4 ms·

Is This The Greatest VC Pitch Prank Ever Pulled?

25 points by profitbaron 16y ago

wfoster4 16y ago
That's actually almost crazy enough to not be a prank.
- yannickmahe 16y ago
  I know what you mean. I'm appalled at such an idea - but I can't dismiss it as having no market. And the last line of the article seems to indicate some people have the same opinion.
- catch23 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock "During its short run, the Pet Rock made Dahl a millionaire.[3] With the proceeds, he opened the ironically named "Carrie Nation's" bar in downtown Los Gatos, California."
- bmnbug 16y ago
  That said, I have to say I'm not convinced of the business model. However, I think I am going to invest in this founder anyway. If we can connect her with a good technical cofounder I can see great things in the future. As everyone says, invest in the team, not the idea.
dot 16y ago
This is hilarious. I love pranks like this. If you feel particularly snide, dare to check out the comments on youtube from people that think this is real. Main reason this is fake? Someone with lofty ideas about peace and love would have no interest in selling something that belongs to all of us children of mother earth. :)
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  Lovechild does not mean what you think it means. The phrase you seek is "flower child."
  - dot 16y ago
    thanks!
  - citizenkeys 16y ago
    About flowers... Rachel Sequoia tried to sell me what she referred to as "choice nugs" at Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park.
citizenkeys 16y ago
"Spinal Tap" meets "Startup.com"
beck5 16y ago
She has balls i can only dream of.
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  She's probably an actress. Someone has obviously put a lot of thought and effort into this. If she's not an actress and is in fact the mastermind, I apologise, kudos to her. EDIT: Thinking about it, even if she is an actor, kudos to her regardless. I certainly couldn't keep a straight face doing that...
  - SimHacker 16y ago
    If he's an actor, I want to know who does his hair!
bmnbug 16y ago
For all her posturing, does this founder not realize how horrible this will be for the environment? Packaging air in glass jars takes up an enormous amount of space and weight for shipping them around the globe (she hasn't mention how wide the distribution model will be). Though this air is being marketed as a substitute for travel and and opportunity for new sensory experience, I can envision a future where it becomes a commodity product, scaled up, its value cheapened, and sold as a staple rather than a luxury item. The obvious parallel is bottled water—a ubiquitous commodity sold half way around the world—except this has absolutely no utilitarian value and is even more critical to life. I can imagine, when this is a billion dollar business, huge freight ships loading shipping containers of air for the privileged who feel like the air they have polluted is below them; socioeconomic groups will be defined by the very air they breathe: the poor will choke on the smog filled haze, while the rich will breathe their bottled air from the few places where it is still clean.
jwr 16y ago
The fact that there is a question mark after the title tells me a lot about the state of mind we're in.
iloveyouocean 16y ago
I am certain that we are now witnessing the birth of Web 4.0. If there is a bubble, then I am sure 'Share the Air' has already captured it for sale. Brilliant. This is a lot like my idea to buy up meat from endangered animal species and keep it on ice until the species reach extinction. Can you imagine how much I will be able to charge for extinct animal meat?
- tomjen3 16y ago
  Thats actually pretty smart, since you will hasten their demise at the same time you increase your holdings and if cloning extinct animals is ever successful, you will own them all. It is properly illegal, but these days what isn't?
  - ktsmith 16y ago
    This is exactly what Mitsubishi is being accused of doing with bluefin tuna: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/revealed-the-bid-to-corner-worlds-bluefin-tuna-market-1695479.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/revealed-the...
BerislavLopac 16y ago
I'm sure this is a prank, people will share air when the pigs fly! Oh, wait... http://sharetheair.com/ http://sharetheair.com/ ;)
- _exec 16y ago
  "We would like to introduce you to our mascot -- Wendell, The Flying Air Quality Pig. Wendell will appear periodically on this website to help explain some things about air quality. We could have paid for a professional spokesman, but Wendell works pretty cheap, just a few bytes here and there."
TamDenholm 16y ago
It astounds me that people buy bottled water where tap water is perfectly fine to drink so buying air isnt all that far away from that in my opinion.
notahacker 16y ago
Now if she'd focused on the location based app to tag where she'd breathed, and mentioned the selling of bottled air at the very end as an irrelevant little monetisation detail, she'd have got the investment.
pge 16y ago
I'm reminded of the Ali G "Ice Cream Glove" routine, in which he markets an idea to a number of investors (including Donald Trump). It's a great parody of VC pitches, particularly the "market sizing" (I use that term loosely) - "I googled 'ice cream' and I googled 'gloves'..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8-nnvtHvd0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8-nnvtHvd0
- theprodigy 16y ago
  I was definitely going to bring up Ali G's ice cream glove the investor reactions were hilarious. At the end one investor was interested in it.
tgrass 16y ago
Considering ShareTheAir108.com was registered by a member of YC funded Messageparty (Jarod Reyes)... AND Messageparty tweeted that their launch was imminent an hour after Jarod Reyes started pumping the Rachel Sequoia video on tumblr and twitter (without mentioning he was running the ShareTheAir site...) I'm putting my money on this being a brooklyn.makery.org production.
- tgrass 16y ago
  Sorry, Amanda Peyton says no to my theory. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2383677 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2383677

25 points by profitbaron 16y ago

wfoster4 16y ago

That's actually almost crazy enough to not be a prank.

yannickmahe 16y ago
I know what you mean. I'm appalled at such an idea - but I can't dismiss it as having no market. And the last line of the article seems to indicate some people have the same opinion.
catch23 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock "During its short run, the Pet Rock made Dahl a millionaire.[3] With the proceeds, he opened the ironically named "Carrie Nation's" bar in downtown Los Gatos, California."
bmnbug 16y ago
That said, I have to say I'm not convinced of the business model. However, I think I am going to invest in this founder anyway. If we can connect her with a good technical cofounder I can see great things in the future. As everyone says, invest in the team, not the idea.

dot 16y ago

This is hilarious. I love pranks like this. If you feel particularly snide, dare to check out the comments on youtube from people that think this is real. Main reason this is fake? Someone with lofty ideas about peace and love would have no interest in selling something that belongs to all of us children of mother earth. :)

JonnieCache 16y ago
Lovechild does not mean what you think it means. The phrase you seek is "flower child."
- dot 16y ago
  thanks!
- citizenkeys 16y ago
  About flowers... Rachel Sequoia tried to sell me what she referred to as "choice nugs" at Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park.

citizenkeys 16y ago

"Spinal Tap" meets "Startup.com"

beck5 16y ago

She has balls i can only dream of.

JonnieCache 16y ago
She's probably an actress. Someone has obviously put a lot of thought and effort into this. If she's not an actress and is in fact the mastermind, I apologise, kudos to her. EDIT: Thinking about it, even if she is an actor, kudos to her regardless. I certainly couldn't keep a straight face doing that...
- SimHacker 16y ago
  If he's an actor, I want to know who does his hair!

bmnbug 16y ago

For all her posturing, does this founder not realize how horrible this will be for the environment? Packaging air in glass jars takes up an enormous amount of space and weight for shipping them around the globe (she hasn't mention how wide the distribution model will be). Though this air is being marketed as a substitute for travel and and opportunity for new sensory experience, I can envision a future where it becomes a commodity product, scaled up, its value cheapened, and sold as a staple rather than a luxury item. The obvious parallel is bottled water—a ubiquitous commodity sold half way around the world—except this has absolutely no utilitarian value and is even more critical to life. I can imagine, when this is a billion dollar business, huge freight ships loading shipping containers of air for the privileged who feel like the air they have polluted is below them; socioeconomic groups will be defined by the very air they breathe: the poor will choke on the smog filled haze, while the rich will breathe their bottled air from the few places where it is still clean.

jwr 16y ago

The fact that there is a question mark after the title tells me a lot about the state of mind we're in.

iloveyouocean 16y ago

I am certain that we are now witnessing the birth of Web 4.0. If there is a bubble, then I am sure 'Share the Air' has already captured it for sale. Brilliant. This is a lot like my idea to buy up meat from endangered animal species and keep it on ice until the species reach extinction. Can you imagine how much I will be able to charge for extinct animal meat?

tomjen3 16y ago
Thats actually pretty smart, since you will hasten their demise at the same time you increase your holdings and if cloning extinct animals is ever successful, you will own them all. It is properly illegal, but these days what isn't?
- ktsmith 16y ago
  This is exactly what Mitsubishi is being accused of doing with bluefin tuna: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/revealed-the-bid-to-corner-worlds-bluefin-tuna-market-1695479.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/revealed-the...

BerislavLopac 16y ago

I'm sure this is a prank, people will share air when the pigs fly! Oh, wait... http://sharetheair.com/ http://sharetheair.com/ ;)

_exec 16y ago
"We would like to introduce you to our mascot -- Wendell, The Flying Air Quality Pig. Wendell will appear periodically on this website to help explain some things about air quality. We could have paid for a professional spokesman, but Wendell works pretty cheap, just a few bytes here and there."

TamDenholm 16y ago

It astounds me that people buy bottled water where tap water is perfectly fine to drink so buying air isnt all that far away from that in my opinion.

notahacker 16y ago

Now if she'd focused on the location based app to tag where she'd breathed, and mentioned the selling of bottled air at the very end as an irrelevant little monetisation detail, she'd have got the investment.

pge 16y ago

I'm reminded of the Ali G "Ice Cream Glove" routine, in which he markets an idea to a number of investors (including Donald Trump). It's a great parody of VC pitches, particularly the "market sizing" (I use that term loosely) - "I googled 'ice cream' and I googled 'gloves'..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8-nnvtHvd0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8-nnvtHvd0

theprodigy 16y ago
I was definitely going to bring up Ali G's ice cream glove the investor reactions were hilarious. At the end one investor was interested in it.

tgrass 16y ago

Considering ShareTheAir108.com was registered by a member of YC funded Messageparty (Jarod Reyes)... AND Messageparty tweeted that their launch was imminent an hour after Jarod Reyes started pumping the Rachel Sequoia video on tumblr and twitter (without mentioning he was running the ShareTheAir site...) I'm putting my money on this being a brooklyn.makery.org production.

tgrass 16y ago
Sorry, Amanda Peyton says no to my theory. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2383677 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2383677