Dear Mum, This is why I moved to New York.

Dear Mum,

Remember when I told you I was moving to New York? Jules and I had just got back from Argentina. We’d barely left the airport carpark and I said, “so, I think I’m moving to New York.”

You went silent. And then you said, “well, I hope you don’t mind, but I don’t like that idea one bit.”

Anyway, here I am almost a year later. I thought I’d write and explain a bit more about what I’ve been doing.

Zach did the same thing a week or so ago but I realised that sending you what he wrote wasn’t going to make sense because you don’t have cable, you don’t know what Hulu is and you barely have enough time to watch The Bill. Hopefully this letter gives you a bit more context.

Here’s how Zach explained it to his Mum and Dad:

My colleagues and I make software in response to a few problems:

1. Cable TV bills are increasingly expensive; People pay for a lot of TV they never watch, making what they do watch disproportionately overpriced.
2. The content we can watch on our TVs doesn’t include most of the things we actually want to watch. I, for example, watch just as much homemade video (stuff made by my friends and people I admire) as I watch Hollywood stuff — and the Hollywood stuff I do watch is usually through Netflix or Hulu.
3. In general, there’s an overwhelming amount of content to choose from and it’s paralyzing to decide what to watch.

That’s what I came to New York to do. To solve those problems. To try and invent a way of using your TV that allowed you to watch what you want, when you want.

Well, a few days ago, the Boxee Box came out.

More than 1000 people lined up in the freezing cold to celebrate the launch with us. It’s kind of unfathomable right? Can you imagine someone lining up for an hour to go to the launch of a piece of technology?

But that’s one of the things that makes Boxee so exciting. It’s the only rockstar product in its class.

And against all the odds, despite Google and Apple throwing everything they had at their own devices, 30 scrappy developers and designers spread across Boxee’s Israel, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Slovakian outposts built something that more than holds its own against the competition.

Remember when Jack was in the school band and his conductor would end every show by saying – “and that’s the worst they’ll ever be.”?

You used to hate it when he did that. But I loved it. I felt like he was saying, “you’re applauding now, but we’ll be even better next time you see us.”

That’s how I feel about Boxee.

And now Boxee’s for sale in 33 countries around the world and normal people with no technical skills can plug theirs in and start to understand just how great their TV can really be.

Here’s why you’d like Boxee.

You know how every Friday night you take the phone off the hook so no one interrupts you while Spooks is on? Well Boxee’s going to make it possible for you to watch Spooks whenever you want. You can pause it when the phone rings. You can watch it on Sunday afternoon if you miss it on Friday night. You can even get greedy and watch three episodes in a row when there’s a storm outside and you’ve got a good block of chocolate sitting in the fridge just asking to be eaten.

I remember telling you that right now, in New York, there’s a group of people kind of like me and they’re defining the future of the internet.

I came here because I wanted to learn from those people. I wanted to know what it was like to do what Avner does and what Zach does and what all the other people here in New York trying to build the digital world do and to see if I was going to be capable of doing the same.

I made the right choice. I’m glad I didn’t settle.

Love,

Nick