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A little too much vitriol and angst for my taste, but it's an important subject. My position is simple: there are lots of folks in the startup ecosystem that a

A little too much vitriol and angst for my taste, but it's an important subject. My position is simple: there are lots of folks in the startup ecosystem that are trying to help me in various ways. Many of them charge money. Good for them. Folks gotta eat. Having said that, from my side (startup founder), the situation is very precarious. As entrepreneurs we are constantly swamped with pitches for various things to make our businesses successful. I know I've spent thousands of dollars on stuff that didn't do what I thought it would do. In fact, I've become quite bitter about all of it. When I think of all the money being spent by folks who are trying to buy success through tools instead of customer interaction? Makes me sad and angry. But I think trying to name and shame is absolutely the wrong way to go about this. Most of these startup ecosystem folks mean well, and most of them have products that are well worth the money -- for folks who need the products. I think the real problem as entrepreneurs is that we are unable to recognize for ourselves whether we need something or not; so we buy too much. If we're too ignorant to know what to spend our money on, can't well blame others for selling us stuff. So the answer here is educating each other, not going on some witch hunt for aggressive spammers (which is a separate problem). Let's continue to meet and share information on startups (which is why I'm here) and these other problems will work themselves out.

jonnathanson 13y ago
"I think trying to name and shame is absolutely the wrong way to go about this. Most of these startup ecosystem folks mean well, and most of them have products that are well worth the money -- for folks who need the products." Completely agree. I'd love to see more stories that leave out the personal drama and, instead, run some analysis. There are a lot of these companies out there, offering similar services. What's the ROI on spending money with them? Which ones are better than others? How do they rank against each other? To your point: "I think the real problem as entrepreneurs is that we are unable to recognize for ourselves whether we need something or not; so we buy too much. If we're too ignorant to know what to spend our money on, can't well blame others for selling us stuff." We can't blame others for selling us this stuff, but we can and should share our experiences. It's completely legitimate to share a bad experience (or a good experience). There is a lot of opacity in this space, and transparency is going to help ease it. I am completely with you, though: I could do without the public outing of names and email addresses. And I hate smear campaigns, even when they appear to be warranted. A lot of people make stupid mistakes when they're young and dumb; few people deserve to have those mistakes chase them across the internet for the rest of their lives. (As will probably be the case with the immature BD guy named in the article. If even half of what was said about him is true, he deserves to be fired, and his former employer should issue an apology to Ms. Fichtner. But does he really deserve a life sentence?) In general, I wish tech blogs would focus more on tech and less on people. Leave gossip to the gossip blogs. It's hard to tell where informative journalism ends and personal vendetta begins in pieces like these. So I've trained myself to gloss over them. That's unfortunate, because underneath the thicket of naming-and-shaming, there's often some wisdom or advice to be found.
- localhost3000 13y ago
  PandoDaily is a gossip blog that just happens to cover tech.
larrys 13y ago
"If we're too ignorant to know what to spend our money on, can't well blame others for selling us stuff." And in fact this is a skill that is extremely important to have as an entrepreneur, that is, a business person. Actually I just took a look at the website showing the past event. http://www.youngstartup.com/newyork2013/overview.php http://www.youngstartup.com/newyork2013/overview.php It looks and quacks to me like a legit duck (from a quick look). On the main website there are past events there are videos of people who look like investors and appear to be legit. Unless it's staged I personally don't see what they are doing as anywhere near a scam. (Once again from a quick check.) The blog post otoh gave me a totally different perspective. But the retort from the YSV founder completely deflated that bias and made some good points. This idea from people that expect all sorts of help for free and think that people who charge are somehow scams need to reexamine closely how business operates.

jonnathanson 13y ago

"I think trying to name and shame is absolutely the wrong way to go about this. Most of these startup ecosystem folks mean well, and most of them have products that are well worth the money -- for folks who need the products." Completely agree. I'd love to see more stories that leave out the personal drama and, instead, run some analysis. There are a lot of these companies out there, offering similar services. What's the ROI on spending money with them? Which ones are better than others? How do they rank against each other? To your point: "I think the real problem as entrepreneurs is that we are unable to recognize for ourselves whether we need something or not; so we buy too much. If we're too ignorant to know what to spend our money on, can't well blame others for selling us stuff." We can't blame others for selling us this stuff, but we can and should share our experiences. It's completely legitimate to share a bad experience (or a good experience). There is a lot of opacity in this space, and transparency is going to help ease it. I am completely with you, though: I could do without the public outing of names and email addresses. And I hate smear campaigns, even when they appear to be warranted. A lot of people make stupid mistakes when they're young and dumb; few people deserve to have those mistakes chase them across the internet for the rest of their lives. (As will probably be the case with the immature BD guy named in the article. If even half of what was said about him is true, he deserves to be fired, and his former employer should issue an apology to Ms. Fichtner. But does he really deserve a life sentence?) In general, I wish tech blogs would focus more on tech and less on people. Leave gossip to the gossip blogs. It's hard to tell where informative journalism ends and personal vendetta begins in pieces like these. So I've trained myself to gloss over them. That's unfortunate, because underneath the thicket of naming-and-shaming, there's often some wisdom or advice to be found.

localhost3000 13y ago
PandoDaily is a gossip blog that just happens to cover tech.

larrys 13y ago

"If we're too ignorant to know what to spend our money on, can't well blame others for selling us stuff." And in fact this is a skill that is extremely important to have as an entrepreneur, that is, a business person. Actually I just took a look at the website showing the past event. http://www.youngstartup.com/newyork2013/overview.php http://www.youngstartup.com/newyork2013/overview.php It looks and quacks to me like a legit duck (from a quick look). On the main website there are past events there are videos of people who look like investors and appear to be legit. Unless it's staged I personally don't see what they are doing as anywhere near a scam. (Once again from a quick check.) The blog post otoh gave me a totally different perspective. But the retort from the YSV founder completely deflated that bias and made some good points. This idea from people that expect all sorts of help for free and think that people who charge are somehow scams need to reexamine closely how business operates.