

Early Stage Startup Founders Should Probably Not Attend SXSW - dmor
http://refer.ly/early-stage-startup-founders-should-reconsider-attending-sxsw-this-year/c/fe11402e869411e2bfbf22000a1db8fa

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anemitz
It's worthwhile to point out many people don't attend SXSW sessions but
instead go to Austin during a combination of either Interactive or Music and
just bum around the city, meet new people, and hack on their own projects.
IMHO, the value of SXSW is not the conference sessions, but the change of
environment.

If you're resourceful, you can do Austin during SXSW on a very tight budget (<
$500 including airfare) and get a lot of value out of it by not being sucked
into the conference mentality. My recommendation is to hack during the day
while sessions are going on and go out and have fun at night.

If you're careful with your time and energy, traveling to Austin during SXSW
can be a big productivity and morale boost.

~~~
bredren
This. SXSW can be an incredible time. Even if you're promoting a startup,
music and film are great.

Austin is gorgeous this time of year. (except last year for the several days)
You can wake up and sit in the yard at 9am in shorts and a t-shirt.

I've done SXSW by sleeping on floors, having a company pay for expensive
dinners and lodgings and using startup capital to cooperatively rent a house
as well.

You can learn a lot of great tricks there, such as how to get into events
without a ticket. For example, last year I was able to quickly meet and join
some vip's to catch A$AP Rocky on the spotify roof party. That won't happen
again.

Also, they are kind of tired now but Fun. played the relatively small icanhaz
party months before they were on repeat on the radio. Reptar did a tiny free
show they only announced on their FB page behind a bar in the sun. You can
feel the energy in crowds at shows at SXSW and they are very cool and tuned
in.

You can also make key introductions. We learned about an event critical to our
startup that ultimately led to a pitch competition and an award and publicity.
We also met the fellow who helped us with our banking partner there.

The press from this year about how startups aren't putting capital there is
good. If you don't have the traction already, you're unlikely to get it out
there. And if you haven't raised a solid amount of money yet, you should be
making it last. But people should still go!

Notice, I haven't said anything about actually attending the conference.

Sitting at home working on code, going over customer feedback is no
substitute, nor necessarily a better use of time and money.

------
kevinelliott
The simple fact that if your startup has minimal capital (if any at all) and
no revenue should indicate that spending a small fortune (potentially
$2,500-10,000) to travel to a week long party (that's what SXSW is anyway)
will only put you further into the debt hole that you need to make up for
later. Who cares if you make $5,000 later on, because you're effectively still
negative.

Some of these ego-whores are at every meetup, conference, mixer, breakfast,
etc. Imagine how much of the startup's capital they are effectively wasting.
All in the favor of "networking" --- 90% of which never pans out because most
people at these events are all talk.

Sure, the events are fun, but they're not as productive as hunkering down and
writing some code, reaching out to a potential customer, showing off a demo,
or reviewing some feedback.

~~~
ryguytilidie
But I thought the reason you become a founder is week-long parties? :(

------
marcosdumay
No. We should either get our heads down and code or get our feet dirty and go
find some customers.

As a side note, we shouldn't be reading Hacker News either. Much less
commenting.

------
inthewoods
What happened to Refer.ly? When did they pivot to being some sort of magazine?

~~~
brianbreslin
Wasn't refer ly some affiliate marketing system for startups before?
<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/refer-ly>

~~~
joelrunyon
It seems to have been turned into an affiliate marketing driven blog?

(someone please correct me if I'm wrong)

------
codex
I think this an example of the typical maturation process of a young
entrepreneur, which is characterized by initial focus on cargo-cult
superficialities and glam, optimism born of naiveté, and Dunning–Kruger-like
and overconfidence in one's own abilities.

This is typically followed by the realization that business is tough, the
failure rate is high, and you are probably lucky enough or special enough to
be the exception.

But this experience is still valuable; in many cases, success comes from
experience, but experience comes from failure. And until YC eventually
saturates the planet with 10,000 ex-founders, it looks good on the resume (for
now).

------
pseut
Double-check your code for the stalker social networking buttons; they're
about mid-screen on my ipad. Even if they were well-positioned they'd be
annoying, but as it is they're super annoying.

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rms
I would definitely recommend going to SXSW for the music instead of the
networking, as a vacation.

------
chunknug
first magazine banned on Pinterest? lol
<http://pinterest.com/source/refer.ly/>

------
yukoncornelius
How does this self-righteous non-sense make the front page, again. Just
because Danielle was a "conference ho" doesn't mean everyone falls into the
trap.

~~~
dmor
1\. I was a conference ho when I was an employee of a startup with product
market fit and substantial revenue.

2\. I was running a test to see why we are getting modded of the front page -
this post made the front page without a single vote from friends, coworkers,
etc. before getting bumped.

3\. There are tons of entrepreneurs falling into this trap - they are all
packing for their flights right now, hopefully they saw this post while there
is still time.

~~~
philco
I've been suffering from the same thing. The posts that make the front page
stay on for a while, then get modded off without notice.

~~~
dmor
Do you have any examples of submissions where it is happening?

~~~
bluehat
Happened to me this morning with the Coca-Cola thing. Was around #6, got
bombed to the mid-80's

