Alex Cohen, InSITE Founder and GC and CCO for On Deck Capital
Andrew Moss, InSITE Alumni and Founder of BuyWithMe
Ben Lilienthal, InSITE Alumni and Founder of Vapps
Bronson Lingamfelter, InSITE Alumni and Associate at Rose Tech Ventures
Dan Lifton, InSITE Board and COO at Quality of Life Labs
David Pashman, Legal Team Leader at Meetup
Dawn Barber, InSITE Board and Founder of NY Tech Meetup
Josh Spodek, InSITE Alumni and Founder of Submedia
Karl Alomar, InSITE Past President and CEO at China Export Finance
Mac Lipscomb, InSITE Board and Operating Partner at InSITE Sponsor RRE Ventures
Mark Davis, InSITE Alumni and Associate at DJF Gotham Ventures
Matt McCooe, InSITE Alumni and Managing Partner at Chart Venture Partners
Molly Siems, InSITE Alumni and Account Manager at Fly Communications
Pete Karlen, InSITE Board and VP at EarthWater Global
Robyn Soto, InSITE Board and Director at Tishman Speyer
Sacha Ross, Associate at InSITE Sponsor Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Vic Singh, InSITE Alumni and Co-Founder of NearVerse
Vinay Jain, InSITE Board and Associate at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom
Zubin Canteenwalla, InSITE Alumni and Associate at NGEN Partners

InSITE presented several special awards:

Fellow Achievement Award: Shirley Xu
For special service as a first year InSITE Fellow, including leading our first VCAP Special Project Team and volunteering to serve as Special VP for Alumni Companies to survey their funding success, which showed that InSITE Companies had raised more than $215M in venture financing since 2000.

Alumni Achievement Award: Andrew Moss
For extraordinary accomplishments in entrepreneurship since graduating from InSITE (and NYU Law in 2001), particularly founding BuyWithMe in 2009 and raising a $5.5M Series A round.

First Annual Inductee into the InSITE Hall of Fame: Paul Tumpowsky
For guiding InSITE through 10 highly successful years as Chairman of the Board including developing the organization’s core program and relationships with sponsors, startups and supporters throughout the NYC venture community.

A full list of InSITE honors is available here.

Current InSITE Fellows and Board Members elected ten new executives to run the organization in 2010 – 2011 and two out-going Fellows to serve as Young Alumni Board Members:

Lastly, InSITE thanks the outgoing Class of 2010:

Christian DiCarlo, Columbia MBA
Duncan Welstead, Columbia MBA
Geetika Agrawal, NYU MBA
Godfrey Powell, Jr., NYU MBA
Haley Boruszak, NYU MBA
Jane Kang, NYU JD
Jeff Hui, Columbia MBA (who will stay on with InSITE as a Young Alumni Board Member)
Jennifer Gootman, NYU MBA
Justin Heyman, Columbia MBA
Kesha Cash, Columbia MBA
Max Eckstein, Columbia JD
Jane Kang, NYU JD
Ricky Opaterny, NYU MBA
Rob Schneider, Columbia MBA
Roy Simkhay, Columbia MBA
Ryan Orton, Columbia MBA
Shawn Khazzam, NYU MBA
Tony Leotti, NYU JD/MBA
Vinay Ganti, NYU JD/MBA

– Rich Powell, NYU JD ’10, signing off as 2009-2010 President; thanking all the past Execs, Team Leaders, Alumni and Supporters for another great year; and wishing the best of luck to the stellar 2010-2011 Execs

BuyWithMe’s founder and CEO is InSITE alumnus Andrew Moss (NYU JD ’01). Andrew discussed his experience running BuyWithMe, and the decision to raise venture funding with InSITE:

The BuyWithMe Concept
BuyWithMe partners with local merchants to offer group discounts on its website to consumers in target cities (currently Boston, Washington D.C., and San Diego). Consumers indicate if they are interested in a deal through the website. Once a certain minimum people sign up, the deal activates, customers are charged, and BuyWithMe sends a link to a printable voucher used to redeem the discount.

BuyWithMe positions itself as a win-win for both consumers and businesses. Consumers get discounts at stores in their local areas. Merchants get new customers, advertising on a website targeted at local shoppers, and guaranteed volume.

Moss explained how BuyWithMe functions as a new advertising medium for businesses which have traditionally been limited to newspaper or radio ads. Unlike newspaper and radio ads, however, BuyWithMe is much more highly targeted to consumers who are actively looking to shop, and offers a superior ability to track and quantify the success of a promotion. Businesses also do not pay unless the promotion works and the targeted number of shoppers sign up.

In this respect, BuyWithMe is similar to other online “flash sale” companies, most notably Gilt Groupe, which is also funded by Matrix Partners. Unlike Gilt, however, BuyWithMe is locally targeted, focuses on driving guaranteed store visits rather than shipping merchandise online, and covers many industries besides apparel.

Founding BuyWithMe
Moss’ background as a corporate lawyer and hedge fund manager isn’t typical of most entrepreneurs, but prior to starting BuyWithMe Moss already been involved in entrepreneurship. While at college, Moss and a few friends started a business making custom t-shirts and merchandise – an effort that eventually evolved into customink.com. While Moss left the business relatively early to enroll in law school, he said that a lot of the knowledge and unit economics of Customink transferred to BuyWithMe. The experience also contributed to Moss’ decision to leave his day job to run BuyWithMe full time. “I didn’t want to miss out again,” he said.

Moss discussed how one of the biggest challenges starting out was getting initial traction in Boston. In a classic version of the chicken-and-the-egg problem, merchants were reluctant to sign up before BuyWithMe had an established user base, but user growth in turn was largely dictated by the number of deals on the site. A well-timed partnership with Boston.com tipped the scales for BuyWithMe, driving enough traffic for BuyWithMe to gain momentum. Currently, Moss is focused on trying to scale the concept nationally, with launches in new cities expected soon.

Securing Funding
Moss was initially cautious about seeking venture funding, influenced by the notion that certain companies benefit minimally from venture funding, and the fact that Customink succeeded despite raising minimal venture financing in only one round.

Despite being approached by numerous other firms, Moss took the initiative and reached out to Matrix Partners largely because of their experience with e-commerce generally, and online sales and group purchasing in particular. “In my opinion BuyWithMe is part of a select category of businesses where VC expertise can really add a lot of value,” Moss said. “[Matrix Partner] Nick Beim was a huge value-add. He made lots of introductions and offered insightful advice based on his experience with Gilt.”

Moss also discussed some of the differences between advising entrepreneurs on the fundraising process as an InSITE fellow and actually going through it as a company founder. “One of the biggest differences was the importance of the personal relationships,” Moss said. “It’s really important to have people who not only give you money, but who are trusted advisors with whom you want to spend time working. We didn’t want to just raise capital, we wanted intelligent capital.”

Moss believes his business background and experience with the pitch process from InSITE was helpful while raising funding. “It was great to not have to learn to pitch on the fly,” Moss said. “Many companies come in with a great idea but are still working on the business process. Having a coherent pitch on the viability of the business impresses VCs and helps your case.”

– Alessandro Presti

- Josh Brandley, Columbia MBA ‘11

- J. Ryan Golden, NYU JD ‘11

- Shiv Hira, NYU MBA ‘11

- Alessandro Presti , Columbia JD/MBA ‘13

- Sean Weinstock, NYU JD ‘12

- Ben Zhuk, Columbia MBA ‘11

Bios for new fellows are available here. We thank all those who applied to InSITE for its Spring 2010 Fellow class.