In NYC? Come learn about raising money (from F&F to angels/VCs)

At WeWork Labs, we love to help out our fellow entrepreneurs. That's why we work with the aweosme folks at WilmerHale to put on this legal series to help the whole community. It's free, it's helpful and fun!

WilmerHale and WeWork Labs are pleased to present the 2011 Summer Legal Series. Attorneys from WilmerHale’s Corporate Practice will present and answer questions on various topics of interest to emerging companies and entrepreneurs.

 
Please join us for the third presentation in the series:
 
Raising Money: From Family and Friends, to Angels to VC's (Part 2)
 
Presented by Bob Schwed
 
With more than 35 years of experience in private equity, Bob Schwed has represented venture capital and buyout firms as well as companies in various investment activities, including early-stage investing, initial public offerings and leveraged buyouts. He is an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School, where he teaches a course in venture capital law.
 
WilmerHale is proud to be the law firm sponsor of WeWork Labs 
and is dedicated to fostering collaboration among intelligent, creative and driven individuals.
 
WHEN
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
5 -7 p.m.

 
WHERE

WeWork Labs
154 Grand Street
New York, NY

Please RSVP to m@simande.com if you'd like to attend so we know who's coming.
 
If you would like to submit your questions in advance, please email leigh.ollman@wilmerhale.com.

Social... It makes music, social.

There are now two music-related applications that I've begun using over the last few weeks that I am not so sure I can live without -- Turntable.fm and Spotify (which just launched in the US). Let me tell you quickly why they rock. And then go check them out.

Turntable.fm - This site has gained popularity very quickly and is a NYC born and bred web app. It's pretty simple, login with Facebook and enter a room where there are 5 DJ slots. If one is open, you can hop up. If not, kick back and listen to 5 people play (in a round robin format) whatever is in their playlists. Some rooms have themes like the "Jazz RnB Funk You Know The Good Stuff" and "DJ Woooooooo's House/Dance/Electro" while others are just random such as the "Coding Soundtrack". Either way you get to listen to cool music while "hanging" with your virtual friends. Cool, right?

Spotify - Sure, it's been around in Europe for over a year but it just came to the US today. With the MacOS app it works just like iTunes (but 100 times better) for playing your local music but also lets you stream almost any song you can think of. In addition, you can connect your account to Facebook (see a trend here?) and see the shared playlists of all of your friends. With that I now know that @thatdrew is into Lady Gaga and Ashlee Simpson (on his DrewzBeatz playlist) and that my friend Vivek Sodera has a softer side that likes to listen to Michael Buble (on his slow jams list).

Both of these sites allow me to connect with a lot of my friends in a way that isn't usually possible when they're all the way on the other side of the world or even the other side of town. I can share some music and become a bit more cultured with them in close-to-real-time. That's pretty cool. I can also discover some new things to add my collection.

Why hello there "Bonobo - If You Stayed Over", glad Courtney helped me discover you.

The power of amazing customer service

I don't know how many of you have moved to a new city and were in need of new physicians but my wife and I found ourselves in that spot only 7 or 8 months ago.  We moved from Philadelphia (where we had great doctors) to New York City to join the LivePerson Nation and we needed to find new family care and a good dentist.  I had heard of a site called ZocDoc, which allows you to find doctors, read reviews, choose a time and get to your appointment without ever picking up the phone or waiting on hold. I decided to hop on their site and give it a whirl.

After only 10 minutes of searching for the right doctor/doctor's office I came across One Medical Group.  I booked my appointment, got an email and text reminder and was in and out of that visit in record time.  It was one of the most pleasant experiences at a doctor's office I had ever had.

Fast forward a few months later and I am now facing having my wisdom teeth removed.  I went ahead and found a great dentist, Dr. Sarin, on ZocDoc again.  I booked the appointment for the following morning.  That evening Dr. Sarin called to ask me if I could push the appointment back by an hour.  I said yes and showed up for my appointment about twenty minutes early the next day.  Not only were his office assistants pleasant and helpful but he even came out and apologized for pushing the appointment back again and for me having to wait a few minutes.  I considered that excellent service.  But my pleasant medical experience didn't stop there...

Finally I got a call in the afternoon following my appointment from Cheryl at ZocDoc.  She also apologized for me having to push my appointment back (it was no bother to me and surely not her fault) and offered me a $10 Amazon gift card for the inconvenience.  I have never in my life had such an amazing experience with both an online service and a doctor's office (which are many times notoriously slow and unfriendly). 

After all of this rambling the point of the post was to let you know about ZocDoc and how helpful they can be.  They offer their services in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, DC for now.  If you're in one of these areas I highly recommend you try out their service.  Let me know how your experience goes.

Some of my favorite Android apps, revisited.

It's been a while since I've done a top 5 or top anything list so I wanted to share some of my favorite Android apps since I've fallen in love with my Nexus One (second only to my wonderful wife).

Seesmic - The #1 Twitter client for Android.  Not only is it fast, simple to use and has great alerting capabilities but it's also free and has one of the most intuitive user interfaces of any of my currently installed apps.

NYC Bus & Subway - As most of you know, I've moved to New York City and this has been a literal life saver since I've gotten here.  This along with Google Maps (which is not included in this list as it's pre-installed on the device) has helped me to find my way home.  It's been the guiding beacon of hope on those cold, dark nights wandering around The Big Apple.

TouchDown - As a corporate mail user (who's unfortunately still on Exchange), this makes my life ten times easier!  It gets push email via ActiveSync and syncs contacts, calendars and tasks from my corporate account.  It does all of this while keeping it's grubby Exchange mitts off of my awesome Google services.

Listen - Google Listen is one of those apps that I can't believe I never wanted before but now know that I can't live without.  It was love at first listen (pun totally intended) when it pulled down a Car Talk episode, cached it and let me listen to the whole thing on the train ride from the office home.  Not only does it let you pull down podcasts but it lets you pull down all podcasts that match specific search terms as well.

PdaNet - While travelling is a large part of my job, it's nice to know that not only can I get online with my phone but a quick connection to my laptop (via USB) and my laptop gets some interweb juice as well.  Just remember, the only thing worse than needing to work while at the airport is needing to work while at the airport and paying for it.

Of course these aren't the only apps that make my life easier but I wanted to share with you some of the great apps that are available to almost every Android user.  Oh yeah, being able to run all of these at once (with background tasks) is a nice plus as well...  So take that iPhone users.