Scobleizer - Latest Comments in It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

seo1394 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:25:22 -0000

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Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Learn German software — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:55:28 -0000

I totally agree with tehdik!

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

mariocanamar — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:32:19 -0000

Master Scoble...

I've been trying to suscribe to your RSS feed, but its not working!

http://scobleizer.com/feed/ (the culprit!)

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Ipotpal Laptopov — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:28:40 -0000

A good point coffeegroup. It is an experience that will bring a lesson and certainly not the most expensive one. Pitching crap loses everybody's time so maybe there should be some price to it.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Gucci Sneakers — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:43:38 -0000

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Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Fred Davis — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:29:21 -0000

Hip-hip-very-hip-hooray for Jason's stance against pay-to-pitch. I've helped raise money for a bunch of start-ups, and helped secure some of the initial financing for some successful companies like Wired, CNET, and Ask Jeeves (now ask.com). NEVER, and I mean, NEVER have I considered or would I even consider a pay-to-pitch situation. They are unscrupulous and predatory, at best.

It's like those cheezy rip-off "talent agencies" that prey on wannabes and charge them ridiculous prices for head-shots, coaching, etc., but never find them any work, because they aren't really talent agents, they just suck your $ and send you off when it's gone. Or then there's the "we'll help you patent your invention" TV commercials... again, all these greedy MF's do is overcharge you for doing not much, if you're lucky, some of them steal any of the ideas that are actually any good.

Besides being a total rip-off, my personal issue with these pay-to-play scams is that they give false hope to people who are just trying to follow their dreams, and instead of being honest with the dreams that need some more work, they coddle them, encourage them, and then scam them.

The "con" in con man is "confidence." They gain your confidence first. Your expose will help prevent some of that false confidence, I hope.

Here's the secret investor's don't want you to know: there is more money than good ideas. Even in these recessive times. If you build a better mouse(-trap) the investor world won't necessarily beat a path to your door, but they will listen to your pitch, for free. At least the real investors, with real money, looking for real entrepreneurs with real ideas for viable companies.

I used to joke that the difference between Northern California and Southern California is than if you go into a starbucks in SoCal, everyone is working on and talking about their screenplay. In The Bay Area, it's their biz plan. So, just like there have long been sleazy Hollywood types who just want to prey on your dreams, there are now the tech equivalents ready to make money by misleading eager tech wannabes. And guess what, some of those wannabes just might have the next YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter.

So, all you tech dreamers, dream on. But don't let anyone charge you for sharing those dreams with them... unless they are your therapist!

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Hercules K — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:53:21 -0000

I complete agree with you, its sad this is happening.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

debbynelson — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:02:47 -0000

One of the worst offenders (because they are SOOOO expen$ive) is www.keiretsuforum.com. They charge a few thousand dollars to pitch their groups (you pay per location, however are required to pay for minimum 4 angel groups).

What I never understood, was if you had thousands of dollars to pay them to be able to pitch, wouldn't they be concerned that you're spending money (on them) that you really should be using to build your business??

I was really shocked when I heard of his a few years back & still am incredulous. All the angel groups do it.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

JohnAtkinson — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:16:36 -0000

+1 on tehdik for putting Edwin K in his place

+1 on Edwin for acknowledging the err of his ways ;)

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

digimint — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:09:07 -0000

We are all getting "overfeed" to death. It is akin to a bank charging you a monthly service fee to have a savings account.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Scott Edward Walker — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:10:46 -0000

Robert - As a corporate attorney, I agree in principle with Jason’s position that it is “inappropriate and predatory” for angel groups to charge entrepreneurs fees to pitch them; however, I think it is important to distinguish among the different angel groups and their respective practices. Indeed, if (i) the fees are reasonable/de minimis and are adequately disclosed and (ii) the angel group is providing a legitimate service to entrepreneurs, there may be compelling reasons to support such a fee-based service. That’s why I have strongly recommended in a recent blog post (see http://bit.ly/hAYeu) that Jason Calacanis and John Dilts (the founder and President of Maverick Angels, LLC and an attorney) meet face-to-face and have a live debate (in the great American tradition), which can be shown on the web to all interested parties via ustream. Many thanks, Scott

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Edwin Khodabakchian — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:15:32 -0000

My bad!

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

tehdik — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:08:59 -0000

Thank you for the intelligent comment. You should try starting with that instead of being a jerk next time.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Edwin Khodabakchian — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:02:15 -0000

You say "Bloggers can only help so much because adoption isn't a part of the plan".

Adoption is only part of the value. The key when you create a new project is to get quickly from 0 to 1000 active users so that you start having a feedback loop, start measuring and iterate.

I think that this rule is true for every new product which tries to innovate. It is a key ingredient to survive inception.

This is why blogger which have a large and active community are a key ingredient of the start up ecosystem.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

tehdik — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:46:38 -0000

Educate me.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Edwin Khodabakchian — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:45:03 -0000

Techdik. You obviously sound like you do not know. So may be you should try to know before coming here and writing some non-sense.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

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Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

BizGirl — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:15:52 -0000

Thank you for not charging Robert. I was just about to send you a pitch when I saw your post. Charging for pitches will only lessen the ability to find the next great product or service. I believe greed is the culprit. Investors want to make money off of the fact that they are investors. You're right, it's ridiculous. Thanks for sticking up for the little guy!!! You rock!!

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

BizGirl — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:09:07 -0000

"I NEVER charge for pitches and NEVER charge to interview startups or people for my video show or to get on building43. I don’t even ask if you are a Rackspace customer. It’s totally ridiculous that such a system exists."

Thank you for not charging Robert. I was about to send you a pitch when I saw this post. Charging lessens the ability to find the next best product or service. I believe greed is the culprit. Investors are trying to make the fact that they are investors a commodity. You're right, it's ridiculous. Thanks for sticking up for the little guy!

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

John Coonen — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:57:01 -0000

It's too bad that folks like Jason (and Robert) have to invest their time trying to convince some people of the obvious.

Let's face it, no warning will ward off would-be pay-for-pitch scammers; and on the demand-side of the curve, we all know that some folks need to learn by doing, despite all the warning flares the community sends up. There's a market for pay-for-pitch; and a sucker born every minute. Maybe a big, expensive lesson is exactly what they need to learn to stay away from fire or you'll get burned?

- John Coonen

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

AlexHammer — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:42:48 -0000

I agree with Robert, Jason (and also Fred Wilson who has also written about this) and am glad to see it.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

brucebadeau — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:24:29 -0000

Generally, you have to be careful about who is creating the forum. The real question will be: is anybody with quality money going to attend? It does no good to pay to have a bunch of money-seeking companies like your self looking with no one listening.

However, there are some exceptions. In Houston, there is Rice Alliance and it has four meetings per year. We attended the BioTechnology conference in June for our Liquid Protein Separation Machine - 100 time faster, 30 times more sensitive and can see Peptides... Also can run samples over and over again to prove the very same results. Yes, we paid $75 per person, and I think it was worth it - entire day to meet BioTech VC's - we generated interest in two out of five VC's presenting speeches about the industry trends.... and there were over ten top flight firms there total.

One is still in the hunt contingent upon them finishing their latest Biotech fund.

I would recommend RICE ALLIANCE to all Texas Companies looking for technology funding... They also have a good conference for NanoTech - Rice has the Smalley Institute - remember the man - he discovered Carbon 60 - Buckey Balls...

Regards,

Bruce Badeau, CFO
ProteoMicro
281-236-8260
bruce@fser.net

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Guest — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:29:01 -0000

Maybe these so called "Angels" are not really Angels then.

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

Guest — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:21:05 -0000

Agree with jason. http://bit.ly/1P4ADh pay to pitch is WRONG

Re: It is ridiculous startups have to pay to pitch

speakersoutlet — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:20:31 -0000

Agree with Jason; http://bit.ly/1P4ADh pay to pitch is WRONG