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Avoid the “Apply to Present” and “Angel Pitch Contest” Event Scams

108 points by bootload 12y ago

nakedrobot2 12y ago
Web Summit and Paddy Cosgrave, I'm looking at you here. This is their mode of operation exactly. They fooled me out of 1000 euro and packed me in like sardines with a bunch of other poor fools. It's a bad memory of a huge, overcrowded, scammy event where the only winner was the organizers. And their formula seems to be working which is the most depressing part.
- wavesum 12y ago
  Same experience here. The first they scout you through your website, and act as if they had done some research, and drop the bait of free booth, then they "vet" you over Skype and later let you know you're a winner. "By charging big companies big money we can offer promising startups like you this opportunity for free" All you need to do is buy couple of tickets for 1500+ euros and the free booth is yours. Ouch. But we've come this far, maybe it's worth a shot... When you get to the place you realize it's 500 startups like you, crammed shoulder to shoulder. Very few investors around...
  - nakedrobot2 12y ago
    Yup! "Shoulder to shoulder" is not an exagerration either. I think it was 50-80 startups per wall - no more than 1 meter each. Like a supermarket. Totally depressing and wrong. I actually did not meet one single investor there. But of course there are one or two lucky outliers to give a testimonial. Ugh! Stay far, far away.
    - frankdenbow 12y ago
      I had a similar experience in Dublin but the rest of the conference they produced was very good (great speakers, well produced). There wasn't enough foot traffic to justify the cost and travel expenses for a startup booth. They should drop the fees for startups.
      - mattdeboard 12y ago
        > They should drop the fees for startups My impression is startups paying their fees is their business model
        frankdenbow 12y ago
        Its not the only way they make money, though (sponsorships and ticket sales for regular attendees)
  - dkersten 12y ago
    Very few investors around... I disagree. We met a LOT of investors. The important thing to note is that they won't come to you just because you're there. You have to attract them in some way (or better yet: contact them in advance and have meetings already set up). I completely agree with the "shoulder to shoulder" thing though. It was very cramped :(
    - dkersten 12y ago
      Are my comments being downvoted because I didn't have quite as negative an experience as others? Granted, there weren't thousands of investors there, but my startup personally had a busy schedule meeting with them - that week (before, during and after the event itself) we had meetings with approx. 40 different investors. Nowhere am I saying you should pay to pitch or pay to meet investors. I'm merely saying that whether or not an event is worth it depends on what you do at it (and beforehand) and that you can't expect it to be worthwhile just for showing up, because it won't. I found it useful, others didn't - I only wanted to shed light on why I thought it was useful and what we did to make it so. NOTE: We also did NOT take part in the pitch contests.
      - Blackthorn 12y ago
        I think you're being downvoted because all you're saying is, essentially, "no you're wrong" without any details.
        dkersten 12y ago
        Thanks for the response, I appreciate it. I thought I was giving a counterpoint to the statement "there were very few investors" and adding advice from my experience: The important thing to note is that they won't come to you just because you're there. You have to attract them in some way (or better yet: contact them in advance and have meetings already set up). My other comment similarly was a counterpoint to "the only winner was the organizers", giving my experience and why I think I had the experience I did. I'm sorry that this came across as "no you're wrong" without any details. :-(
- onion2k 12y ago
  It works because too many startup entrepreneurs don't understand what "getting feedback" actually means. A stand at an event designed for startup entrepreneurs should only be a valid incentive if your market is startups. If you're doing anything else then you're marketing to the wrong audience, which is a huge waste of time. Feedback only counts if it's from potential customers, or better yet, actual customers. Having 1000 people file past your stand saying "That's really clever and innovative" is a great ego boost - but that's all it is if they're not people who will buy what you're selling. When you're building a startup you should only spend money getting to events where your customers are going to be. Go to those (often quite boring) events and sell to people. Being in the same room as a startup celebrity is far less valuable to your business than a even one single paying customer. If you do that then you'll have no problem meeting investors. In fact, they'll come to you.
- dkersten 12y ago
  While I agree with the premise of what you're saying (and Web Summit are super spammy too!), I don't quite agree that "the only winner was the organizers". I've been at the last three Web Summits and while I don't think the stand is worth €1000 in itself, the Web Summit (including stand) totally are - but you get from it what you make of it. With sufficient preparation, Web Summit can be quite valuable. For example, in the last one we arranged meetings with both investors and potential customers weeks in advance of the event; we also printed flyers (which worked as people came to our stand saying they saw the flyers). Over all, it was very positive for us. BUT the reason for this is that we made use of the fact that a lot of people we wanted to talk to would be in one place. We didn't just go and hope people would talk to us, we arranged it in advance (and the flyers were bonus). That made it worth a lot more than €1000 to us. Would I pay that much just for a stand? Hell no. Would I pay to pitch? Hell no. Would I take advantage of the fact that such an event draws a lot of useful people? Yes, of course.
- JabbaDabbaDoo 12y ago
  100% agreed. I used to work for one of the bigger, more well-covered (in terms of US press coverage) European start-ups , and I was contacted by Web Summit last year about "participating" in the upcoming event and invited to discuss the "opportunity" via Skype. I hop on Skype with the guy and he immediately starts trying to shake me down for money for a sponsorship...without actually knowing what my company at the time did (I asked him straight up, "Do you know what we do?", and he stammered off how he was impressed with our growth blah blah blah without answering the question).
- friendstock 12y ago
  Yes, I got a bad feeling about the RISE conference (run by the same people who run WebSummit). There was no pricing on their web page, and then some sales person called to make an offer of a startup booth at a very high price (even after discount). I can understand that running conferences can be expensive, but somehow it felt like a scam.
- jasonmcalacanis 12y ago
  If Paddy wants to do this right he should just be up front: $1,000 a table is not outrageous in my mind. If you get rid of this "apply to present" then surprise people with a bill, you would not have this bad will from so many founders. Note: I didn't actually bring all this up, I was just responding to all the folks writing about Keiretsu forum and Collision. While I do have a conference, it doesn't compete with any of these other events -- because winning for me is just giving back as much as I can (and taking NOTHING). I do these events for my own intellectual curiosity, to help my founders get exposure and to find new founders to invest in. I wish Paddy the best with his events and I hope the Keiretsu forum folds.
monsterix 12y ago
Wow! I remember going through this ordeal (of taking a decision) a couple of weeks back with Collision Conference. They'd shortlisted us for the conference at Las Vegas and wanted us to pay a sum to attend it. Here's what I'd tweeted then, at the time: https://twitter.com/marvindanig/status/579039796238139392 https://twitter.com/marvindanig/status/579039796238139392 After reading this post I feel happy that we decided not to attend the event. Apparently, it saved us some embarrassment and precious dollars!
- atroyn 12y ago
  Collision Conf 'shortlists' every startup they come across.
  - monsterix 12y ago
    Hmm. They do seem to have some big/good names on their speaker list though!: https://collisionconf.com/speakers https://collisionconf.com/speakers I guess their kind of thing is suitable for enterprise startups. Where, you know, BS is a way of life and cash is in plenty.
    - cdcarter 12y ago
      How bad does a conference need to be to turn down a good speaking fee?
    - gkoberger 12y ago
      I mean, it's not like John Collison could turn it down. It's practically named after him. Really, though... bad experience on the startup side != bad conference in general.
  - saryant 12y ago
    I find it interesting that I can't find the NY Times quote they've splashed all over their advertising about being a "conclave of tech's high priests." I can find other people quoting the quote, but I can't find any NY Times article that actually includes it (or even mentions this conference at all).
davmar 12y ago
also avoid the keiretsu forum. total waste of time and money.
- someear 12y ago
  So true, seems like half the people are there to only socialize or sell you their personal services/consulting
bootload 12y ago
"I make my money from investing in startups, not events." I posted this, despite it being a pitch for Jason, he's street-wise and puts his $$$ where his mouth is... integrity.
bruceb 12y ago
The question is how do you create enough financial incentive for organizer to put on a quality conference without charging startups? I don't mind paying a small fee, after all a lot of effort goes in to putting on a conference but clearly there are those charging "too much" (of course that is subjective). Calacanis's Launch cost $450 a table for 3 days with discount code. For those who attend this year or last how did you feel about it?
- jacquesm 12y ago
  $1 is too much. The startups are looking for funding, not spending it on maybe-I-will-hook-up-events with no guarantee of even individual attention. These are just scams, avoid them completely. One product/project launch vote on HN will get you more in terms of actual attention from the right people than one of these events. Let's turn this around: Who active on HN found investment through an event like this? (Maybe this should be a poll?)
  - pavlov 12y ago
    I don't know about the US situation, but in Europe, the investors who go to these events tend to be non-savvy local angels. Actually, a better way to describe them might be "hobby investors": moderately wealthy people who are thinking about putting this year's vacation money into a startup instead. In exchange for something meaningless like 20k€, they'll want to meddle in the company's strategy and expect regular reports. It's fun -- like playing "The Startup Sims" with real people! If the hobby investor is well-connected, that can actually be useful. But in the typical case they're probably not the kind of investor that any startup would want, given the choice.
    - barake 12y ago
      It is a very similar situation where I am in the Midwest/Southern US. Most "investors" are doctors/lawyers/etc that think investing in a startup is an alternative to the stock market.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
djyaz1200 12y ago
demo.com = scam
- velox_io 12y ago
  How so? With a big picture of the Woz on the front page, it looks legit..
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
heliodor 12y ago
Some people run conferences as cold-blooded businesses while other people run conferences from the (partial or total) goodness of their heart. This is what Calacanis wanted to say but ended up resorting to the "scam" word. He claims he's the latter and WebSummit is the former. The comparison to the government's warnings for the modeling industry is not a good one. The government warning is about bait-and-switch, where you go in for a modeling interview but instead it's a sales pitch for products. The conference thing doesn't sound like a bait-and-switch, but rather just a bad deal.
bostonnycto 12y ago
How do folks feel about founder/vc speed dating events - Usually charge about 60-80 for 5 mins with 5-6 VCs....seems iffy, but lots of tier2 vcs show up...
benisaacson 12y ago
Come on people, these event/forum producers are marketers and so are you. Your job is to ask the right questions and decide whether it's worth the ROI. Break it down; 1) Speaking? Who/how many in the audience - press? 2) Exhibiting? Who/how many attendees 3) Networking? Who is going to be there and can you hustle relevant meetings in advance/on-site? 4) Cost= Start with your CPM for #1/#2 just like any ad spend, then calculate what the # of quality meetings from all of the above could mean to your ROI at the event. If you converted only 1 client, 1 decent press report, or 1 great investor follow up--is that enough ROI for time/$$? I bit the bullet on Collision, and can't say whether we'll get ROI from #2 or #3 - but I will say they teased and totally f'ed us out of our #1. I still give them credit for being awesome marketers, and love that they give you the quantifiable metrics you need since they published every speaker, investor and media attendee which I've never seen done at any event in the past. Completely agree with others on Kereitsu - I can't believe they charge startups what they do and have done so for so long. It's really sad not just for startups, but for the novice investors who believe they need Kereitsu for dealflow/co-investments. Really hope platforms like Angelist and new ones following RegA implementation (May 25th!) will change this.

108 points by bootload 12y ago

Web Summit and Paddy Cosgrave, I'm looking at you here. This is their mode of operation exactly. They fooled me out of 1000 euro and packed me in like sardines with a bunch of other poor fools. It's a bad memory of a huge, overcrowded, scammy event where the only winner was the organizers. And their formula seems to be working which is the most depressing part.

wavesum 12y ago
Same experience here. The first they scout you through your website, and act as if they had done some research, and drop the bait of free booth, then they "vet" you over Skype and later let you know you're a winner. "By charging big companies big money we can offer promising startups like you this opportunity for free" All you need to do is buy couple of tickets for 1500+ euros and the free booth is yours. Ouch. But we've come this far, maybe it's worth a shot... When you get to the place you realize it's 500 startups like you, crammed shoulder to shoulder. Very few investors around...
- nakedrobot2 12y ago
  Yup! "Shoulder to shoulder" is not an exagerration either. I think it was 50-80 startups per wall - no more than 1 meter each. Like a supermarket. Totally depressing and wrong. I actually did not meet one single investor there. But of course there are one or two lucky outliers to give a testimonial. Ugh! Stay far, far away.
  - frankdenbow 12y ago
    I had a similar experience in Dublin but the rest of the conference they produced was very good (great speakers, well produced). There wasn't enough foot traffic to justify the cost and travel expenses for a startup booth. They should drop the fees for startups.
    - mattdeboard 12y ago
      > They should drop the fees for startups My impression is startups paying their fees is their business model
      - frankdenbow 12y ago
        Its not the only way they make money, though (sponsorships and ticket sales for regular attendees)
- dkersten 12y ago
  Very few investors around... I disagree. We met a LOT of investors. The important thing to note is that they won't come to you just because you're there. You have to attract them in some way (or better yet: contact them in advance and have meetings already set up). I completely agree with the "shoulder to shoulder" thing though. It was very cramped :(
  - dkersten 12y ago
    Are my comments being downvoted because I didn't have quite as negative an experience as others? Granted, there weren't thousands of investors there, but my startup personally had a busy schedule meeting with them - that week (before, during and after the event itself) we had meetings with approx. 40 different investors. Nowhere am I saying you should pay to pitch or pay to meet investors. I'm merely saying that whether or not an event is worth it depends on what you do at it (and beforehand) and that you can't expect it to be worthwhile just for showing up, because it won't. I found it useful, others didn't - I only wanted to shed light on why I thought it was useful and what we did to make it so. NOTE: We also did NOT take part in the pitch contests.
    - Blackthorn 12y ago
      I think you're being downvoted because all you're saying is, essentially, "no you're wrong" without any details.
      - dkersten 12y ago
        Thanks for the response, I appreciate it. I thought I was giving a counterpoint to the statement "there were very few investors" and adding advice from my experience: The important thing to note is that they won't come to you just because you're there. You have to attract them in some way (or better yet: contact them in advance and have meetings already set up). My other comment similarly was a counterpoint to "the only winner was the organizers", giving my experience and why I think I had the experience I did. I'm sorry that this came across as "no you're wrong" without any details. :-(
onion2k 12y ago
It works because too many startup entrepreneurs don't understand what "getting feedback" actually means. A stand at an event designed for startup entrepreneurs should only be a valid incentive if your market is startups. If you're doing anything else then you're marketing to the wrong audience, which is a huge waste of time. Feedback only counts if it's from potential customers, or better yet, actual customers. Having 1000 people file past your stand saying "That's really clever and innovative" is a great ego boost - but that's all it is if they're not people who will buy what you're selling. When you're building a startup you should only spend money getting to events where your customers are going to be. Go to those (often quite boring) events and sell to people. Being in the same room as a startup celebrity is far less valuable to your business than a even one single paying customer. If you do that then you'll have no problem meeting investors. In fact, they'll come to you.
dkersten 12y ago
While I agree with the premise of what you're saying (and Web Summit are super spammy too!), I don't quite agree that "the only winner was the organizers". I've been at the last three Web Summits and while I don't think the stand is worth €1000 in itself, the Web Summit (including stand) totally are - but you get from it what you make of it. With sufficient preparation, Web Summit can be quite valuable. For example, in the last one we arranged meetings with both investors and potential customers weeks in advance of the event; we also printed flyers (which worked as people came to our stand saying they saw the flyers). Over all, it was very positive for us. BUT the reason for this is that we made use of the fact that a lot of people we wanted to talk to would be in one place. We didn't just go and hope people would talk to us, we arranged it in advance (and the flyers were bonus). That made it worth a lot more than €1000 to us. Would I pay that much just for a stand? Hell no. Would I pay to pitch? Hell no. Would I take advantage of the fact that such an event draws a lot of useful people? Yes, of course.
JabbaDabbaDoo 12y ago
100% agreed. I used to work for one of the bigger, more well-covered (in terms of US press coverage) European start-ups , and I was contacted by Web Summit last year about "participating" in the upcoming event and invited to discuss the "opportunity" via Skype. I hop on Skype with the guy and he immediately starts trying to shake me down for money for a sponsorship...without actually knowing what my company at the time did (I asked him straight up, "Do you know what we do?", and he stammered off how he was impressed with our growth blah blah blah without answering the question).
friendstock 12y ago
Yes, I got a bad feeling about the RISE conference (run by the same people who run WebSummit). There was no pricing on their web page, and then some sales person called to make an offer of a startup booth at a very high price (even after discount). I can understand that running conferences can be expensive, but somehow it felt like a scam.
jasonmcalacanis 12y ago
If Paddy wants to do this right he should just be up front: $1,000 a table is not outrageous in my mind. If you get rid of this "apply to present" then surprise people with a bill, you would not have this bad will from so many founders. Note: I didn't actually bring all this up, I was just responding to all the folks writing about Keiretsu forum and Collision. While I do have a conference, it doesn't compete with any of these other events -- because winning for me is just giving back as much as I can (and taking NOTHING). I do these events for my own intellectual curiosity, to help my founders get exposure and to find new founders to invest in. I wish Paddy the best with his events and I hope the Keiretsu forum folds.

monsterix 12y ago

Wow! I remember going through this ordeal (of taking a decision) a couple of weeks back with Collision Conference. They'd shortlisted us for the conference at Las Vegas and wanted us to pay a sum to attend it. Here's what I'd tweeted then, at the time: https://twitter.com/marvindanig/status/579039796238139392 https://twitter.com/marvindanig/status/579039796238139392 After reading this post I feel happy that we decided not to attend the event. Apparently, it saved us some embarrassment and precious dollars!

atroyn 12y ago
Collision Conf 'shortlists' every startup they come across.
- monsterix 12y ago
  Hmm. They do seem to have some big/good names on their speaker list though!: https://collisionconf.com/speakers https://collisionconf.com/speakers I guess their kind of thing is suitable for enterprise startups. Where, you know, BS is a way of life and cash is in plenty.
  - cdcarter 12y ago
    How bad does a conference need to be to turn down a good speaking fee?
  - gkoberger 12y ago
    I mean, it's not like John Collison could turn it down. It's practically named after him. Really, though... bad experience on the startup side != bad conference in general.
- saryant 12y ago
  I find it interesting that I can't find the NY Times quote they've splashed all over their advertising about being a "conclave of tech's high priests." I can find other people quoting the quote, but I can't find any NY Times article that actually includes it (or even mentions this conference at all).

davmar 12y ago

also avoid the keiretsu forum. total waste of time and money.

someear 12y ago
So true, seems like half the people are there to only socialize or sell you their personal services/consulting

bootload 12y ago

"I make my money from investing in startups, not events." I posted this, despite it being a pitch for Jason, he's street-wise and puts his $$$ where his mouth is... integrity.

bruceb 12y ago

The question is how do you create enough financial incentive for organizer to put on a quality conference without charging startups? I don't mind paying a small fee, after all a lot of effort goes in to putting on a conference but clearly there are those charging "too much" (of course that is subjective). Calacanis's Launch cost $450 a table for 3 days with discount code. For those who attend this year or last how did you feel about it?

jacquesm 12y ago
$1 is too much. The startups are looking for funding, not spending it on maybe-I-will-hook-up-events with no guarantee of even individual attention. These are just scams, avoid them completely. One product/project launch vote on HN will get you more in terms of actual attention from the right people than one of these events. Let's turn this around: Who active on HN found investment through an event like this? (Maybe this should be a poll?)
- pavlov 12y ago
  I don't know about the US situation, but in Europe, the investors who go to these events tend to be non-savvy local angels. Actually, a better way to describe them might be "hobby investors": moderately wealthy people who are thinking about putting this year's vacation money into a startup instead. In exchange for something meaningless like 20k€, they'll want to meddle in the company's strategy and expect regular reports. It's fun -- like playing "The Startup Sims" with real people! If the hobby investor is well-connected, that can actually be useful. But in the typical case they're probably not the kind of investor that any startup would want, given the choice.
  - barake 12y ago
    It is a very similar situation where I am in the Midwest/Southern US. Most "investors" are doctors/lawyers/etc that think investing in a startup is an alternative to the stock market.
  - jacquesm 12y ago

djyaz1200 12y ago

demo.com = scam

velox_io 12y ago
How so? With a big picture of the Woz on the front page, it looks legit..

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

heliodor 12y ago

Some people run conferences as cold-blooded businesses while other people run conferences from the (partial or total) goodness of their heart. This is what Calacanis wanted to say but ended up resorting to the "scam" word. He claims he's the latter and WebSummit is the former. The comparison to the government's warnings for the modeling industry is not a good one. The government warning is about bait-and-switch, where you go in for a modeling interview but instead it's a sales pitch for products. The conference thing doesn't sound like a bait-and-switch, but rather just a bad deal.

bostonnycto 12y ago

How do folks feel about founder/vc speed dating events - Usually charge about 60-80 for 5 mins with 5-6 VCs....seems iffy, but lots of tier2 vcs show up...

benisaacson 12y ago

Come on people, these event/forum producers are marketers and so are you. Your job is to ask the right questions and decide whether it's worth the ROI. Break it down; 1) Speaking? Who/how many in the audience - press? 2) Exhibiting? Who/how many attendees 3) Networking? Who is going to be there and can you hustle relevant meetings in advance/on-site? 4) Cost= Start with your CPM for #1/#2 just like any ad spend, then calculate what the # of quality meetings from all of the above could mean to your ROI at the event. If you converted only 1 client, 1 decent press report, or 1 great investor follow up--is that enough ROI for time/$$? I bit the bullet on Collision, and can't say whether we'll get ROI from #2 or #3 - but I will say they teased and totally f'ed us out of our #1. I still give them credit for being awesome marketers, and love that they give you the quantifiable metrics you need since they published every speaker, investor and media attendee which I've never seen done at any event in the past. Completely agree with others on Kereitsu - I can't believe they charge startups what they do and have done so for so long. It's really sad not just for startups, but for the novice investors who believe they need Kereitsu for dealflow/co-investments. Really hope platforms like Angelist and new ones following RegA implementation (May 25th!) will change this.