083: How Perseverance kept Alley Coworking in Business (via Jason Saltzman)

Background on Jason Saltzman of Alley:

Jason Saltzman is the CEO and Founder of Alley, a post business incubator and shared workspace for entrepreneurs. He also co-founded the tech company, SeamlessDocs. Jason advises and invests in a variety of early stage companies and is a mentor for the Techstars accelerator program. Jason has worked with the US State Department, traveling the world to assist the growth of startup communities. On his latest trip the Middle East, he produced and starred in a documentary about the Kuwaiti startup ecosystem.

Through his role as CEO of Alley and as a mentor, he advises hundreds of startups and entrepreneurs, offering real-life practical application and creative marketing advice. Jason has published content for CNN, The Wall Street Journal and is a frequent contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[2:38] Jason started being an entrepreneur and entered the call center business at a very young age of 17.
[4:48] For Jason, it is important to find what makes you passionate about your business. The people you work with are also a big factor when running a business.
[6:01] It is inevitable to experience losses and downfalls, and make mistakes, but it is also important to learn from those mistakes.
[11:49] Jason has a talent for selling. For him, sales is connecting and empathizing with people.
[15:54] A big lesson Jason learned is “Never keep your feet completely solid on the ground in what you’re doing, because things could shift rather quickly.”
[16:55] When Jason was 24 years old, he was living a luxurious lifestyle. He was staying in a $3,500 a month apartment in NY, he had a BMW, and he partied a lot.
[21:03] Jason chose between getting a job and starting his own business in Miami. He left NY and moved to Miami to start his new business.
[24:54] Jason met someone in South Florida who became his business partner. They shared the same interests and they both wanted to create their own company.
[28:10] Jason saw the business potential in shared workspace for entrepreneurs. He got this idea when he went into We Work in New York.
[37:56] When hurricane Sandy stormed through New York and cut off the power in many areas downtown, hundreds of people went to Alley because they had power. It was a game changer for Jason’s shared workspace business.
[40:03] Alley is more focused on building a community that are like-minded and have shared interest. They want to build a community that can help each other and gain more opportunities to succeed.
[42:22] Alley has partnered with Verizon and they have a newly opened 5G lab.
[45:37] Jason promises that Alley is going to offer more mind-blowing features in the coming years for entrepreneurs and people who have great business ideas.
[46:57] Alley has 3 locations in Manhattan, which includes the 5G labs. They also have Alley in Washington DC.
[48:07] Jason advises to new entrepreneurs to be always prepared and look at failures as lessons to be learned.

Fabulous 4 Questions:

📖📚 Favorite Book(s)? Obstacle is the Way Holiday By Ryan Holiday.
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Everything on Amazon.
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? My Calendar App – Google Calendar.
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Focused on internal growth so can you scale.