Anya Novik may as well be a super hero. She is the first person we’ve interviewed on Starting Stories that works a full-time day job, as a Senior Systems Analyst at viaPeople Inc. in addition to her entrepreneurial venture, Date Raters. And on top of that, she’s also the mother of a two-year-old! Even though she lives in Princeton, NJ, she agreed to meet up with us in the city for this interview.

Moudy originally met Anya at a Google open house several months ago and was really impressed by her multi-lingual computer programming skills. He was eager to learn how she built an online community with Date Raters, a website for people seeking feedback about their dating abilities. There’s no doubt that Anya can code with the best of them, as evidence by the fact that she made it through several interviews with Google, but what sets her apart from other programmers is her creative drive to call the shots and realize her own projects.

What is Date Raters?

Date Raters is an online community dedicated to helping people date better. So often you will go on a date and then never hear back from the other person. You never know what you did wrong and you’re left in the dark. We wanted to help people figure it out.
These days everything revolves around doing your best research. When we go on vacation, we research hotels. If we go to a restaurant, we go online and check the ratings. When we interview for jobs, we research the company. But, for dating, that kind of information wasn’t available. People take dating very seriously. They’ll pay a lot of money to join a dating site, so why not do a little bit of research to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are?
My partners are psychologists and they’ve developed this questionnaire that asks people to rate their dating partner on four different aspects: physical, intellectual, emotional and social. We don’t want the site to be negative; we actually want to help people. By structuring it this way, we found that people reveal more positive qualities that they noticed in their partner, even if they would describe the date as a disaster.

Where did you grow up? What’s your education background and how did that lead you to where you are?

I’m originally from the Ukraine and immigrated to Canada, where I grew up and went to the University of Toronto. When I started working, I found myself attracted to start-ups. Once you work for start-ups, you begin to think “wouldn’t it be great to make my own decisions and realize my own goals”. My partners, Amanda and Russell, and I all worked for a company that dealt with rating people on a professional level, which made us think of rating people on a social level.
Having a day job and running Date Raters must be really time consuming. How does this start-up affect your family life and your personal life?

I’m lucky enough that my family is very supportive. It stimulates a lot of conversations and we’re always talking about ideas. I was always the person with 100 things going on. Right now, I also have other web development projects going on. It’s time consuming and sometimes you don’t get enough time for your hobbies, but it is very rewarding.

How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

Well, we’re really not a dating site and we don’t promote ourselves as a place where you can go to meet singles. We help people improve dating skills. We welcome all daters from the traditional dating sites and try to get the positive and negative feedback. If you ask a question like, ‘What went wrong?’ you’re naturally going to get an all-negative response. If you ask about a more specific aspect of a person, you will get a more balanced response.
We also have a lot of have a lot of original content. Russell and Amanda write a lot of articles for the site and we’re working on our ‘Playbook’ right now, which will be a wiki forum where people can share and collaborate on dating tips.

Can you talk a little bit about growing a community and the problems you’ve faced building a user base?

I think a lot of the challenge has come from combating people’s tendencies to be negative about dating sites. We’re not ‘Hot or Not’ and we don’t welcome bashing people . We want people to say what they think but, if we feel that it crosses a line, we will monitor the content. We also provide a place for people being rated to respond to a comment if they strongly disagree.

What is the future of Date Raters?

We’re working on a phone application and a little scandalous commercial; which should be interesting!

How is it scandalous?

Oh, you’re going to have to wait and see; sorry guys. We’re also getting more into coaching. We have ‘Love Doctors’ who will look at your feedback and coach you. They’re married; I’m married, so we’ve all been through the whole dating experience. We know what worked and what didn’t work.

What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

You need to stay focused and be dedicated to what you’re doing. At the same time, if something changes and you get more information on something, then you can’t be afraid to shift gears a little bit. You need to be true to yourself and the values you have in place. You also have to believe in your idea. When you start something on your own, you want to see results, which sometimes can take a while. If you don’t love your idea, you may not have the patience to wait for results.

If you weren’t doing what you’re doing now, what would you be doing?

A: That’s a tough one. If I didn’t have to work, I would be painting and traveling. I love traveling and painting is my passion. I also always have other projects on the side. So, if I didn’t have Date Raters, I would be spending more time on them. It’s great to have something of your own. When you’re a web developer, you’re always working with somebody else’s content. They’re running the show. But, as an artist, you get to make all the decisions.

How do you promote Date Raters?

We use a lot of social networking. We have our Facebook followers and we have a twitter account. We also write for a couple of online dating magazines and then we always link back to Date Raters. We have partnerships with other people in the dating industry, like dating coaches and organizations that bring singles together. We also have fliers that we pass out.

What is the most common mistake people make on dates?

Being under confident or over confident. Who are you trying to fool? You’re going on a date to meet a person and learn about who they are and show them who you are. It’s not a job interview; it’s supposed to be fun. Your personality is always going to come out anyway so why not be yourself from the beginning? I think it’s important to find a good balance. Talk about yourself, without revealing too much on the first date. At the same time, listen to your partner. If you relax and enjoy yourself, there’s a good chance the other person will too.

Special thanks to Anya Novik. For more information on Date Raters, please visit their website , Facebook, or Twitter

The conditions are nauseatingly predictable. It’s a miracle I’vnt vomited on my keyboard just thinking about using myself sitting next to Lauren in a car to grab your attention. She is talking on a portable telephone. I am not. There are sprinkles of water falling from the sky. The windshield wipers humwumm across their already mentioned place of residence.

I am not speaking. Fortunately, Lauren is:

“…well, ok, howabout this, we’ll harvest the stomach and if you want it you can have it, otherwise we’ll keep it for ourselves. Howabout…oh ok you want the lungs. And the small intestine….yeah they’re good for…Ok, you want them? Great.”

And the windshield wipers humwumm across their already mentioned place of residence.

It’s not so often these days that one’s ears are partial to such a conversation, though I’ve got to say mine were barely pricked by the subject matter. Perhaps if I were an innocent bystander on the street, I would have double tooken (yeah I know), but after spending a week with a family of abattoirs and butchers, its sort of standard operating procedure.

Head cheese at the dinner table, pig legs above the kitchen sink, sausages in the garage, pigs just beyond the backyard. It’s not just conversation that infuses the Sheard’s life with the beautiful reality that they are carnivores.

Walk through their front door and before you can slap a mongoose with a willow stick your nose will swoon with the sweetsmokysalty aromas of bacon. It lingers and wafts on gentle currents that flow throughout the first floor, the same ones that act on the various fleshy hunks formerly known as swine hanging in the kitchen. Well on their way to donning the titlesprosciutto, pancetta, guanciale, and bacon, they hang like trophies. Placards. Crests, coats of arms. They are truly something to be proud of.

The charcuterie in the kitchen are an indicator of a lifestyle. Of a craft. Of an intense and deep body of knowledge. They are an outward material expression of how Brandon and Lauren live their life, of what they believe. There are two years of charcuterie hanging there, patiently watching every dinner Brandon cooks for his family. Every breakfast whipped up by Lauren. The prosciutto does not complain when Wallace revels with porcine squeals, sticky hands moving with remarkable swiftness, from the honey jar to his mouth.

Beyond the personal implications of the fermenting animal flesh* in the Sheards’ kitchen, they are also business investments. Products. The first fruits in a nascent business endeavor they call Farmstead Meatsmith.

“So what’s that all about?! Neither of those words are actually words! I don’t pay attention to gibberish.” If you are screaming this, which you are, I would have to start from the beginning.

Farmstead, as it turns out, is actually a word. I forgive your contemptuous outburst. A farmstead, according to my nifty dashboard dictionary, is a farm and its buildings. True, but boring. Let’s delve.

Farm, as Brandon and Lauren have expressed, is an increasingly specific descriptor of a farming endeavor that is family owned and managed. It has a deep connection to the land on which it is placed and the cultures and peoples that share roots in the same soil. Farms produce products that people eat or use. A stead is a place or role that someone or something has to fill. Therefore we have farmstead as a rich word combining the complex and webulous (new word. Bing!) implications of a farm and a farmer married with place-based intentions and roles. A farmstead is a locally and culturally rooted agricultural business intended to serve it’s similarly small-scaled immediate community of producers.

Meatsmith. This one certainly doesn’t exist. Excuse me, hasn’t existed before this. Well, meat is pretty straightforward…right? Lets take meat as the flesh of animals that we eat. Commonplace on many plates across this country and unfortunately increasingly around the world, meat is dinner. Meat is sustenance. Meat is life and meat is flesh. Meat comes from animals, and in the case of Brandon and Lauren, meat is a gesture of relation, respect and culture, as opposed to, shall we say other, less intentional manifestations of meat consumption.

Smith, short for blacksmith, is a craftsman. A tradesman. An artist and a community member. A village blacksmith is one who can quite literally forge any necessary piece, part, or tool to cater to anyone’s request. He is a product of years of intricate knowledge passed down, manifested in an exquisitely particular niche. His is a producer as well as an artisan. His products are a result of utter and complete transformation. He takes a virtually unusable material and creates utility. His goods are inseparably a product of utility and artisanship.

Have we sufficiently tenderized the derivation? You didn’t ask for a McGeeian breakdown, but you got it sister. A Meatsmith is a craftsman of flesh. An alchemist. She takes animals and turns them into desirable, useful, beautiful, delicious, and respectful products. Lauren and Brandon Sheard are meatsmiths. They serve farmsteads. Farmstead Meatsmith. Delightful.

Did the fellow who invented the elastic underpants band enjoy instantaneous fortune and international notoriety? The housewife that accidentally dropped a dollop of frosting on top of the muffins cooling under the precariously placed bowl overtop? Regardless of whether or not recognition comes back to the proprietors of ingenious ideas, we see that there are clear and distinct societal needs for certain innovations. I can, and will in just a few words, confidently say that Farmstead Meatsmith is a business vision of magnificent importance and spectacular implication.

There are plenty of drab, systemically informational reasons that Farmstead Meatsmithis well timed, like the disappearance of local slaughterhouses and processing facilities, the pile of policies preventing them, the flight of knowledge of how to properly, intentionally, transform animals into meat, and gabbity gab.

Truly, the most compelling argument, or evidence if you prefer to call it, is that as a result of the scale on which they operate, it is a manifestation of all of the generally non-practiced, yet well vocalized boons of local economics. Though unstated, they are a social enterprise – their financial bottom line is inextricably linked with social and environmental conscientiousness – facets that are inarguably part of a responsible business when dealing with friends and neighbors in a small community.

Beyond the structure of their business, however, there is yet another alarmingly inspiring aspect (businesspeople of a different disposition may choose to insert a different adjective to follow ‘alarmingly.’) Brandon and Lauren have managed to weave in to their model: education.

More often than not, Brandon invites the owner of the animals he will slaughter, butcher or cure to be present and even participate. He will take extra time to instruct the farmer. He will share his knowledge. Reveal his secrets. To anyone that is interested.

I’m no businessman. I can count on my fingers alone the number of times a tie has mingled with my collarbone, but I’m pretty sure that a cornerstone of traditional business practices is to keep your secrets of success well hidden in the vaults labeled ‘Prosperity.’

Brandon acknowledges it, posing the question just as much to me as to himself, whether or not he will eventually work himself out of business. If he is imparting the knowledge on which his trade is based, then will his customers continue to be that? Or will they themselves become endowed with enough knowledge to perform Brandon’s currently specialized task?

Farmstead Meatsmith is an open-source model working within an open-source movement. That which we now casually call the ‘local food movement,’ is one of inclusivity, of community. It is a revival of older agrarian societal structures. We have people returning to trades, developing skill sets unique to their craft. Not so long ago, there were town butchers.

Thus we have an interesting juxtaposition. The majority of businesses do not publish their activity in the way that Farmstead Meatsmith has chosen to. We must keep in mind that the dynamics of a bonbon shop on Vashon Island are quite different than a bonbon shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The question stands, then, whether the Farmstead Meatsmithmodel, which weighs local economies and community structure over the potential squandering of monetary profitability, can be replicable and viable in settings other than small agriculturally oriented communities. In fact, the question still stands, and Brandon and Lauren will be the first to admit, of whether said business model will be viable in small agriculturally oriented communities.

I would argue that localized and replicated businesses like Farmstead Meatsmith are necessary to the survival of the human race. When there is no more deceptively cheap energy to facilitate monsters like ADM spraying cheap animal products around the country, every community is going to need a Farmstead Meatsmith. Were I feeling spicy enough, I could extend that statement to any business venture. There are plenty of folks that have written far more coherently and eloquently on the topic (Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry, and The Transition Movement, to name a very few), and this is me throwing in my high five. Farmstead Meatsmithis the future.

Let’s call this essay an unprofessional, unsolicited shout out from Andrew  to those visionary Doers out there, cultivating skills and turning them into innovative business ventures. The wave is on its way up – we’ve got terms emerging for these folks. Agripreneur. Agtivist (I thought I made this one up until stupid grist already has a series by this name. And its stupid good.). Urban Agtivity. We’re on the up. And let’s call this an urge and plea to make catching snippets of casual discussion of eviscerating an animal nauseating predictable.

For more info on Farmstead Meatsmith, you can visit their fledgling website. They are lovely and would love to talk to you about what they do.

*I’d like to point out that I use such language, some may consider it vulgar, in an explicit attempt to break down the linguistic barriers our society, and the stupid industries which in form it, has placed between our perceptions of meat and animals. They are synonymous. Meat comes from animals, animals are made of meat. I am made of meat. So is your dog. For some reason we have chosen not to serve up myself or Roxy for dinner. Lets own up to our actions and acknowledge where acknowledgement is due.

Hey guys, it’s Carrie here to introduce you to my friend Andrew Plotsky. Andrew writes an incredible blog called In Defense of Feet which chronicles his adventures traveling across the country, visiting and documenting urban agricultural projects and young farmers. A lover of food and a studier of the environment (BA in Environmental Science), Andrew was naturally led to an interest in sustainable agriculture and more specifically the Good Food movement. Alongside his words, Andrew includes his beautiful photography and videos which reveal an intimate connection to his subjects, making clear Andrew’s deep and sincere interest in people.

But why am I telling you all of this? Yes, Andrew’s awesome, but what makes him even more awesome is that he’s agreed to cross-pollinate with Starting Stories (agricultural pun intended) and post some of his stories, photos and videos on our site as well. After all, an entrepreneur with dirty hands and dirt stains is still an entrepreneur. We’re really excited to hear some non-New York based stories of what it means to work for yourself instead of working for someone else.

To give you a taste of Andrew’s genius, here’s a video interview he did with Peter Thomason from Ypsilanti, MI from October 10th. Enjoy!

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