This is my experience as well with Active Interview. We've been around for about a year, and I even personally pitched our working product with paying customers

This is my experience as well with Active Interview. We've been around for about a year, and I even personally pitched our working product with paying customers to PG at SXSW in March. He shot it down immediately. But yet, Hirehive gets front page Techcrunch treatment just a few weeks ago. We're not in the valley and didn't go the YC route either. But in the end while I think there is an initial marketing benefit, it still comes down to how hard you scrap and acquire customers in the long run.