Hacker News Reader

Comment by SwellJoe | Hacker News Reader

That Mikey Arrington sure is a scrappy little thing, aint he?

Honestly, though, I can't believe anyone would pay to play at DEMO.

Well, to play devil's advocate:

Attendees looking to invest in new companies probably like DEMO because the presenters are convinced enough they have a great product that they'll come up with the funds to go there. They're showing both a solid demo and enough leadership/backing to procure the money to play.

At TechCrunch50, investors can see a different sort of startup. One who has a lot of potential, but may not have had the drive/opportunity to gather any real money in the first place.

From a purely investment risk perspective, companies that are already finding capital with a good idea and a good demo have more going for them than startups that merely have an idea and a good demo.

Because of this, perhaps VC firms (and big business partners) like DEMO more and angels/seed funds like TechCrunch 50 more.

(again, just playing devil's advocate here)

And, of course, the big gaping hole in that argument is that if you can effectively raise money to participate in DEMO, then you don't need DEMO's help with raising money.

I'd be curious to see a breakdown of success vs. failure from DEMO and TC50 launches. I'm betting, even without knowing anything about the selection criteria of either or having ever spent any time at all looking at the companies launching at either, that TC50 produces more success stories.

Hmmm...actually I just checked out the DEMO site...there's an awful lot of old companies "launched" at DEMO (RealNetworks, really!?!?).

So, now I not only can't believe anyone would pay to present at DEMO, I also can't believe anyone would be willing to sit through that kind of crapfest. It's just a bunch of ads. Why would anyone, particularly someone representing millions or billions of dollars, want to sit through a bunch of ads?

I just don't get it, obviously. Pretty swish website they have, though.

Edit: DEMO 09 appears to have had roughly half the participants as DEMO Fall 08. Perhaps the rules changed, or perhaps folks made the connection that it's not the best use of time/effort/money. I dunno.

> And, of course, the big gaping hole in that argument is that if you can effectively raise money to participate in DEMO, then you don't need DEMO's help with raising money.

That sounds a bit like a reflexive argument to my comment.

Conferences aside and all other things being equal-- if you were an investor, would you rather put your money in a team you know can already raise $20,000 if they need it versus someone with unknown skills/means in that area?

Surely it's not a negative. You know the old adage that most investors are happy to invest in companies that don't really need their money.

But of course, just because a company can raise $20k doesn't mean they don't need "real" money-- which is surely why they got the initial funds so they could demo and raise more.

Sure. I think your devil's advocate positions were quite well-reasoned. I'm just returning the favor. A few companies I respect have done DEMO. I don't think they're idiots, just because they wasted $20k on DEMO. Everybody makes mistakes. But, I really don't think I'd be willing to sit through that particular dog and pony show, if I were an investor.

It's not just about raising money for DEMO. A British startup I know launched there as their main market was the US, so overcoming the geographical barrier by throwing money at it really worked out for them. They raised VC investment in the UK after DEMO (but already had enough funding for the launch, clearly).

I could not disagree more.

"Attendees looking to invest in new companies probably like DEMO because the presenters are convinced enough they have a great product that they'll come up with the funds to go there."

Or they are desperate enough to pay $20,000 for some attention from the tech blogs and one month of hype with the VCs. All those online networks with "over X many angels and VC's" prey on the same kind of startups. Pay to pitch some angel network.

"At TechCrunch50, investors can see a different sort of startup. One who has a lot of potential, but may not have had the drive/opportunity to gather any real money in the first place."

Empirically incorrect. A lot of them have raised quite a bit of money before TC50.

"From a purely investment risk perspective, companies that are already finding capital with a good idea and a good demo have more going for them than startups that merely have an idea and a good demo."

True. But if your first two premises are wrong, this one is moot.

Definitely appreciate the playing devil's advocate -- this is not a personal attack.

> Empirically incorrect. A lot of them have raised quite a bit of money before TC50.

You can't say that statement is incorrect (and be right) as the devil's advocate said "may not have had the drive". The argument wasn't that TC50 companies have no investment, but that DEMO companies must have investment.

In other words, with DEMO you're assured that the companies had, at some point, $20k (and probably more if they can survive with paying a $20k fee). With TechCrunch50, the company only had to impress some judges with sweat and there was no guaranteed monetary bar they had to meet (though many do have money, of course).

So there's a guaranteed filter applied to every single presenter at a DEMO conference that the company had enough money to afford it-- which might be a filter that some larger scale investments/partners would prefer to be assured of to strip out most (if not all) solely bootstrapped companies that might not be companies they prefer in their portfolios.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com