Ok, that’s not exactly the case, but he did visit our home at the NYU Poly Incubator at 160 Varick as part of a press conference earlier today.  During his time here, he focused on the city’s initiatives to spur economic development, innovation and entrepreneurship and pointed to this incubator and several others which are being developed as a central initiative in these efforts. 

As an information and data company, we were particularly interested in Mayor Bloomberg’s perspectives on what has driven the success and ubiquity of his information and data services business (aptly named Bloomberg).  When we had a chance to ask him what were the key drivers of Bloomberg’s early success as an information & data platform, he offered two pieces of advice from his experience.

First and more generally, the company constantly adapted with the times.  They initially built their own monitors when PC equipment wasn’t available and virtually built their own internet to move data to Bloomberg terminals.  But as PC technology caught up and the internet enabled efficient data transmission, they stopped doing those things and moved with the times.  They constantly kept in mind that they are a data and information company and so didn’t fancy themselves as a hardware company although they had developed some level of competency in other arenas.

The more enlightening point in our view was that he said he didn’t always listen to what his customers said they wanted.  Per Mayor Bloomberg, customers don’t always know what they want and so it is upto entrepreneurs to develop offerings that meet their needs - even the ones they don’t know they have.

Thanks for the advice Mayor Bloomberg.  We’ll be in touch.