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

calacanis.com

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

#21

Post by frankdenbow »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #18
wavesum wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

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

#22

Post by kiriljakimovski »

monsterix wrote: post #3

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 After reading this post I feel happy that we decided not to attend the event. Apparently, it saved us some em…

And they're not afraid of "masking" the truth just to get you more invested. This is an excerpt from an email conversation with them after inviting us to apply for Collision:

Me: Is this REALLY free or I'll need to buy tickets if chosen?

Collision: The stand is free for chosen startups.

We applied and got invited and then we were asked to pay, but declined.

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

#23

Post by loopbit »

jacquesm wrote: post #15
bruceb wrote: post #14

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 di…

$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…

We've got pretty good exposure and even some small investment through WebSummit, both directly and indirectly (people that saw us there and then met us somewhere else).

Now, both have come from the pitch events. From my point of view and as a founder, that's the only real reason to attend.

The stands have been almost useless and most of the 'meet-the-investors' events even more so (I do remember one of those where no investors showed up, none, just 50 or so hopeful startups).

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

#24

Post by downandout »

bruceb wrote: post #14

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 di…

>Calacanis's Launch cost $450 a table for 3 days with discount code

The fact that you are asking this means this post was a very good example of sponsored content. He makes a legitimate point, then spends the second half of the article advertising his own stuff. Classic negative review tactics - bash your competition and then pitch yourself.

As for these conferences in general, I don't understand why it is so hard for these organizers to get investors to come to their events. With the frothy market, investors aren't exactly hiding from opportunities to find new startups worth investing in. The organizers just aren't trying.

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

#25

Post by onion2k »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #2

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.

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.

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

#27

Post by jacquesm »

loopbit wrote: post #23
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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…

We've got pretty good exposure and even some small investment through WebSummit, both directly and indirectly (people that saw us there and then met us somewhere else). Now, both have come from the pitch events. From my point of view and as a founder, that's the only real reason to attend. The stands have been almost useless and most of the 'meet-the-investors' events even more so (I do remember one of those where no…

> I do remember one of those where no investors showed up, none, just 50 or so hopeful startups.

That sounds like a 'let's see some refunds' situation to me.

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

#28

Post by mattdeboard »

frankdenbow wrote: post #21
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> They should drop the fees for startups

My impression is startups paying their fees is their business model

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

#29

Post by dkersten »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #2

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.

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.

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

#30

Post by dkersten »

wavesum wrote: post #13
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #2

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.

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…

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 :(

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