
Jason Calacanis Drops The Hammer on YoungStartups for Charging Fees to Present - rpledge
http://ryanborn.net/jason-calacanis-drops-the-hammer-on-youngstartups/
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sanj
I had exactly this interaction with YoungStartups and Alex N.

We went back and forth a few times: I felt that "Over the years, I've learned
that paying to present is perceived by investors as a very poor use of funds,
especially early on."

And he disagreed.

But my favourite bit was when Fred Wilson weighed in:

[http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/05/conferences.html#disqus_thre...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/05/conferences.html#disqus_thread)

If I may quote: "Its nuts to pay to present."

But Alex was persistent: "There's no point of arguing but there's no doubt
that he's wrong."

It's good to see the silly fight continue.

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johnswamps
That is a nearly unreadable way to post e-mails.

~~~
audiomicro
sorry - WP was having issues with Chrome yesterday...everything should look
better now.

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docgnome
Jason Calcanis is rude to someone he doesn't like. In other news, the sun rose
today.

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chrischen
There was another post on hn a while back where some investor justified
charging a fee. basically he said you can either be flooded with applications
and not have enough time to give each applicant a thorough evaluation, or
charge a fee guarantee them their proposal is evaluated properly.

I thought it was a good point. But I guess it depends on how easy it is for a
good idea to be found amongst all the noise.

~~~
rpledge
$1500 seems like a lot to charge to filter an application. Let's say it takes
an hour to read one application (which seems high to me on average, I suspect
the bad ones only take a few minutes to weed out), that's a pretty steep rate!

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jmm
Jason would probably defend his manner as east coast shoots from the hip, no
bullshit. But that's a joke. He's just rude and coasts have nothing to do
with.

Passion is a good thing, and Jason's passion here is warranted, but the guy
needs a bit of a filter.

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rfrey
Who thinks "please kill yourself" is funny?

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mikeyur
I tend to prefer DIAF or "die in a fire"

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ohashi
DIACF, I like to add the c, for chemical.

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thingsilearned
Its an brilliant model if it works. See 10 companies, put 15k into one of
them. Basically investing for free!

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minalecs
im not familiar with youngstartups, but how is the fee they are charging
different from when like techcrunch charges to be in the demopit of tc50 ?

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simonk
The demopit is more like exhibiting at a conference, the 50 companies present
for free.

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bgoodman
are you like a startup? if you are, you're the first one who ever thought
exhibiting is worth more than presenting. is hilarious to see you stick up for
calicANUS. paying to exhibit is far less valuable then preseting

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jxcole
Reading about that guy who left Mahalo last week made me think that Calcanis
was a bit of a jerk. After reading this I have decided that he must just be
really intense all the time.

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sh1mmer
Even if he's right, Jason proves yet again that being an asshole isn't cool.

I makes me sad that anyone feels this is an appropriate way to conduct
themselves.

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stevenbrianhall
+1 for that. If I were published as much as Calacanis is (on HN, anyway), I
would find a way to conduct myself in a manner that displayed at least a hint
of tact and professionalism.

That still counts for something, right? There's got to be a way to still make
a point and not look crazy.

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petercooper
It's worth noting that some of the other perennial trolls who get their stuff
posted endlessly on HN are often just as bad. I think people here and
elsewhere actually encourage it, just in order to see a little "drama" in the
scene.

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wakeupthedawn
This is definitely one of the few positive things Jason Calacanis does.

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DenisM
IIRC in his Mixergy interview Aaron Wall suggested Calacanis could be doing
this simply to rake in "crusader" points because those will come in real handy
should Google or anyone else try to step on Jason's controversial business.

In other words it's very handy to be wrapped into a flag, especially when it
doesn't cost you all that much.

~~~
_pius
That's assigns a pretty absurd amount of cynicism and mustache twirling to
Jason Calacanis. Doesn't really fit Occam's Razor.

Simplest explanation: dude thinks that paying to present is bullshit; dude
says so.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
That is absurd... I've been doing conference since 1996 when I was publishing
Silicon Alley Reporter are there are three reasons:

1\. I enjoy hosting debates and dialogues with really smart people. I mean, I
come in to HN and get my ass kicked by 4/5 posts just to engage the debate..
it's what I do.

2\. They make money. Lots of money if you do them right.

3\. Open Angel Forum is designed to a) kick the sh@#$%t out of these bastards,
b) get me into amazing angel investing deals (i'm doing 10 deals a year.. in
fact, I'm almost at 10 deals in 2010 and we're not even half way there... so I
might do 15 deals in 2010). c) make modest profit.

Aaron is on a massive jihad against me... which is great. It's only motivated
the Mahalo team to get better and better... his attacks on Mahalo got the team
focused. At the end of the day the changes he demand we make--and we made--
rose revenue 50% while reducing traffic by 15%. That's a deal I would make any
day. I'm going to do an epic presentation on Aaron's free advice in another
six months. it's going to be sick.

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Alex3917
Are you kidding? $1500 probably barely covers their expenses. It might not be
the best way to raise money, but it's hard to begrudge the organizers for
charging such a nominal amount.

~~~
aditya
So, then, how does openangelforum do it for free?

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Alex3917
They are charging service provides (lawyers, recruiters, etc.) $1500 to
attend. So why is it wrong to charge startups $1500 for the chance at getting
funding, whereas it's perfectly ok to charge lawyers $1500 for the chance of
landing a client?

Also, have you ever actually hosted a conference? Getting this many people in
a room is a full time job that takes months, in addition to monetary costs.
The idea that other people should be obligated to work for you for free is
ridiculous.

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rpledge
The point here is that service providers (lawyers, etc...) have money and will
profit from connections with entrepreneurs. The startups are trying to raise
money so charging them for the privilege is wrong. The organizers of these
conferences that charge are exploiting people who desperately want to fulfil
their dreams.

~~~
bgoodman
exploiting people? r u kidding me? are you a socialist? shoudl lawayers offer
their services to startups for free? shoudl a VC offer startups money for no
equity? should your landlord offer you free office space?

What a bunch of nonsense! is this Jason CalicANUS?

