Anatomy of a Failed Pitch at Startup Weekend | Hacker News Reader

Anatomy of a Failed Pitch at Startup Weekend

erik.randomdrivel.com

13 pointserik_p10 comments

I'm a mentor at a program kind of similar to this (except it's 1 evening a month for 6 months or so).

I see this all the time. Everyone comes along with their own idea 90% of which are mediocre (and the 10% that aren't usually have their own team sorted out)

The real solution isn't to try and sell your idea, it's to change your expectations.

It's very unlikely anything you build on one of these programs will be any good unless you were already working on it with an existing team prior to the start of the program

But it is likely that you will meet some people who - at some point in the future - might be interested in doing some - as yet undefined - project with you.

Treat it as a learning experience, where your expected outcome is to learn something and to hopefully meet some good people.

The learning part of the experience was definitely the most important part... A handful of teams built really impressive shippable products.

The hope or fantasy that your idea or your team will be one of those teams is part of what fuels and attracts people to these events. I didn't expect a Wayne's World type ending or anything.

I just acknowledge that I could have done more hustling, and pitched better...

Had I done a better job pitching/mingling my weekend would have been much different, BUT I'm not sure I would trade the experience I DID have with the team I landed on for anything (well almost anything...)

One thing I learned from these startup weekends, too, is that it's just one weekend. You weren't necessarily forced or desperate to find a team or co-founder there, especially with it being your first startup weekend-style event. It's just a mindset.

Yeah...it's a great place to meet people, but it's a bit like going to a bar and looking to get married instead of just trying to get a phone number. You're likely to be disappointed if you're expecting a diamond ring.

True... but sometimes I go to the bar just to hook up ;) But your analogy still holds true.

Managing expectations and emotions seems like an important piece to building a startup. Things like pride and ego can help fuel you, but can also get in the way of clear thinking.

You looked like a lot of fun. I wish we'd been on the same team.

thank you. On one hand I would have loved to have worked / launched http://droprocks.com this weekend, but I think I got much more (personal growth/learning) out of joining the team I did.

Eek, I imagine the dropbox guys would hate you for turning them into the RIAA's latest target

I'm pretty sure all the recent posts showing the RIAA how to determine what files exist on dropbox are going to do a much better job of that than his pitch will.

I kinda assume that's why this functionality doesn't exist already -- that and some of the "missing"/desired dropbox API features.

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