

Ask HN: Would you pay to win an award? - toast76

Our company has been up for a few of awards over the past 12 months. Great stuff I know....but I was born a sceptic. In the words of Groucho Marx, "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept people like me as a member". The self-deprecating pessimist in me says that any award I'm likely to win is most likely not worth winning. We've let most of them slide, haven't bothered filling out the paperwork, or just "forgot" to even respond.<p>These are typically the types of awards where you get to pitch your idea to a room of "investors". You then go to a fancy cocktail party where you get to schmooze and chat up people with wallets full of cash. Of course, to be honoured with this award you need to cough up cold hard cash. In this case $2k.<p>Now I don't know if actors have to pay for a seat at the Oscars, but to me something doesn't seem quite right about paying to receive an award. I can understand that these things are part of a larger conference and that there are costs associated with running such conferences, but it seems odd to charge the people you want to appear.<p>What this says to me is that the people who end up receiving awards are the ones who are willing to cough up $2000 to do a sales pitch, not necessarily the most deserving. Perhaps we're only even in contention because 400 people before us said, "screw that!"<p>In short, is an award you have to pay to receive worth winning? Is paying $2000 to speak to a room of investors worth the admission price? Are these things just thinly veiled scams designed to take advantage of those desperate enough for capital to fall for it? And most importantly, has anyone attended one of these things and actually found it at all beneficial?
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cperciva
_Is paying $2000 to speak to a room of investors worth the admission price?
Are these things just thinly veiled scams designed to take advantage of those
desperate enough for capital to fall for it?_

Look at it this way: Are the sort of investors who attend such events the sort
of investors you want to attract the attention of?

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olefoo
I don't know if these are all scams; but anyone who is charging you for access
to investors is not acting in your best interests. It's one thing to be asked
for a contribution towards covering an events expenses (room rental, catering,
etc.) but for $2000 dollars you could host a schmoozefest that would probably
draw more people than this "awards ceremony". And it would be your event and
your list of invitees, etc.

Listen to your instincts on this one. Your time and your money is better spent
elsewhere.

~~~
toast76
"Listen to your instincts".

That should be the stock response to just about any question here on HN as
you're absolutely correct.

To me, it doesn't "feel" right. I've done the maths, and can see it is
certainly more about profit than getting products in front of people.

In reality, I'm not sure that we're even looking for investment...we need
mentoring more than money!

