You’ve probably heard music that was recorded at <a href="http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com/studio/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Studio G Brooklyn</a>, the legendary sound laboratory tucked into the border of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. Clients of the space have included Aaron Neville, Bonobo, Ani DiFranco, Tom Waits, Talib Kweli, Sesame Street, <a href="http://boseartofsound.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Spotify</a>, and many more. Our podcast guest <a href="http://www.studiogbrooklyn.com/studio/about/staff/joel-hamilton/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joel Hamilton</a>, an acclaimed producer and engineer who owns and operates the place along with Tony Maimone and Chris Cubeta, told us how the sophisticated studio was built from scratch over the last two decades.
Studio G was hip from the start, before Williamsburg or Greenpoint were what they are today. The founders had the good fortune, Hamilton acknowledges, of getting started in the right place at the right time. “For me to comment on the studio business is for me to comment on a very personalized trajectory that operated within a very, sort of, DIY scene,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and then expanded when the DIY scene ultimately bubbles up from the underground and becomes ‘cool.’”
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It wasn’t blooming from the beginning, though. Hamilton recalled the Brooklyn nobody knew, as it went from the destination to which &#8220;you had to argue with the taxi driver to go over the Williamsburg Bridge” to the place “where everyone wanted to be.” The early days were largely about finding artists willing to make the trek. “That’s a part of the story: convincing people to come to Brooklyn. It’s not like it was the middle of nowhere, it was actually scary to some people. It was worse than nowhere.” 
Their location, along with being the new kids in the business, meant that a large source of early clientele were Hamilton’s own friends. “When you’re in a band, it’s usually your friends’ bands are the bands that are coming in to record with you, so that’s a double-edged sword,&#8221; Hamilton said. &#8220;You have access to more people who need recordings and less people who are going to pay you. You just keep the overhead low.”
 Slowly but surely, Studio G built a stronger resume and Brooklyn started to shift. “There was this groundswell of relevant artists that were living in the cheaper neighborhoods out here because the East Village got expensive. Our business model kept evolving to support that new breed of kid that was starting bands in Williamsburg. We just happened to speak the same language. We came from the same set of influences and had enough gear that we could get the job done for them.”  
The studio’s infrastructure grew almost as a direct reflection of the community surrounding it. “I had really broken stuff and that was serving a community that could only afford the kind of broken stuff, and therefore they were more patient with me having to kind of make it work,” Hamilton recalled. “And then we moved to the next level because that process and those bands’ patience got me to the next level,” he said.
Soon, artists with higher budgets started coming in. “They were a little less patient with my broken shit but they had a little more money to spend. And so I would take a percentage of that budget and put it into the next vocal microphone or mic pre[amp] or piece of equipment that sort of pushed me to the next level on the infrastructure side.”
Even as the business has scaled up, the ethic has been the same: make the most of the resources you have. “For me the game has always been: If you have $500 available to make a record, make it sound like $1,000. If f you have $1,000 make it sound like $5,000. And that applies even now. If you’re doing a record with a $100,000 budget, you have to make it sound like it had a million-dollar budget.” 
The philosophy seems to have worked. Hamilton has been nominated for seven Grammy awards.—By Kora Feder

<description>The music producer built a first-class sound studio from a gritty starting place</description>

The music producer built a first-class sound studio from a gritty starting place

Joel Hamilton, co-owner, Studio G Brooklyn

Morris Levy grew up in the fashion industry, but after 15 years in the business he decided real estate held more of his interest. Now he runs <a href="https://theyard.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Yard</a>, the co-working company that started in Brooklyn and now has 14 locations in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. We sat down with him to learn more about his successful and transformation-filled career. 
&#8220;My family is in the fashion business, manufacturing clothing,” he told us of his early work. He joined the family business right after high school, working primarily in the manufacturing of women’s and children’s garments. “I was traveling overseas for the first four years, spending most of my time in China and building product lines, which gave me a great foundation to take something and make it better,&#8221; he said in our podcast.
That knack for improvement led Levy to wonder about other careers where his transformative spirit could be utilized. “I started going to school at night to learn a little bit more about real estate because I just had an interest. When you&#8217;re manufacturing something and you&#8217;re improving something, essentially you&#8217;re just adding value. So adding value to a property and to a building is not that much different if you can see what something&#8217;s potential is.”
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Levy took on leading roles in real-estate development after that, but in 2011 he got together with company co-founder Richard Beyda to focus on a new idea: a shared space that focused on entrepreneurship and day jobs instead of residential development. Although it still involved improving spaces, this was the next big shift in Levy’s career. 
The two founders realized there were almost no options for flexible workspaces that didn’t require expensive, long term leases. “It&#8217;s about commitment. People don&#8217;t want to be locked in,” Levy said. “We had a lot of large spaces and they were always hard to move. But when I cut them up into smaller spaces, they went very quickly. And I had to also be flexible, instead of taking a 10- year deal, I&#8217;d take a three-year deal.”
<div id="attachment_1357" style="width: 810px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1357" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-1357" src="https://thebridgebk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The-Yard_Williamsburg_coworking_private_office_workspace_lounge_-37-e1504723866122.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="533" />Original artwork is an important part of The Yard&#8217;s identity and vibe (Photo courtesy of The Yard)</div>
The first location of The Yard was a transformed warehouse on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, which became a destination for entrepreneurs to collaborate, share their experiences, and foster new ideas. Original members of The Yard included companies like Uber, Blue Apron, Wanderfly, and the writing team behind Birdman, the Academy Award-winning film.
While The Yard was a pioneer in the emerging co-working industry, plenty of competition rose up at around the same time, including WeWork and Brooklyn-based <a href="https://www.industriousoffice.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Industrious</a>. How does The Yard <a href="https://thebridgebk.com/how-the-yard-thrives-as-a-coworking-space-for-grownups/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">differentiate itself</a>? &#8220;There are a lot of competitors that are larger than us. Every Yard member has heard of some of those competitors, yet they choose to be with us,&#8221; Levy said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not only about price, because we&#8217;re not the cheapest option out there. People stay with us for the service, for our team, for the support we offer.&#8221; At some point in the company&#8217;s evolution, Levy said he realized that he&#8217;s really in the hospitality business, more so than real estate.
While the Brooklyn native remains firmly rooted in the borough—he lives in Midwood with his family—his company has ambitious expansion plans. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s time to go to the West Coast,&#8221; said Levy, who has been scouting locations in San Francisco. &#8220;We have so many members that are traveling coast to coast, and they ask us, &#8216;When are you opening?'&#8221;—By Kora Feder

<description>The co-working trailblazer believes hospitality is the heart of the business</description>

The co-working trailblazer believes hospitality is the heart of the business

Morris Levy, co-founder and CEO, The Yard

“I came to New York to study acting,” says <a href="https://www.brooklandcapital.com/team/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Boaz Gilad</a>, but he wound up distinguishing himself in quite another field. He&#8217;s currently Brooklyn&#8217;s <a href="https://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/can-brooklyns-most-prolific-developer-keep-up-with-the-ever-changing-borough/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">most prolific</a> real-estate developer, as measured by the number of projects underway (three dozen at the moment). 
“One thing led to the other and I thought to myself, while I’m pursuing my passion, which was acting, I want to make a little bit of money and not wait tables between shows,” Gilad told us in our podcast.
 He and his wife decided to start buying “a two-family every three, four years.” They ended up purchasing more than one every few years, and soon had a small empire and a new passion. “I’m not coming from a wealthy background at all, but I spent a lot of time learning the market. I knew nothing about it, absolutely nothing about real estate, business, marketing. And one of the benefits was that you could get high-leverage mortgages then.”
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Gilad got started in the business more than 15 years ago and in 2012 founded Brookland Capital, a real-estate investment and development company. Brookland targets land and neglected buildings <a href="https://thebridgebk.com/brooklyns-raging-real-estate-boom-hits-calm-patch/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in undervalued areas</a> and develops modern living spaces. 
“I don’t buy buildings with tenants,” he says. “I have a hard time with what’s called ‘repositioning’–or there are other words that are not as nice. I look always for empty spaces. I don’t want to deal with eviction.”
 His company has acquired more than 100 properties and brought more than 2,000 units to the market.  Gilad is also the co-author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Real-Estate-Millionaire-Markets-Fortune/dp/0071465774" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Real Estate Millionaire</a>: How to Invest in Rental Markets and Make a Fortune, and an adjunct professor in the MBA program at New York University. 
“I grew up in Israel but I’ve been living in Brooklyn for 22 years,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I didn’t have the money to pay the rent in Manhattan, so when my girlfriend, now my wife, moved to Brooklyn, the only reason was we couldn’t afford the rent. We decided to move in together and we said, &#8216;Let’s live just across the river, live our lives in Manhattan and come sleep in Brooklyn.” 
Access to Manhattan is still important for the sites he chooses as a developer, but priorities in the borough have shifted, and Gilad has followed them. “We buy by subways. We don’t like to be 10 to 15 stops away from Manhattan. And I’ll follow any trend. I’m kind of a millennial developer. So if you’re a hipster, I’m going to follow you.&#8221;
&#8220;Every place I can see a cool coffee shop or the potential of a great coffee shop and people on bicycles, that’s where I’m interested in looking at properties,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So right now we’re in Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights.”
While betting on Brooklyn seems obvious now, Gilad said the road to success was a bumpy one. “I probably made every mistake in the book. I was very lucky because most of my mistakes were made in a market that was going up,” he recalls of his early days in the industry.
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Finding collaborators who could fill in the gaps in his own skills was one of the solutions. “I needed some help on the maintenance,” for example, “so I got a person who used to be a personal trainer I worked with a few times, and he was also a plumber on the side, so he helped me.”  
He used a similar technique for finding tenants, looking to the people he knew. “Real estate isn’t about location, it’s about people. So you have to be very clear about who you’re serving. When I was 28-29, I served the clients that I was involved with. So I was an actor, I was young, in my 20s. It was a natural progression to serve that clientele. I put ads in Backstage, a newspaper for actors. I put ads in the Equity Building for actors, trying to find people who could communicate with me.”
While Gilad&#8217;s Brooklyn clientele has evolved, they&#8217;re still not your average American home-seekers. “I think one of the benefits is that the kind of people who rent or buy from us appreciate history, appreciate creativity, design.”  Brookland has developed about six old, abandoned churches, for example. “You’re looking for something interesting,” he said. “I want to be creative. I want to enjoy what I’m doing.”–By Kora Feder

<description>The pioneering real-estate developer has produced more than 2,000 apartments</description>

The pioneering real-estate developer has produced more than 2,000 apartments

Boaz Gilad, founder and CEO, Brookland Capital

“If you think about every headphone you’ve ever tried, the assumption is that you have perfect hearing across all frequency ranges, your hearing is completely symmetrical, and it miraculously never changes,” says this week’s podcast guest, Danny Aronson. “I found that to be untrue,” he says, which was the germ of his business idea. Aronson is the co-founder of <a href="https://www.weareeven.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Even</a>, a Brooklyn-based headphone manufacturing company that <a href="https://thebridgebk.com/why-these-new-headphones-glasses-for-your-ears/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">aims to individualize sound</a>. Based on a 90-sec., self-administered hearing test that checks a user&#8217;s sensitivity to various frequencies in each ear, Even&#8217;s headphones are tuned to personalized settings.
Aronson is a classically trained composer with a degree in music from Tel Aviv University. He plays flute, piano and guitar, and has written and produced music for theater and ballet. Before starting Even in 2013, he spent two decades as a partner at Israel’s largest post-production sound studio, working on thousands of radio spots, TV ads, and feature films. “A headphone is a tool of work for me,&#8221; he says, &#8220;and I’ve tried just about everything out there on the market.&#8221;
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The company started with a call from a friend looking for advice. “Ofer, my cofounder, gave me a call when I was still in Israel and said, ‘I’m going to Best Buy to buy a pair of headphones, what should I buy?’ And I said, &#8216;It doesn’t really matter because they’re basically all the same. It’s a lot of over-hyped, over-priced stuff. I don’t understand why headphones aren’t like glasses.’ It’s still the tagline. We spent a lot of time with music-mastering engineers and audiologists to build this test. And once we did that and tried it for ourselves, we really felt this was a good enough idea to pursue and really dive into.” 
The concept caught on quickly, with the company’s first batch of earbuds, priced at $99, selling out within 48 hours. Then came headphones, currently the models H2 and H3 (both priced at $149), which were named by Popular Science in 2017 among the <a href="https://www.popsci.com/top-entertainment-innovations-2017#page-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">top tech innovations</a> of the year. While Even is run from New York City, the headphones are made in Shenzhen, China. “We have our own dedicated space there and manufacture everything ourselves in China,&#8221; he says. &#8220;We do lean manufacturing, which means we don’t do 50,000 headphones at a time. We do 5,000 at a time. We don’t have a lot of inventory to manage.”  
Here in Brooklyn, Aronson has somewhat unusual hiring criteria–he looks for musicians in prospective employees. “I started out as a musician. I started playing flute when I was very young and I just drowned into it. I just completely lost interest in everything else and spent many, many hours a day practicing,” he recalls. “This combination of very intense physical work and creativity I found very appealing. That’s why we love to work with musicians. Eighty percent of the people who work at Even are musicians because it’s exactly that combination of people who have self-discipline–because you have to have that if you’re a professional musician–but with creativity.” 
Finding a musician in search of a day job can’t be too hard in this city, but that’s not why Aronson moved here. New York was somewhat of a compromise–Aronson was based in Israel while his cofounder was in San Francisco. “It was clear to me that Brooklyn was the place. It’s the New York of New York.” He had a prior relationship with the city as well.  “My wife’s family is from New York, not from Brooklyn but from Yonkers. It was a lifelong dream of mine to move here and Brooklyn just felt like home immediately. It amazes me how quickly we–I came here with my three kids–how quickly we felt at home and were embraced by the neighborhood we’re in.”–By Kora Feder

<description>Based on a unique hearing test, his products provide 'glasses for your ears'</description>

Based on a unique hearing test, his products provide 'glasses for your ears'

Danny Aronson, CEO and co-founder, Even headphones

For a human driver, Google maps may be good enough to find one&#8217;s way around. But for a self-driving car, officially known as an autonomous vehicle (AV), a lot more information is needed to safely navigate a complicated place like New York City. Brooklyn-based startup <a href="https://www.carmera.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carmera</a> aims to solve that problem with its &#8220;street-intelligence platform,&#8221; a high-definition mapping service for AVs of the not-so-distant future.
Robo-cars are always asking themselves three basic questions, Carmera CEO and co-founder Ro Gupta told us in our podcast. One is, &#8220;Where am I, exactly?&#8221; Another, essentially, is &#8220;What am I seeing?&#8221; which the AV figures out by redundantly cross-checking its sensors. The third is, &#8220;Where do I go next?,&#8221; the planning function, Gupta explained.
Carmera not only provides HD maps to help answer those questions, but continuously updates the data to account for changing conditions. After a couple of years in stealth mode, Carmera publicly launched last year with $6.4 million in funding from investors who included Brooklynites <a href="https://thebridgebk.com/bre-pettis-has-left-his-mark-on-downtown-brooklyn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bre Pettis</a>, co-founder of MakerBot, and <a href="https://thebridgebk.com/hey-startups-this-brooklyn-fund-has-27-million-invest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Notation Capital</a>.
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Why did Carmera decide set up shop in New York City? “One of the things that’s hardest about what we do is keeping the maps up to date,&#8221; said Gupta, &#8220;but the other thing that’s really hard about high-definition maps is doing them in dense urban areas as opposed to highways. Highways are much easier to map for autonomous vehicles. But there is so much granularity and chaos in cities. There’s also urban-canyon effects with GPS that cause your maps to be inaccurate. We wanted to prove we could do this in one of the hardest areas in the country.”  
A native of Kolkata, India, Gupta studied civil engineering at Princeton and earned his MBA at Northwestern. Among other roles in business before launching Carmera, Gupta was vice president of business development at Disqus, where he was on the forefront of building massive online-discussion communities. “That was part of what made me want to start a company in the data space. But my background in transportation came from my undergraduate days in Princeton back in the &#8217;90s,” he says. “I was even working on autonomous transit back in 1998-99.”  
 “Another reason that subconsciously influenced me was being born in a developing country in India, and also having spent some time in other developing countries,” he says of his inspiration. “When you’re living in that environment you don’t take infrastructure for granted, especially roads.”
Carmera&#8217;s mission didn&#8217;t come into focus overnight, says Gupta. His first idea was simply a dashboard-mounted camera for cars, to be sold as a consumer product, but he moved past that idea. “The way we approached it was like, &#8216;Let&#8217;s get confidence that the model and problem we have is a big enough problem to pursue.’ So I did my homework, talked to people at Google and some of these driverless-car companies, often off the record. I also did my homework on how to keep these maps up-to-date. I had a few ideas of how I could do that, and started to talk to fleet drivers and managers and got confidence in that.&#8221; 
Carmera now partners with fleets to gather information from sensors mounted on their vehicles. Along the way, Carmera discovered other prospective uses for its information. “The data we collect can be useful for nonautomotive industries like city planning, construction, architecture,&#8221; says Gupta.
The last big step in launching the company was building a team, which meant carefully acquiring talent in &#8220;some of the hardest-to-recruit disciplines like machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and geospatial engineering.” In some of those areas, New York City has talent second to none, he says. “New York is also really good because it’s almost like its own country in terms of GDP and population and things like that, so you can really test things out here and be pretty confident that, &#8216;Yeah, this is a big sample size,'&#8221; he says.
Part of the company&#8217;s Brooklyn attachment, though, is just personal for Gupta and his team (including co-founder Justin Day). “Honestly, a lot of it was because we live here. We have kids and personal lives here. We were both in New York tech for over a decade and our networks were here.&#8221;–By Kora Feder

<description>His startup is creating a "street-intelligence platform" for self-driving vehicles</description>

From Day One: How Brooklyn Entrepreneurs Got Their Start

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