Thursday, April 16, 2026
In today’s digest, how to be a New Yorker, new cocktail bars, and what founders (still) get wrong about fundraising. 💰
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A massive new “how to be a New Yorker” guide just dropped, packing 250+ hyper-specific tips on everything from throwing parties to raising kids to navigating city life like a pro — a crowdsourced operating manual for NYC. 🗽 (Curbed)
The advice spans the full stack of city living, from renting out Metrograph for a themed party to finding free childcare at local YMCAs or learning fly-fishing in Central Park.
Tens of thousands of NYC building workers just authorized a strike that could disrupt daily life for 1.5 million residents if contract talks collapse before Monday night. 🚪 (Associated Press)
The dispute centers on wages, pensions, and whether workers should start paying for health insurance.
A walkout — the first in 35 years — could force residents with doorpersons to handle everything from trash to package delivery themselves.
This one’s for all the non-policy wonks out there: You may have heard rumblings about the New York State budget being late. Here’s an FAQ on how the state budget works, including who the key players are and what’s up for negotiation. 💰 (New York Focus)
In other reading:
NJ Transit CEO gets power to raise World Cup fares for getting to and from MetLife (Gothamist)
A map of the best new cocktail bars in New York City (Eater)
One of the world’s best food festivals returns to NYC this weekend (Time Out New York)
Slide into New York tech’s inbox
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If you or your company are a good fit for our audience of 12.5k highly engaged NYC tech leaders (55% open rate!), fill out our form here and we’ll be in touch. 🤝
What Founders Still Get Wrong About Fundraising
If you’ve spent even a little time in NYC tech, chances are you’ve run into author, VC coach, and NYC tech mainstay Charlie O’Donnell.
Charlie’s new book, Founder Unfriendly: What Investors Won't Tell You About Getting Funded comes out on April 28. In it, he cuts through startup clichés and focuses on how decisions really get made (and how to influence them). 📖
Ahead of the book launch, we caught up with Charlie to unpack what happens after a pitch, and why so many founders misread the signals:
🚦 On what actually signals investor interest:
“The real mistake is focusing on what was said instead of what happens next.”
“Serious investors create momentum — they ask for follow-ups, bring in senior partners, etc. and quickly. If you’re the one chasing, that’s your signal.”
🎯 On how to make pitching a repeatable system:
“Every founder should take an old-school sales training class. It would force a narrative that actually has a structure — one that gathers as much information as it shares.”
“Founders aren’t going to get better at pitching unless they know they are trying to convince someone of A, B, and C, and they have a mechanism to check with the investor whether they successfully accomplished this.”
“Literally say it: ‘I believe this market trend will create a venture-sized opportunity… Do you agree? If not, why not?’”
🗽 On how founders can adapt his fundraising advice if they’re building in the NYC tech ecosystem specifically:
“In NYC, the network is more fragmented but also more accessible if you’re intentional. That means your early focus should be on earning trust within a specific community, not broadcasting broadly.”
“The goal isn’t to be big in NYC. It’s to be known by customers first, talent second, investors third — and if you succeed at the first two, investors will find you.”
🤝 On early-stage NYC founders building credibility before asking for money:
“NYC is an amazing place to build or participate in a community. One of the best things founders can do is put themselves at the center of a customer and operator community in their space.”
“It’s much easier to back a founder whose customers already consume their content than one who has to pay to reach them — and those founders build the right thing earlier because they have their ears to the ground.”
In other reading:
AI could democratize one of tech’s most valuable resources (WIRED)
Allbirds makes an unlikely pivot from shoes to AI (Wall Street Journal)
When creating an AI strategy, don’t overlook employee perception (HBR)
Mintlify, an NYC-based code documentation platform, raised $45m in Series B funding. A16z and Salesforce Ventures led, joined by Bain Capital Ventures, YC, Rahul Mehta, MVP Ventures, Avra, HubSpot Ventures, and TwentyTwo Ventures.
Pillar, an NYC-based commodity risk automation platform, raised $20 million in seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz led the round and was joined by Crucible Capital, Gallery Ventures, and others.
Traza, an NYC-based AI-powered procurement and supply chain operations automation platform, raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding. Base10 Partners led the round and was joined by Kfund, a16z scouts, Clara Ventures, Masia Ventures, and others.
Featured event:
⭐ April 23: NYC AI Demos, from Tech:NYC, Pensar, and Two Trees, this month spotlighting the AI startup stack with demos from Justworks, Cognition, Norm Ai, and more to be announced soon. Register here.
Other great events:
April 18: Enterprise Agent Jam NYC, where you’ll have six hours to build an AI agent from scratch. Register here.
April 20: Communicating Your Value with Confidence, an interactive workshop where you’ll learn a practical, repeatable approach to communicating your value with clarity and confidence. Register here.
April 21: Privacy’s Defender at Civic Hall, a conversation between Tech:NYC President and CEO Julie Samuels and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Executive Director Cindy Cohn to discuss Cindy's new book, Privacy’s Defender. The book chronicles Cindy's 30-year battle to protect the right to digital privacy. Register here.
April 21: Make It in Brooklyn: Play Jam & Showcase, featuring short demos from the Game Design Future Lab and NYU Game Center Incubator members, with games, interactive projects, and experimental work. Register here.
April 23: Founder Unfriendly with Charlie O'Donnell at Newlab, an afternoon exploring the hard truths about fundraising, as part of the launch of Charlie O’Donnell's book, Founder Unfriendly: What Investors Won’t Tell You About Getting Funded. Register here.
April 23: Raising Your Seed Round: How Investors Actually Decide If You're a Good Bet. Register here.
April 23: Tech-Driven, Human-Centered: Leading Through Disruption, a panel discussion at the Columbia School of Professional Studies where leaders from technology and business will discuss what innovations demand of managers and teams in real time. Register here.
April 24: Tech Happy Hour, a chance to connect with the NYC tech and startup community to discover shared interests, explore areas for collaboration, and find your next co-founder or key hire. Register here.
April 27: NYC Fintech Coffee, for fintech founders, investors, and enthusiasts to gather around and talk everything fintech. Register here.
April 28: Rillet Recon, a full-day program on the future of AI-native finance. Register here.
April 29: Enshittification: In Conversation with Cory Doctorow, a discussion on Cory’s bestselling book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. Register here.
April 29: Founder Finance Night: Poker and a Free Second Opinion (Post Tax Day), for founders who want to play some poker, and startup or SMB founders who want a gut check on their finances. Register here.
April 30: Multi-Agent Hackathon, a hackathon to explore agents that observe a shared space, self-select what they care about, and coordinate without a manager. Register here.
April 30: Fintech Takes 3v3 Classic @ NY Fintech Week, a friendly 3v3 competition complete with good conversation afterwards. Register here.
April 30: The Executive Night, a gathering of ~30 Series A+ founders and investors. Register here.
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