Who’sAtCooBric: Mike Sabat

Mike Sabat is a cofounder of ShelfMade.

How did the idea for ShelfMade come about?
I was opening fifty tabs on my browser for stuff to read on the plane.

When I sit at a computer it’s much easier to find information. The computer screen sucks for reading on. So with ShelfMade, we’re trying to bring worthwhile content offline in a more natural way. Stuff worth saving, stuff worth sharing, or articles that are just too long.

I have a client who says he hates reading online.
We print it out and send it. If he likes to look for information online, great, he just clicks it, and all the articles show up in his mailbox in a month.

I get all my news from Reddit, Digg and other sites. I don’t watch the news anymore.

Why?
The people I can comment to and have relationships with online, I believe. Seth Godin, Michael Arrington with TechCrunch, those are people I can have conversations with, and these micromedia sites are going to be a huge trend in the future.

Are you providing content yourself, or do people find the content?
We want to build the world’s largest content network. We want to really democratize media. People can use anything in this network to create a magazine. Click something and it’s saved in a magazine. It’s the author’s content; we pay a royalty every time.

We want to turn anybody into a magazine editor. You want to know what Al Gore’s reading? Click and subscribe on his magazine.

Why is this your thing?
It’s something I want to see made. And I don’t see anyone else making it.

Who are you working with?
BlackLeaf Studios’ Ken Garland. We’re cofounders. He’s a genius. He’s been programming since he was 13, back in ‘94.

How do you work together?
We come together for the brainstorms and to be on the same page. We meet once or twice a week and do emails.

We have two separate roles in the company. Mine’s the business development, the administration, the planning, modeling, and marketing. And his is the website and the coding.

The coworking is absolutely needed in New York for the sense of community. When atoms get together bouncing back and forth, that’s when reactions happen, that’s a catalyst. People need to interact with each other for great things to happen. Hippies in the 60’s – the music that came out of there! The Beatles and Bob Dylan. ‘Sergeant Pepper’ doesn’t happen unless John Lennon and Bob Dylan meet.

We need a room where you can go at any time, find answers and meet cofounders. The real value in cooBric isn’t the tabletops and the internet connection. It’s getting introductions, meeting people doing interesting things, bouncing ideas off each other.

Since you have a day job, what hours do you want with coworking?
I went to the cooBric opening party, and I’ve had a few meetings at cooBric for lunch. But being open on the nights and the weekends would really help. And even mix in a social aspect. Put a fridge in there. It has to be off-hours.

Say we’re open 24 hours. When would you be stopping by?
I have a full time job that I love. So I’d be arriving 7 p.m. And staying till one.

In the past, I’ve worked a day job, my cofounder worked at a restaurant, so I would work a job till 5 p.m., he’d get off at 11 p.m., we’d sit at Kinko’s until 3 or 4 a.m., I’d sleep a few hours and go back to work. Instead of sleeping, I’ll build a business, if that’s an option.

When are you launching? What can readers do next to get ShelfMade?
Sign up for the beta test at ShelfMade.net. We’re getting the word out. Over the next few weeks it’s free to join, and there’s potential traffic for bloggers who allow our users to include their articles in the magazines.

What else?
I get emails, ‘I’m a programmer, how do I find cofounders with ideas?’ CooBric could really be a center for startups. Always the top posts on News.YCombinator are, ‘How do I find a cofounder?’

Once you have someone successful come out of this, you have opportunities to turn it into a venture fund. Say I’m working at cooBric, and I make it big, that comes back around.