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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

#31

Post by dkersten »

dkersten wrote: post #30
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…

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 :(

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.

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

#32

Post by jusben1369 »

kiriljakimovski wrote: post #22
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.

I'm replying to you but it's really to 3 or 4 of the similar comments. I can't tell what the exact issue is here. Is it the cost? Is it a bait and switch? Is it that the price is fine but the conference isn't what's advertised?

$2000 is not very much money for 2 to 3 people to attend and have a booth at if the audience and attendees are in line with what was advertised. I do agree with an earlier comment that you probably want it to be the case that startups are potential customers for you so that you have multiple ways to get an ROI. (Investors, potential customers and future employees etc)

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

#33

Post by JabbaDabbaDoo »

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.

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).

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

#35

Post by friendstock »

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.

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.

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

#36

Post by chrisbennet »

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…

Sounds like if you are poor startup it's free. (175 out of 225 were free). Seems fair and not a bait and switch.

Calacanis states in the article:

"At the LAUNCH Festival this year we gave 11,000 of the 12,000 attendees FREE TICKETS. We also gave away 175 of the 225 demo pit tables for free. We sell some at cost as well ($1-3k).

Our model is to charge the companies who have money, and give them some time on stage to be a judge or do a little content about their product."

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

#37

Post by Blackthorn »

dkersten wrote: post #31
dkersten wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :(

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 whet…

I think you're being downvoted because all you're saying is, essentially, "no you're wrong" without any details.

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

#39

Post by jacquesm »

pavlov wrote: post #16
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…

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 rep…

That's very accurate from my personal experience. I'd add that they also tend to have totally irrational expectation with respect to the return-on-investment.

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

#40

Post by dkersten »

Blackthorn wrote: post #37
dkersten wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whet…

I think you're being downvoted because all you're saying is, essentially, "no you're wrong" without any details.

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. :-(

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