Drop.io founder Sam Lessin on NY startup scene

Sam Lessin, the 25-year-old founder of drop.io talks about the New York tech startup scene in this episode of The Deal's Behind the Money online video show.There's more kinship than competition among the Big Apple's 20- and 30-something entrepreneurs, says Lessin, who is friendly with, among others, Charles Forman (OMGPOP, previously called Iminlikewithyou), Mike Hudack (Blip.tv), David Karp (Tumblr Inc.), Charlie O'Donnell (Path101 Inc. and nextNY) and Nate Westheimer (AnyClip and NY Tech Meetup).Drop.io creates "simple, private spaces where individuals and businesses can share files--documents, pictures, music, love notes, whatever!--via the Web, but without fear of attracting millions of other eyes," as The New York Observer's Gillian Reagan put it in a recent profile of Lessin.Lessin also reports turning to his investors for advice, especially RRE Ventures' Jim Robinson IV and DFJ Gotham Ventures' Danny Schultz. Drop.io has raised $3.9 million from RRE and DFJ Gotham since November of 2007.Even investors who aren't directly involved in drop.io are impressed by its service, which was featured at a recent NY Tech Meetup."Sharing on the real time web has been balkanized to date, with services asserting rights over your content," Betaworks co-founder John Borthwick tells The Deal. "Drop.io is starting to open up the way we can get data in to a platform, share it and then get it back out if need be."On Thursday, drop.io is expected to launch a new service. Watch the video interview below or download it at iTunes.-- Mary Kathleen Flynn

Deal Video | May 13, 2009

Tags:. .borthwick. .karp. .tumblr. .forman. .gotham