For the very first time in my life, I’m running for a position.  The New York Tech Meetup (NYTM) is one of the pillars of the NYC startup community and they have a few board seats available and have opened those up to the general community.

I believe that I’m a great candidate for the open position, here is why:

1. The current board of directors in mainly comprised of investors or entrepreneurs, which is very important.  However, the board could be more diversified and with my background of supporting both investors AND entrepreneurs, it provides me a very unique perspective into both worlds.
2. I recently relocated to NYC, so I have unique perspective of what it means to move to a new community with limited contacts.  A lot of people are now moving to NYC to be part of the startup community and we need to make sure they have smooth transition to NYC and are feeling welcomed
3. Having spent nine years in the Bay Area, working with startups and investors, I bring a unique perspective as to what a thriving tech community has done well and not so well.   We can learn from other communities and make NYC an ever better place for startups to do business

Here are some initiatives that I would focus on if I am to join the Board of Directors of NYTM.

1. NYTM can be the platform to assist people who want to relocate to NYC.  Given how fast the community is expanding, startups need more experienced professionals and NYTM can be utilized to inform people about the opportunities in NYC and how to integrate into this community more effectively
2. Startups don’t have a collective voice when it comes to politics and laws that can positively/negatively impact them.  NYTM could create a Political Action Committee (PAC) so the voice of NYC tech community is heard in NYC, New York State and in Washington D.C.  Topics such as net neutrality, wireless spectrum, immigration laws, patent laws, etc are all topics that are important to this community and NYTM could serve as a platform to communicate our opinions
3. NYTM should serve all the sub-sectors of the NYC startup community.  Committees could be formed around various sub-sectors such as ecommerce, fintech, enterprise software, mobile, healthcare IT, etc.  These committees could be formed to highlight trends and also make sure that the NYTM monthly meetups have more diversity in terms of the presenters on stage

For more information about NYTM and the upcoming election, please visit http://nytm.org/election/

This blog post was also published on Betabeat.

Zynga, the biggest casual gaming company in the nation and the maker of popular games titles such as Farmville, CityVille and Mafia Wars, filed for its IPO today.

To summarize quickly,  Zynga is performing extremely well. They were profitable in 2010 and will continue to be profitable in 2011 (based on 2011 Q1 figures). They are looking to raise $1B through the IPO and have $996.7 in cash on the books.

One of the highlights is that top line revenue is growing quickly, from $19.4M in ’08 to $121.5M in ’09, roughly 600% growth. It jumped another 500% to $597.5M in ’10 and their 2011 revenue run rate is $941.7, roughly 150% growth. Although their run rate is $941.7 for 2011, revenue expectations are closer to $1.5B, which would be 250% growth from 2010.

Zynga has raised over $500M from New York City investors such as Union Square Ventures, who own 5.5%. Based on this IPO, it would be safe to assume that Zynga’s valuation would allow USV to make back their entire fund $125M 2004 vintage fund.

Other investors include Foundry (6.1%), KPCB (11%) , IVP (6.1%), DST (5.8%), Avalon (6.1%), Andreessen Horowitz, Softbank, Google, Tiger Global, Reid Hoffman. The CEO of Zynga, Mark Pincus owns 16%.

While the company is performing very well, there are some significant risks to consider. The main issue is that Zynga continue to be very dependent on Facebook for distribution and monitization. Can Zynga find alternative avenues to lessen the dependency on Facebook?

The other challenge is that casual gaming in still a hits-driven business. Can they continue to produce great titles to retain existing players and entice new users to their games? Another challenge is that casual gaming has a very low barrier to entry. There are a lot of competitors who are developing good casual games: Angry Birds (Rovio Mobile), Crowdstar, Pocket Gems, Papaya Mobile, Disney (Playdom – $763M acquisition), EA (Playfish – $400M acquisition, PopCap, Firemint, Chillingo), DeNA (Ngmoco – $400M acquisition).

The evolution of gaming is mobile, which is not Zynga’s core strength. Zynga needs to become dominate in the mobile gaming market and develop on platforms such as iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. While mobile games lessen the dependency on Facebook, there are still gate keepers in the mobile space including Apple, Google, Zong and Boku. Lastly Zynga is only four years old, which is still relatively young to be going IPO. If you look at the history of casual gaming, dominant players have come and gone, just look at the ups and downs of Atari, Sega and Capcom to name a few. The point being that remaining a dominant player in the casual gaming world is challenging and maintaining this level of growth, even tougher.

To summarize, Zynga is legitimate company that diminishes the argument of those who proclaim a tech bubble. The company faces many challenges but what is certain is that gaming is a huge market and Zynga has the opportunity to remain dominant.

Data in this story is taken from Zynga’s S-1 filing and acquisition numbers on Crunchbase. This post reflects Shai Goldman’s personal views and are not the views of his employer.

Working in the NYC startup scene is really exciting right now.  There is so much energy and enthusiasm in the tech community.  There are many VC firms setting up shop, new incubators, growing list of co-working facilities and increasing amount of service providers, all of which are there to support this exploding (in a good way) startup environment.

Silicon Valley Bank has had an office in New York City for 10 years and we are expanding quickly!

I’m looking for a talented person to join our efforts.  Do you know someone who fits this criteria?

Requirements:

• Passionate about technology, startups and entrepreneurship
• Passionate about providing excellent customer service (see – Delivering Happiness)
• Ability to interact with Founders and CEOs
• Ability to manage a large portfolio (hundreds) of technology companies
• Experience in financial services is a big plus
• Ability to develop strong relationships with referral sources such as incubators , lawyers, accountants
• Attention to detail
• Ability to work independently but also work as part of a team
• Ability to do administrative tasks