As someone with little knowledge of the tech industry, I thought having dinner with Michael Belkin, creator of Distinc.tt, a social-lifestyle network for the LGBT community, would be a good introduction. Yet, I didn’t learn a single thing about Distinc.tt’s impact tech or Distinc.tt’s business practices.  I came away from this dinner with a greater understanding on Distinc.tt’s foundation on people – a lens which tech is never viewed through.

Michael was incredibly passionate about creating spaces for the LBGT community that he built a virtual one for individuals to engage with one another. He was highly invested about making room for the LBGT community that he dedicated his life to expanding this platform and making it more accessible to others. Even at this dinner, this business man, this creative genius cultivated a place for students, like me who have limited knowledge on technology, to understand this growing industry. Michael is the prime example of a person I would like to call a “space creator” or room-maker.”

I think we can all learn a powerful lesson from Michael. Creating space for people to come together is important, in fact vital. While Michael employs this within the LGBT community around the virtual world, this very same conversation is occurring in the black community at Cornell. Black Students United (BSU) hosted a General body meeting tonight titled, “Sold Out.” This conversation centered on “sell outs” in the black community, with an overarching question of “What is your responsibility to the community?” My answer to that question, much like Michael’s, would be to create a space.

Communities are meant to grow and that can’t occur unless we are ensuring that there is room and a place for new people to interact with one another. It’s not hard to be a room-maker, yet I find that so many people on this campus struggle with this. I’ve heard countless excuses for why the black community isn’t welcoming ranging from, “people at Cornell are awkward” to “people on the fringes need to make more of an effort” to “it isn’t my responsibility to personally invite all black people to black spaces.”

I’m tired and, frankly, irritated that in my short two years at Cornell, very few leaders in the black community are creating spaces. People often compare the struggle of LGBT folks to blacks in regards to how fast society and legislation has accepted and welcomed us. Movements led by the LGBT community, while tenuous, weren’t nearly as longer as those led by black individuals. I’m led to believe this had to do with the internal relationships that LGBT people have with each. Unlike black individuals they create spaces and create room for their community members.

I hope the black community at Cornell can look to the morals of Michael and begin to cultivate a place for individuals to be in communion.

In the world of entrepreneurship, a familiar way that product developers start up their company is by answering the simple question “What problem in society can I fix?”. For Michael Belkin, that problem was a lack of a social network for the LGBT community, and thus Distinc.tt was born.

According to Michael, interactions in the LGBT community was a problem. The LGBT apps previously created were thought of as a “hook-up” and he wanted to approach social network at a completely different angle. Distinc.tt is not a hook-up app, instead it is a way for the LGBT community to connect and interact with other people. There is a social issue in the LGBT community. It is hard to find other people who are LGBT and this app makes it easier. His idea goal was to make it easier to find others. He provided the following scenario to show how his app would work:

“A gay man walks into a bar and checks based on his location which other LGBT members are in the area based on his app. Based on the profile information, he can approach the person and connect with them”.

However, the interesting part of dinner with Michael Belkin was that, his whole company changed based on a few articles which twisted his words during his app test. When the app was first launched to Apple, the age was restricted to 18 and over. He wanted to make sure that the consumer would not envision their product as a inappropriate application and wanted to steer away as far from the basic “tinder, hookup” application. So he proposed to lower the age down to twelve and stated that just because the description had LGBT in it, does not make it unsuitable for teenagers.

This app was the first LGBT app to be approved for all ages, and thus, headlines spun and called this company, “the LGBT app for 12 year olds”. There are countless articles criticizing Apple for allowing this app to be for children. Although this fame is not what they wanted, it spun their controversial app in the right direction.

Their main consumers are now teenagers who help each other come out in the LGBT community. It is hard for teenagers to decide when and how to come out to their friends and family, especially in a society that can be unsupportive. The company exploded and built world class technology that connected the gay community. It even has gained the support and raised over one million dollars from Peter Thiel, and other investors. Not only has this app solved a social problem, but it has also connected teenagers and help them know that they are all alone.

Last Thursday, I and a few other Rose scholars ate dinner and had a conversation with Michael Belkin, who is an entrepreneur and who created the app Distinc.tt. Distinc.tt is an app for people from the LGBT community of all ages, although it is by far mostly younger people who use it. I really think that it is a valuable tool, because it can be much harder for especially teenagers in the LGBT community to get in contact with each other and to form a platform of support. Many young people who have just come out do not even know other people in the LGBT community and obviously, finding one’s place in that community can be a great support. It did not start out as a platform for teenagers to meet though. A newspaper chose to highlight the fact that younger people were allowed on the app and that message really took off and all of a sudden the business plan that the company had spent a lot of time creating had to be changed, as the nature of the app was forever changed due to the press it received.

Michael told us that he started planning out his company while he was an undergraduate at Cornell. When asked about how he managed to balance schoolwork with building a company, he said that while it was hard, it was definitely worth it as he would have been a year or even two behind had he started after college. I found his persistence admirable, when he realized that this is what he wanted to do, he immediately enrolled in computer science classes at Harvard and began to build the app himself, even though he had no previous knowledge of app building. When asked if there is something he would do differently, he explained that it would have been easier if he had had a business partner from the beginning. That way someone else would have invested as much energy and time as he had and he would not have been not alone in striving to make things work.

I learned multiple things from this dinner and perhaps the most important is that you have to be flexible when you are creating a business. It might not turn out at all as you expected, but you can adapt to that and make some changes and reach something even better than you thought of.

He was in the room at Harvard University when Elon Musk was pitching his idea on SpaceX. The room was filled with doubt. This man wasn’t a good speaker, didn’t have a well planned pitch, and needed billions of dollars to launch a multi million dollar rocket into Space. They thought he was crazy. 

Big new ideas might be so far out that people may have trouble understanding them or they might be technologically impossible at the time, but the only way that ideas can be big or new is if they are far out.

Startups. Entrepreneurship. The big idea. The next big thing. These are all phrases, or better yet, terms, that hover in the clouds of our ambition in this American Society. We would all want to be our own boss and change the world with one simple idea. However, most of us just dream that a big idea will just fall down upon us one day from that cloud of ambition and change our life forever.

Meeting with Micheal Belkin reaffirmed to us that that is not so. Ideas are dynamic, changing with the times, the environment, and the slightest difference in society. Ideas morph into something great. They don’t have to start off perfect. Belkin explained that a lot of his company is as it is today due to decisions and mistakes that seemed trivial at the time, but ended up completely changing his companies path.

Meeting with Micheal Belkin also reaffirmed the importance of being bold and confident in your ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem. I’m hesitant to bring up the hackneyed college applicant advice, but our conversations reminded me of the phrase “Be yourself”. You want to work on building a company that you would readily invest your body and soul to, and if it isn’t something you believe in, it will be a lot harder for you to build it up to greatness.

As an engineer, hearing about the path of an entrepreneur was intriguing, exciting, and motivating. At heart, I am a designer and an artist. And I want to couple this with my skills in engineering to create things that solve worldly issues. It was exciting hearing Belkin talk about his road to founding a company and his experiences building it from the ground up. It made entrepreneurship more palpable.

When I first sat down for dinner, all I knew about Michael Belkin was that he worked in Silicon Valley and was an activist for the LGBTQ community. Although I did not feel compelled to begin a start-up, I thought that as a computer science major and an ally, I thought I was obligated to attend this dinner talk.

From this dinner talk, what struck me the most was how business plans change overtime. At first, his app was targeted towards people in their early 20’s but after a course of events with Huffington Post publicizing the app as the first LGBTQ app 12 year old people can use. As a result, soon after, 12-17 year old people began to use the app. Thus, in an unplanned series of events, the app became targeted towards people in their mid-teens.

Another thing I took away from the dinner talk was the insight into dating in the LGBTQ community. As an ally, I enjoy learning and hearing about the experiences of other people (especially those that are much different than mine). Thus, when I heard about the difficult situations that teens posted about, I reflected on my own life. I never had to think about “coming out” to others or worry that someone I like would not interested in my people of my gender. I am glad that Michael Belkin made this app so that teens could gain support from others online.

Although at the end of the talk, I knew I still did not want to begin a start-up company, but overall, I did appreciate the dinner talk.

The Rose residents had a unique opportunity to meet the Rose House Guest-in-Residence Michael Belkin, who is the CEO and Founder of Distinc.tt, a social-lifestyle network for the LGBT community. Going into the dinner I was relatively unaware of the challenging situation for gay people when it comes to meeting and connecting with their peers. However, after the dinner conversation I am more aware and understand the issues related to the LGBT community. Also, I gained insights regarding business from Mr. Belkin’s experiences as a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur.
When the first version of Distinc.tt was getting developed by Mr. Belkin during his Harvard Business School years, he explained that his original vision was quite different from the product they have currently. When he first developed the application, it was directed towards people in the 20s like himself who want to meet others who are also gay, in a similar fashion to Facebook. But because it is the first LGBT+ social network for people of all ages, many teenagers who were previously unable to join other LGBT+ social networks started to join instantly. Teenagers found Distinc.tt much welcoming and felt safer expressing their concerns such as, ‘how do I tell my parents?’ and ‘what do I do if I am interested in this person but he/she is straight?’ With supportive answers and feedbacks, teens gained courage and a feeling of belonging.
I was surprised to find out that business rarely ends up with what you start with. Mr. Belkin stressed the importance of being ready to adapt and change business plans according to the environment. When starting an entrepreneurship, finding someone who you can respect as your business partner plays a significant role in the process as well. Running an entrepreneurship sounds like a demanding but worthwhile experience for anyone who is passionate about a cause.
Especially in a technologically developed world, it is important for young adults to connect to peers and be included in their community. I am glad to know that people like Mr. Belkin is striving to create a comfortable place for gay teens to share their thoughts and feelings.

When one aims to create a business, there is generally a base, an idea– something unique that differs itself in the market somehow. For some, that is going into a market and keeping prices lower than the competition. For others, that is going into a brand new market and searching for consumers.

Something I found magnificent about Distinc.tt, Michael Belkin’s business and social networking app, is that it started as an idea for something in a completely different market, appealing to LGBTQ adults; but after lobbying to make his app appropriate for ages 12+ because of the basic mission of the finalized app, a brand new market opened.

Amazingly, due to both Michael’s genuine creativity and openness to change, the app became a networking app for LGBTQ people just opening up to the community. In my opinion, Michael’s business has more gravitas than an “app”. The app provided a medium for those coming out to have a collective that they can share issues that have tangibility to the LGBTQ community. People realized that they aren’t alone, there are others with similar issues.

So all in all, super app, super dude. I can only imagine how many people the app has reached and helped.

Last Thursday I attended the Dinner Conversation with Michael Belkin and was struck by the challenges app developers face.  Years of work can go into creating the perfect app and launching it, but unlike other new products which are patented, software is different.  As soon as an app comes out, others can replicate it and sell it at a cheaper price.  It is possible to patent a specific algorithm, but there are many ways in computer science to solve the same problem, so even if another developer is not using the patented algorithm, they can still create a very similar product.  Plus, anyone who knows how to code can figure out how to create an app, so new ones are coming out everyday.

Even though this creates a difficult atmosphere for developers with new ideas like Michael Belkin, it enables people to build off others ideas and make improvements to apps that wouldn’t have been possible if there were strict patents.  Without this environment, we would have nowhere near the wide selection of apps we have to choose from today.

Mr. Belkin also mentioned that although his app, a social networking app for the LGBT community, was intended for adults, the people using the app are primarily teenagers.  His team had been planning a launch for the app, but the day before it was supposed to occur, a reporter asked if Mr. Belkin would talk about why his app was rated age 12+ (Apple initially rated it 17+ but Michael Belkin’s team petitioned it).  Although Mr. Belkin’s reasoning was that he didn’t want his app to be exclusive, but rather open to all, the article that was published made it seem like the intended user group was teenagers.  Teenagers began purchasing the app, to Mr. Belkin’s surprise, and he was forced to adapt.  He advised us that as an entrepreneur, you must be willing to change your ideas and strategies because it is impossible to know exactly how the public will react to your product.

On Thursday, I attended a dinner conversation which featured the Rose House guest, Michael Belkin, a Cornell alumnus who eventually pursued a career in entrepreneurship and created his own startup, a social media app for LGBT youth Distinc.tt. Many of us asked about his personal experiences, the progression of the app from a simple idea to what it is today, and advice for us if we chose to pursue entrepreneurship. Everyone is obsessed with the concept of having a singular million dollar idea that becomes a huge success. However, we were surprised to hear that a lot of success that Michael had was due to fortunate accidents, and the final product ended up being completely different than the original idea. His initial idea was to create a social media app for the LGBT community that can be used to identify others in the community and that wasn’t made for the purpose of necessarily dating or hooking up. After the app was completed and approved by the Apple Store, Michael was surprised to see that the app had a 17+ rating just because it was LGBT related even though there was nothing explicit with the content. He fought to get the rating changed to 12+ and then there was a flurry of media sensationalism in which Distinc.tt was the first app with a rating approved for teenagers. Thus, Michael and his team discovered that there was a hidden demographic that the app could be marketed to, which was the LGBT youth, who don’t have the means to meet and connect with other LGBT youth. He didn’t start off with the intention of making a social media app for LGBT youth, but they took advantage of the situation and the app evolved over time. This was something Michael really emphasized, as we can’t predict how something will end up as hard as we try, we can only hope the product evolves as we grow. 

Michael also gave other valuable pieces of advice when thinking about creating a startup. For example, I didn’t know about the potential of smoke tests, in which you could build and test certain features of an app and see if those features would be successful rather than build the entire app and waste time backtracking if certain parts fail. For the first few years, focus on consumer growth rather than monetization, or else the app quality would suffer. Other entrepreneurs are often the most valuable resources. Most importantly, since app development is becoming more commonplace and competitive, apps need to become a part of your larger vision. How do you see the world differently and how do you think your perspective can help the world? 

I absolutely adored this dinner conversation. Although I am not currently interested in going to create a startup, it was great to hear all these facets of experience that could be applicable to every problem solving situation. I was also just really interested in his app idea, and I hope that usage of his app would be more widespread in the near future!     

Last evening, I had the opportunity to dine with Michael Belkin, a Cornell ’08 alumnus who is the founder and CEO of Distinc.tt, a social network for the LGBT community. I enjoyed hearing him share his experiences and learned not only about his work, but also about the skills and qualities necessary to become a successful entrepreneur.

Michael’s discussion of the LGBT community made me more aware of the unique matters they face. Because LGBT people can feel like an “invisible minority”, they have a more difficult time finding each other in a crowd. Our society has become more accepting of the community, making dating apps for LGBTs more useful than ever. Michael’s app, Distinc.tt, connects LGBT members and has a GPS system that provides information on where the recipients of one’s messages are located. It is the first LGBT app for young users ages 12 and up. I found Distinc.tt to be truly distinct because it is one of few dating apps that brings users together based on hobbies and commonalities, rather than emphasize the hook-up culture that apps such as Tinder and Grindr denote.

Michael also shared his wisdom on entrepreneurial success. One point that deeply resonated with me was his stress on being open to new subjects. Although he had majored in AEM at Cornell and later went to Harvard Business School, at Harvard he took programming classes that propelled him towards the designing of his app. Because he was interested in programming, he took CS classes that gave him valuable technical skills that jumpstarted his entrepreneurship. Moreover, he emphasized the importance of having a good business partner, particularly one who complements your strengths. I also found his comment about networking interesting; he said that his valuable contacts are not necessarily ones whom he met in business school, but those in his everyday life and his fellow entrepreneurs.

Overall, I found Michael’s talk to be extremely insightful. He showed me that with enough drive and willingness to learn, one can accomplish anything. To be a successful entrepreneur, one must know a wide range of skills. However, with the correct motivation, anything can be done.

Michael Belkin had a lot of sage advice for the aspiring entrepreneurs who came to his Rose dinner conversation. As a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has received funding from renowned investors such as Peter Thiel, Mr. Belkin had an interesting story and perspective to share.

As he told us about the evolution of his own company, Distinc.tt, which is now a LGBT social networking site, Mr. Belkin stressed the importance of being able to adapt one’s company and business plan. His own company went through many iterations (it was previously modeled more like Tinder) before arriving at one that became successful. He emphasized that finding what works requires trial and error to determine what customers are willing to pay for and to find markets in which the company can excel. He also stressed that pivots should be seen as exciting new opportunities as opposed to recognition that the prior product/strategy was a failure. Often entrepreneurs obsess over what went wrong or feel personally offended that the initial product was not well-received.

Mr. Belkin also told us how he started out as a single founder of his company but in retrospect wishes he had had a business partner from the very beginning. He explained that it is important to have someone who is invested in the idea and the company as much as you are and to endure the difficulties of starting a business together.

In response to students’ questions about who to have as a business partner, Mr. Belkin suggested choosing a good friend who you know you get along with. After all, you will be spending all day, every day with that person. You need to respect them and believe that they are smarter than you are. Otherwise, you will always need to get your way in disagreements and won’t be able to gain from their ideas. One insightful comment Mr. Belkin made was to contrast a business partner from a romantic significant other. When business partners fight, they must hash it out and come to a conclusion. There is no “agreeing to disagree” or ignoring the issue. Decisions need to be made and one of the partners must necessarily win out over the other. In this regard, working with a business partner is more difficult than any other relation

Finally, Mr. Belkin spoke about the importance of having at least basic technical skills. Although he was an AEM major at Cornell, he took programming courses while in business school because he realized that they are a fundamental part of being a successful tech founder, especially in Silicon Valley.

Today Rose House hosted a dinner conversation with the entrepreneur and Cornell alumni Michael Belkin, who came to speak to us about his career and his successes in business. Although the majority of the questions and discussion had to do with topics such as start-ups, business school, and app developments, Michael made a few points that I think are very wise and applicable to everyone, regardless of major or intended career path.

1. An insight that is particularly useful to us, as students: classes are more interesting if we take the material we are learning and try to see it through the lens of how we can apply it to the real world. In elementary, middle, and high school I recall asking my teachers (or listening as other students would ask) “When are we ever going to need knowledge of X or Y?” I feel like that question still resonates with students at the university level, and if we endeavor to make the connections between the classroom and the world, our academic pursuits can take on a whole new meaning and significance.

2. It is rare to start with an idea and end with the same one. Michael discussed how he had to adapt his vision, keep what worked, discard what didn’t, and be open to making changes as he developed his app. Having an open mind seems to be essential in all situations in general – our environment is constantly shifting, and to keep up and thrive we must be willing to make adjustments along the way.

3. Examine your assumptions closely. Bringing a concept to life successfully involves making many assumptions about the behavior of others. As shown by the lengthy list of assumptions that must be satisfied for Michael’s original concept to have been successful (i.e. members of the LGBTQ community will check in to a location upon arrival, app users will feel comfortable enough talking to other app users etc…), there are a lot of hypothesis that we must make about human behavior. Perhaps if we were more aware of the assumptions that we make in our daily encounters, we would increase our percentage of successful ones.

As a final thought, Michael mentioned that a “mistake” led to a new market for his app and greatly contributed to its success. I believe that this demonstrates (in addition to being an example of point 2, above) that hard work and good decision making will lead to success, even if it is in an unforeseen direction.

Just about 10 minutes ago, I was in the same room as Michael Belkin, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and an iOS developer, who built a successful LGBT social-lifestyle network from scratch. He attended Cornell and then went on to Harvard Business School, where he evolved his initial idea as single founder. As time went on the app few,  more people got involved and soon enough Distinc.tt got its big break.

Throughout the discussion of the logistics of how Michael got his startup from the ground, he opened my eyes on a lot of things. One of which was how much more difficult it is for individuals in the LGBT community to socialize with each other without running into awkward and uncomfortable situations, or how much harder it is for young teenagers to come out of the closet when he or she might be the only gay person in the local community. Belkin wanted to solve this problem by creating a platform to make it easier for these people to meet others like themselves and get a sense of what the community is all about. He combined his passion of business and LGBT community, and built his life around it.

When discussing app development and startups, he also gave insightful advice and revealed difficulties that this type of business entails. He mentioned that app development is all about fundraising, since a lot of the times startups spent a lot of time perfecting their ideas and don’t have a lot of funding to sustain their development throughout this period. He also highlighted the industry of software development and its fast pace advancement that is often hard to keep up with. After all apps are easy to make, but it’s hard to stay ahead and come up with an idea that will take the world over by a storm.

“Gay people rely on technology to meet and interact in the real world, but everything out there seemed sub-par. I thought it was time for someone to build world class technology that connects the gay community.” -Michael Belkin

Micheal was our guest speaker at today’s Rose Scholars dinner conversation. He created the app called “Distinc.tt”, which is described as “the first app that brings together everyone in the LGBT+ community in a clean, social, and fun way.”

Michael, a Cornell undergraduate from ’08, went on to Harvard Business School and later came up with an idea to create an app for the LGBT+ community that wasn’t only about hooking up and more about creating a place online where the community could interact more easily. He mentioned how it can be difficult posting something on Facebook about what an LGBT+ community member is thinking and how it’s nice having a place where you know everyone will be more understanding of your issues and where you know people can relate and empathize more easily.

It was cool hearing how he picked up coding in business school for his app. He took a course because he knew he would have to take initiative to learn more about the technical aspect of his business, which is one of the most important ones. And ever since, he has become more proficient in computer science and much more involved in doing the coding for his app.