Darrell Silver!

Tony, Peter and some of New York’s most dedicated freelancers, startups and small teams are building a thriving community, and it’s time to expand. Literally. New Work City started 18 months ago as a shared office for entrepreneurs, and has grown alongside New York’s tech scene ever since. Today they’re announcing an upgrade and new home in Tribeca. Personally, I’m ecstatic because I’ve been given the opportunity to personally contribute and help Perpetually at the same time.

New Work City 2.0 is already looking great. It’s a 5,000 square foot office space at 412 Broadway designed from the ground up for co-working. The lease has been signed and construction has begun. I’ve seen the raw space, I’ve seen the brick walls, I’ve seen the bay windows, I’ve seen the conference rooms. It’s awesome. Tony and Co. are putting their years of experience and connections to good use.

From Perpetually’s perspective, the deal is a great way to help the community that’s helped us grow, while also saving money. In exchange for a large percentage of the cash necessary to open the new space, I’ll own a few memberships until NWC has enough paying members to buy them back. Basically, Team Perpetually will pay $0 for rent — in Manhattan — for about a year.

New York City needs New Work City. While its success and growth prove the demand, NWC has only become a reality because of the vision and persistence of Tony, Peter and a cast of characters I love calling friends.

Seth Godin’s Flipping The Funnel argues that your company shouldn’t be spending vast sums on advertising, but instead should “Turn your customers into salespeople.” Yeah, well — tell me more, obviously!

He writes,

Here’s a quick example. The chart at right compares Web traffic at Ford.com (which is supported by more than a hundred million dollars’ worth of advertising every year) with Squidoo.com, a brand new community-driven site. Squidoo is in blue.

It took a bit of research, but I found another way to look at this example. Squidoo is in blue:

I love talking with Kevin Prentiss — He spends as much time thinking about sales as I do thinking about software. I basically want to steal his brain and graft it onto my own.

ANYWAY, we both want to grow our companies more quickly, and we both sometimes think we haven’t achieved most anything just yet. But Kevin pointed out how myopic that perspective can be. While I grabbed a pen he quickly rattled off some startup milestones I’m all too quick to forget:

1. Had an Idea
2. Someone Cares
3. Built Team
4. Built Prototype
5. Built Product
6. Product Works!
7. Someone is Interested in Product
8. Someone is Using Your Product
9. Someone has Paid For Your Product
10. Team Can Sell Your Product
11. Multiple People Have Paid For Your Product
12. Predictable Sales

Oh, man, it’s been six months and boy do we have a long way to go (we’re nowhere near having predictable sales). I’m afraid to list out steps we have yet to reach: I’d never get back to work!