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Comment by morgante | Hacker News Reader

I still don't think many "savvy entrepreneurs" would/should turn to reality television for VC, but glad this ridiculous term got removed.

Any other VC who demanded equity just for a meeting would've been laughed out of town years ago.

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True but this isn't exactly a normal meeting. It's 10-15 minutes of television coverage in front of ~6 million potential customers. Estimates have put the value of that advertising at about 600k. 5% of one's company is actually a pretty good deal for a lot of small B2C businesses when you look at it that way. If you already have a product being sold and it would do well on a show like QVC then the deal was pretty good. If, on the other hand, your company is B2B, or too big, or the product isn't being sold yet, than it's a lot more questionable.

I'm glad they made the change. We'll probably start seeing a more diverse range of companies appear on the show.

Just to add to your post, I don't remember ever seeing anyone getting a deal at 5%. It's usually more around the 20-30% range, and sometimes with equity stakes on top of that.

The GP is referring to the equity given up just for being on the show (not the equity given up if a deal is made.)

I still don't think many "savvy entrepreneurs" would/should turn to reality television for VC

Looked at another way, it's instant exposure of your company to 6+ million viewers. Seems like a great deal in some circumstances.

I agree with freyer here. Unless you have a business that won't benefit (or will be harmed) from massive exposure I don't see the downside.

It's not just a meeting - it's advertising on national TV.

A small % could make sense for a start up selling consumer products, but probably not much else.

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