Real Estate Articles

Are you currently scouring the market for office space in NYC for your business? If so, you already know that this marks a major milestone in your tenure as a business owner. You also know that items such as location, lease terms, space and a slew of other amenities have all instantly jumped to the forefront as major priorities and the endless list of options for office space in NYC can quickly feel daunting.

It's no secret that making the foray into commercial office space in NYC is a big next step. However, savvy entrepreneurs are proving that this big business move can be decidedly more manageable. How, you ask? By leasing shared office space in NYC.

On March 28th, 2012, Joe Chin held his Best Practices Meetup at NYU's Stern School of Business.  The featured speakers were Jared Hecht of GroupMe and Ben Lerer of Thrillist and Lerer Ventures.  The topic of the discussion was Creating New Markets.  Jared is a Co-Founder of GroupMe, the group messaging service that was acquired by Skype in August, 2011 for more than $50 million.  Ben is the Co-Founder/CEO of Thrillist Media Group (Thrillist, Jackthreads), which has $40 million in revenue and 4 million subscribers.  Ben is also Co-Founder/Managing Director of Lerer Ventures, a seed stage venture capital fund which has invested in over 100 media and technology companies.

Turn Two Media, an online media firm, has recently renewed its lease at 33 East 33rd Street.  The space was formerly a sublease from Cambridge Systematics, which Turn Two has converted into a direct lease.
 

Sailthru, the ubiquitous email deliverability and analytics firm, has recently signed a lease to take over the former NYU/Poly Incubator space at 160 Varick Street.  The space, located on the top floor of the building, aka 10 Hudson Square, was vacated at the end of last year by the incubator, who relocated to 137 Varick Street, a few blocks away.  Sailthru signed a lease for 17,775 square feet, which includes access to the property’s rooftop.
 

In one of the more interesting recent startup panels, TiE (The Indian Entrepreneurs) NYC hosted a panel discussion on Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at the NYC offices of King & Spalding at 1185 Avenue of the Americas.  The discussion, titled "Jumpstart Your Idea - Taking the Plunge and Starting Your Dream Venture", featured Brooklyn Bridge Ventures' Charlie O'Donnell, Mojiva's Miles Spencer and Hotlist's Gianni Martire discussing common scenarios all entrepreneurs face when embarking on their first venture.

Tag management firm TagMan has signed a lease to occupy 5,302 square feet on the 9th floor of 575 Eighth Avenue, located between 38th & 39th Streets in Times Square South.  TagMan is the global leader in tag management, with the industry’s most mature and proven platform for enterprise ecommerce.  

On Thursday, March 8th, 2012, Ultra Light Startups hosted its monthly Investor Feedback Forum and Pitch Showdown at Microsoft's NYC headquarters at 1290 Avenue of the Americas.  The Forum featured short presentations by nine (9) startups to an all-star panel of entrepreneurs and investors including First Round Capital's Phin Barnes, Paladin Capital Group's Bill Reinisch, ER Accelerator's Murat Aktihanoglu and Visual Revenue's Dennis Mortensen (billed as the ultimate bootstrapper).

The nine (9) presenting startups included Take the Interview's Danielle Weinblatt, Dealsurf's Damien Rottemberg, Favorly's Jonathan Daily, Sqoot's Mo Yehia, The Funday Genie's Joseph Foxton, LeadPlace's Ray Schmitz, Broodr's Jason Blanck, Buddha's David Montoya (fresh off his presentation the previous evening at Worldwide Investor Network) and USEED's Brian Sowards.

Judging by the evening's presentations, the daily deal and flash sales spaces continue to avoid market saturation and garner investor and entrepreneur interest.

The European-American Chamber of Commerce in the U.S. presented a European-American Economic Forum on Wednesday, March 7th, 2012 at the Union League Club in NYC.  The topic discussed was "Currencies, Credit Ratings and the Crisis: Facing the Power of the Markets" and featured a panel discussion moderated by Justin Fox, Editorial Director of Harvard Business Review.

The panel featured John Chambers, Managing Director of Standard & Poor's Sovereign Ratings; Alberto Cribiore, Vice Chairman of Citibank; Yves-Andre Istel, Senior Partner of Rothschild Global Financial Advisory; Jared Marks, Principal of Taconic Capital Advisors, LP; and Dietmar Rieg, General Manager of Bayern LB New York Branch.

The focus of the conversation was the sovereign debt crisis facing the European Union and necessary measures required to preserve the union.  Mr. Chambers referenced an interesting story from the early days of this country, when Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson met over dinner in NYC to discuss the structure of a central bank.  Chambers felt that the subsequent creation of the Federal Reserve system allowed our country to proceed on the path to economic prosperity and that similar controls are required in Europe.

The luncheon was attended by over 125 participants.

Worldwide Investor Network hosted a reception on Wednesday, March 7th, 2012 to introduce Buddha, a recent graduate of its investment program.  Buddha is a free and revolutionary patent-pending application that helps you expand your social network and find new connections based on your personal likes, interests and location.  It removes the need to actively search for new friends and connections by letting you set up proximity alerts and shared interests.

On March 6th, 2012, the 7th Annual Small Business Summit 2012 was held at Metropolitan Pavilion, in the Flatiron District of Manhattan.  The Small Business Summit is New York's premier event for small business owners looking to network with other decision-makers, attend cutting edge seminars and shop around for products and services available to help small businesses succeed.

There were over five-hundred attendees, a great lunch spread and giveaways at many of the sponsor booths.  I particularly enjoyed stopping by to speak with Data.com (fka Jigsaw), Webgrrls and TurnStone.  Best of all, Business Insider was in the house, covering the event!