for another day.

And finally... the 2012 Presidential Candidate Team
If there was one takeaway from their infamous fireside chat at Techcrunch Disrupt NYC last year, it was that these kids would kill it in a presidential debate. F-bombs, anyone?

And now, onto this week's tech-a-licious events...

Rocking out on the Terrace 3
Back, by popular demand, for one last hurrah this summer, the only party where you rawk it on a terrace. It's an all you can drink affair. So go get hammered! Just don't fall over into the Hudson, cuz that wouldn't be very pretty. And FYI to all those folks who thought that this was my terrace: it's not. But feel free to treat it like it is. ;)
Monday, 6 p.m. @ Private Residence Terrace, 312 11th Avenue

Fashion 2.0: Evolution of Online Flash Sales
If u're crazy about fashion & tech, you'll like this. And if u're not, well there will be cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, so u'll like it anyway. Panelists includes Mike Steib (CEO, Vente-privee.com), Ted Nadeau (General Manager, ELLE Digital), Vicki Young (WWD Women’s Wear Daily) and Andy Dunn (Co-Founder, Bonobos). Moderated by the always lovely Yuli Ziv (Style Coalition).
Monday, 6 p.m. @ Gansevoort Park, 420 Park Avenue South

Founders@Fail: Ted Morgan (Skyhook Wireless)
Cuz there ain't no such thing as an overnite success, homie.
Monday, 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway 4th Floor

Design for 3D Printing with Shapeways
Okay, so maybe you can't 3D print a double espresso ultra grande soy mocha chai latte yet, but mark my words, it won't be long!
Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. @ Union Square Ventures, 915 Broadway 19th Floor

TechStars NYC on Bloomberg TV Premiere Party
The confessions. The drama. The showboating. The apps. The tears. The mentors. The late-night coding. The drinking. The pivoting. It all begins this Tuesday. The show that will launch f-bomb dropping Dave Tisch & his TechStars cohorts into the Donald Trump / Apprentice stratosphere.
Tuesday, 7 p.m. @ Undisclosed Location

Inside the Lean Founders Studio with San Kim (Show Me) and Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures)
Speaking of lean, here's a couple of lines from a speech I may be giving at a paper company later this month ... "Lean is right. Lean works. Lean clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the startup's spirit. Lean, for lack of a better word, is good."
Tuesday, 7 p.m. @ Meetup HQ, 632 Broadway 3rd Floor

The Business of Big Data
If there is one venture firm that has Big Data tattooed on its forehead, it would have to be IA Ventures. Srsly, these folks know more about Big Data than my grandma knows about baking cookies. So do urself a favor and head on over to learn some useful insights from IA's Brad Gillespie and Ben Sisovick.
Wednesday, 6 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway 4th Floor

Teaching Yourself to Code for N00bs and Product People
New York Tech Meetup frontman, OHours founder and all-around tech rockstar Nate "innonate" Westheimer will morph you from the somewhat desperate "I'm looking for a tech co-founder" all the way to the empowered "Good Lord, I AM a tech co-founder!" This one is for all you "idea guys" and "business gals" out there. Get on it. Best decision you'll ever make.
Wednesday, 7 p.m. @ SkillShare HQ, 407 Broome Street 5th Floor

PaidContent Advertising Summit
An online advertising all-star speaker cast including Paul Caine (EVP, Time), David Carey (President, Hearst), Pete Cashmore (Founder, Mashable), Carolyn Everson (VP, Facebook), Colin Kinsella (President, Digitas), Scott Kurnit (Founder, AdKeeper), Ross Levinsohn (EVP, Yahoo), Mike McCue (CEO, Flipboard), Neal Mohan (VP, Google) and more.
Thursday, 9 a.m. @ Time Life Building, 1271 Avenue of the Americas

New Work City Third Anniversary Party
Whoa, time flies! The grandaddy of New York co-working spaces is turning three. So go party like the co-working rockstar you are with New Work City Mayor Tony Bacigalupo, Deputy Mayor Peter Chislett and the rest of the NWC gang.
Friday, 8 p.m. @ New Work City, 412 Broadway 2nd Floor

Foursquare Global Hackathon!
Okay, so here's what you do. Take a bunch of foursquare APIs, add a generous helping of iOS with a pinch of gamification and mix it all up in a blender. You, my friend, have just whipped up a spanking new super delicioso So-Lo-Mo app. Now go tweet about it and annoy ur followers.
Saturday, 10 a.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway 4th Floor

Maker Faire and Open Hardware Summit
THE event for all ye DIY aficionados out there. Bit of a hike to Flushing but think of it this way--you'll finally be able unlock that "far far away" badge, no?
Saturday, 10 a.m. @ NY Hall of Science, 47-01 111th Street, Queens

More on the horizon ...

Mashable Social Good Summit on Sep 19 @ 92 Street Y
TechCocktails NYC Mixer on Sep 21 @ General Assembly
Pitch Your Startup To CNN Money on Sep 22 @ Time Life Building
Smash Summit NYC on Sep 23 @ Microsoft

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends!

(Vayable.com)

VIABLE? Vayable.com, the world’s first experience sharing platform, launched last week in New York City.  "The company began operations less than four months ago, growing a passionate community in their hometown of San Francisco and has quickly gained popularity in key national and international markets." New York was a natural next stop, said founder and CEO Jamie Wong, who came up with the idea while working at The Daily Show.

"Vayable.com is a new service that lets anyone discover and book great things directly from others in the community, providing a dynamic and compelling alternative to dusty guidebooks and double-decker bus tours.  Individuals are making money offering diverse experiences such as a private concert in a concert pianist’s downtown Manhattan loft, a fashion model sketching session with an instructor at Parsons, and a tour of Wall Street hosted by a Bloomberg TV reporter."

TRUST EXERCISES. "But the founding of our company simply does not compare to recent events. Two weeks ago, Airbnb got a wake up call. We experienced what felt like a rebirth, and we have since committed our company to trust and safety. Since the beginning of August, we have designed, built, and shipped over 40 new trust and safety features. Check out a list of the new features in our Trust & Safety Center."

WE'RE GOING TO NEW WORK CITY, WHICH NEEDS AN INTERN. "We’re looking for a bright, exciting, energetic person who just can't wait to befriend everyone they meet to be our intern. Have them apply here. We're having our Learn • Build • Share event this Thursday. Save the date Friday, September 16th: New Work City's Third Anniversary party."

SURVEY SAYS. New features added to Zagat.com, which struggles to stay relevant in the age of Yelp. "New groundbreaking search features (Compare, Matrix and Stats view), a completely redesigned deals program, Zagat Exclusives (now powered by Savored) and an integration with OpenTable, allowing users to make restaurant reservations without leaving our site." And more.

CHECKINPOCALYPSE! Foursquare adds event check-ins. "For when a place is more than just a place."

TO SUM UP. XYDO launches XYDO Brief, "a news-via-email service that delivers personalized and relevant headlines based on a user's social networks and interactions right to their inbox." Invite-only.

About.com's iPhone app Calorie Count just released voice activation. "VHX is now web-mobile ready... It can also stream videos to your AppleTV using AirPlay. It's like magic." Native iOS apps are next. Who will be the first to tweet about watching on the can?

Nate Westheimer's Coding for N00bs class sold out in a day on Skillshare.

Shapeways celebrating its third anniversary on Friday.

Photo-sharing game Badger hit the App Store.

NEW THING. "It's called 'a third place' and is a space for getting to know people. Normally, we become acquainted with others via mutual friends, common interests or activities, or serendipitous meetings (i.e. attending the same event). At a third place, there are no strangers. everyone provides a brief, anonymous introduction to their life--and you can initiate a conversation with anyone."

And indeed, Mr Westheimer started following OMGPOP projects and developers on Github as early as May, around the time he put Ohours up for sale. OMGPOP, which recently raised $17 million, was hiring for a data engineer--we're doubtful that Mr. Westheimer, a fairly green coder, has got that job, but maybe he's helping bring puppies to your iPhone, for example. We pinged Mr. Westheimer to ask more, but he was OMGAFK. Wait! He's back! But did not confirm or deny a virtual puppy Ohours. "I follow lots of people on Github!" he protested.

VENMO IS HERE. We rumormongered last month that Venmo was Venmo-ving to New York. "We may, will let you know if so," founder Andrew Kortina told Betabeat. The start-up was not one of the portfolio companies to move in with investor Lerer Ventures, however; coder Shreyans Bhansali is mayor of Venmo at 289 7th Ave. (26th St.) on Foursquare. Ahem, Betabeat welcomes Venmo to New York--let us know about that parking meter thing.

PITCH.FM. All those jokes about pitching investors on Turntable.fm? Charlie O'Donnell is hosting DJ hours there. "Each week at 1:30 on Friday, I'll be DJing in an open room where people can come by, say hello, ask startup questions, pitch, or just listen to the music. Swing by!"

GRITTED TEETH. Foursquare's new lists feature potentially put a lot of start-ups out of business, including DreamIt's just-pivoted-and-things-were-going-so-well Pictour and the long-struggling-but-we-hear-already-pivoted Dinevore and the long-time-awkwardly-competitive Foodspotting.

TAKING THE STAIRS. GroupMe's long-complicated relationship with elevators--the lift in its first home in Soho trapped a fellow officemate--has manifested as a gossipy Twttr in the vein of the Conde Elevator. So far the account has overheard "Nubile Designer: 'Photoshopped a dick on my cats last night,'" and "Rage-filled Temp [to hungover co-workers]: I'm learning Rubies on Rails. Gonna change the world."

BOO TWITTER. Twitter finally pushed the last of its users onto the new multimedia version of the Twitter.com client, and some people are still struggling with the change. "TWITTER, Y U NO LET ME GO BACK TO 'OLD TWITTER?'"

"It was something I really, really needed," Mr. Westheimer told Betabeat via Google Chat. He'd been using "a hacky combination of tools" to approximate a web-based calendar to coordinate open office hours. "When I started teaching myself to code I told Vin Vacanti a few ideas I had, and he said if I build Ohours he'd be the first user on it. Knowing at least one other person would use the product really inspired me to build it."

Mr. Westheimer launched the site back in December and local techies started testing it out. As promised, Mr. Vacanti was a prolific user, although Forrst founder Kyle Bragger was technically the first to sign up. Shelby.tv founder Reece Pacheco gave it a try; Union Square Ventures's Gary Chou wrote a rave review. TechStars's Dave Tisch is a fan. And so on.

But in May Mr. Westheimer was ready to move on to other schemes. "I wonder if there someone out there who LOVES @Ohours, has what it takes to run a startup, and hacks Rails at least as well as I do...," he tweeted.

As Mr. Westheimer tells it, a tweet was all it took. Another local entrepreneur, Nathan Hurst, founder of the stealthy New York speed-recruiting start-up Hirelite, saw the message thanks to a retweet from Mr. Chou. "Nathan and I had met a few months before when he came to my Ohours," Mr. Westheimer said. "But Gary really got us talking again after that tweet."

Mr. Hurst thought Ohours would be a great complement to Hirelite and negotiated an acquisition in exchange for an undisclosed percentage of Hirelite and "a tiny tiny bit of cash (mostly for technical/legal reasons)."

Mr. Hurst has already revamped Ohours's design:

Our vision at Hirelite has always been to connect people for one-on-one, face-to-face conversations - no middlemen required. Until now, Hirelite has helped companies and software engineers connect directly for interviews via speed interviewing events, primarily over video chat (often facilitating hundreds of interviews per event).

Ohours gives us the chance to push beyond hiring and create a broader community of people connecting directly. We'll help people share their expertise and interests without the awkwardness of wandering around "networking" events.

Mr. Westheimer says he's "a big believer in Nathan and Hirelite so I just wanted to stay a part of it as an owner."

So what are you working on now? we asked. "Some stuff," the Coding Produce Executive said. "Nothing too exciting but working on some other ideas."

At Mr. Westheimer's pace, we're sure we'll know soon enough. In the meantime: Mr. Hurst! Call us!

Clarification: An earlier version of this post said Hirelite bought 99 percent of Ohours and Mr. Westheimer retained the last 1 percent; Hirelite actually bought 100 percent of Ohours. Betabeat regrets the error.

Don of the Demo

This is a post from Nate Westheimer that originally appeared on his blog.

After running the NY Tech Meetup for nearly two and a half years, and personally curating and coaching over 200 demos, I’ve learned a thing or two about what makes a successful software demo.

First, let’s define a a “successful software demo.” A successful demo is comprised to two important outcomes, no matter the audience:

1. As a whole, the audience comes away with some level of consensus that you’re a smart, self-aware person doing worthwhile things.
2. At least 1 person in the audience has an “ah-ha” moment and comes away with a mission to help your product succeed, either by providing a critical feature idea, a hire candidate, potential partnership, or — in the case of a demo to investors — the desire to fight to invest.

So, how can you deliver the best demo possible, no matter what time you’re given? Follow these rules:

The Core: Software is Magic. A Demo is a Magic Show.

All software have this in common:

1. There are inputs.
2. Those inputs get processed by all of our hard work and labor that goes into our software.
3. And there are outputs which are nothing short of magical.

For a product like Aviary, the magic is quick, visual, and has a lot to do with the complexity of the software. Drag an image over a filter (that’s the input) and a totally new image pops out the other end (that’s the output).

It’s magic.

For Meetup.com, it’s the same, but different. You have inputs, which comprise the creation of a group and scheduling a time to “meetup,” but the output (the magic) is — in the case of the NY Tech Meetup — 860 passionate people in a room all at once.

Aviary and Meetup — both have inputs, both have magical outputs. That’s software at work.

So, it’s pains me when people come to demo and, instead of putting on a magic show — showing off how humans (themselves) and software interact — they try to inspire the audience through their words and by speaking about their ideas; or, just as bad, they flip through a bunch of preloaded tabs in an effort to “show” the product, as if pre-loaded tabs are any better than PowerPoint slides.

Flipping from tab to tab is like showing a tiger in a cage at a magic show, but having never shown the audience that the tiger wasn’t in the cage in the first place! Yes, that will save some time — 5 seconds of page-loads here and there certainly add up — but what people don’t understand is that those 5 seconds of page-loads are the magic we’re looking to see. A magic trick is about experiencing a process, not looking at a before and after picture.

You put in an input (a click? a swipe?) and the output was magic (a new page? interesting restaurant recommendations? a room chock full of people?).

Success.

(Want to see one of the NYTM’s best demos ever? Check out John Britton’s famous Twilio demo here.)

The Preamble: Demo the Problem. Don’t Talk to it.

There are many people for whom demoing their software comes very naturally. Still, there is one major mistake they make leading up to the part of the program where they show their software: they talk about why they built it.

Talking is always a mistake during a demo. If you’re talking, you’re not showing, and while anyone can talk a good game, not everyone can show one.

More practically speaking, telling the audience about why you’re in business is not nearly as powerful as showing them why you’re in business.

Instead of spending the first 10% – 20% of your demo telling your audience why what you built matters, take the time to demo the current state of affairs: the “why” your software matters.

A great example of this recently at NYTM was the Matchbook demo. When Jason showed up at the May NY Tech Meetup, he asked to spend a few seconds talking about “why” they made Matchbook. When we dug into the issue, it seemed that most people were keeping lists of places they needed to checkout on the iPhone’s native Notes app.

When I heard that, I thought like it sounded like the perfect problem to demo. Jason then loaded his iPhone’s Notes app with a lot of tips, opened his demo by showing them, and stole the show.

At the end of the day, it’s okay to demo someone else’s application if it helps illustrate why your app is so great. Most great products are alternatives to existing hacks, so show the existing hack — get the audience on your side by relating to a pain they already experience — and dive right into the meat of the demo: the way you change everyone’s life for the better.

Two small but still important points: Keep it Simple and Stay Cool

Keep it Simple

Some services are barebones and elegant, and others are feature rich. For the barebones, it’s easy to focus on the big main idea behind the process when demoing. However, for the feature rich, people always seem to get bogged down by the nitty-gritty. “And we have the ability to share this new ‘doodad’ on Twitter.”

Even if your app has a lot of features, leave many of them out of your demo. Leave something for the users to discover on their own while browsing. Anyway, sharing on Twitter is useful to some people, but it’s magic to no people — so just leave that kind of stuff out.

Stay Cool

Lastly, when it comes to demos there are so many points of failure. The Internet connection of the venue you’re demoing in, the Internet connection of your webhost, the browser’s configuration you’re demoing in, Flash’s overall shittyness, and even your own stumbling trying to type and talk at the same time.

IT’S OKAY!

Believe it or not, if something goes wrong while you’re demoing, the audience won’t pass judgement on you at all. However, the audience will pass judgement on how you react in times of stress.

When something goes wrong, do you freak out? Go completely silent?

People are drawn to those who handle stress like nothing ever happened. If you can keep your cool, keep talking, get a few jokes out, and find a creative way to let the show go on, you’ll win more hearts and minds than if all the technology even worked. Remember, generally speaking the point of a demo is to get people to think that you’re a smart person doing worthwhile things.

Someone who can handle a bump in the road looks like a smart person.

"What went wrong with tech, it became about fashion, not value," Diamond wrote, before posting a link to this ad for AirBnB featuring a fetching hipster spokeswoman.

Nate Westheimer pinged him back to ask, "How so? Tech is still tech," and with that, a full fledged Twitter debate had begun.

"The determinant of a product's success is less its quality, more its sex appeal."

"How do you measure quality?" Westheimer counters.

Like all things in life, a certain amount of sex appeal helps products along. Millions of consumers have voted for the iPhone, despite its long record of less than stellar service as a device for making phone calls, in large part because of its aesthetic qualities. Start-ups are the same, and that rule applies to everything from the UX to the founder's personal magnetism.

"Perhaps what I'm lamenting is the maturation of the free web," Diamond wrote to Betabeat over an afternoon gchat. "The emphasis has shifted from the product to the user which -- incidentally -- is a good thing. I think there are good things and bad things about it; certainly more money to be made but when image surpasses more concrete measurements of value I think that's a dangerous thing and in the case of certain popular startups, I think image drives a lot more than what we freely admit."

NYTM is the largest tech organization in New York but it's often criticized for two nearly opposite problems: members complain it's too hard to get one of the 800-some tickets and almost impossible to be one of the start-ups that get to demo on stage; the other gripe is that the meetup caters to the lowest common denominator in the tech scene and attracts too many curious fly-bys and so-called "wantrepreneurs."

Until January 2011, Ms. Lawrence was the CEO of the Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council, a non-profit serving 10,000 girls and 5,000 volunteers in Southern California. She's also a South By Southwest speaker; graduate of FeMBA, Seth Godin’s mini-MBA program for female entrepreneurs; and writer of the column “The Practical Business Radical.”

Perhaps Ms. Lawrence's biggest task is figuring out how the organization can serve the community now that it's gotten so large. She's been working out of New Work City and the Loosecubes office, but she plans to work out of different co-working spaces across the city in order to get to know various corners of the tech scene. "I'm looking at other spaces that I can one day a week float in and out of and get to know a broader cross-section in the tech community," she said. "I might do Ohours," she added, referring to Mr. Westheimer's office hours scheduling app, which is becoming a favorite of some local founders and VCs.

Mr. Westheimer has been overloaded recently between his NYTM duties and Ohours, but will continue to MC the event, at least for now. Ms. Lawrence will speak at the next NYTM event on Wednesday, April 6 at NYU’s Skirball Auditorium; her blog post about the job is here.

Ms. Lawrence also plans to survey members about what they want from the organization between meetups without disrupting what the organization already does well. "I'm not a proponent of change just for change's sake," she said. "It's important to understand and try and get as clear a picture as possible as to what's working and what's not before changing too many things."

NYTM was founded in 2004 by Meetup.com founder and CEO Scott Heiferman and Dawn Barber. The organization reports it has 17,300 members representing professionals from all parts of the New York technology community, and reminds us in a press release that "nearly every notable new company, including Foursquare and Tumblr [made] their debut at a NYTM demo." NYTM is a not-for-profit.

CORRECTION: This post originally mistakenly said Kickstarter debuted at NYTM; Kickstarter has not presented at NYTM.