

How to crash any Conference, Demo-day, and VIP Party - sashaeslami
https://medium.com/useful-now-startups/3d28505d7e82

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mdturnerphys
_I wrote this article as a resource for people, like cash-strapped founders
and students, who have a higher purpose in life but temporarily cannot afford
to attend events due to lack of money or the proper contacts._

How is making another photo-sharing app a "higher purpose in life"?

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sashaeslami
Check out this article and you will find out how Eversnap is making an impact
in the world: [https://medium.com/startup-founders-
entrepreneurs/12fbdeb6a5...](https://medium.com/startup-founders-
entrepreneurs/12fbdeb6a593)

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thomson
I'm certainly a bit sympathetic to wanting to attend informative conferences
and events that charge way too much (even for 'founder-friendly' badges), but
I'm not sure if the author ever justifies breaking into both 500 and YC's demo
days, which are events reserved for investors and press.

~~~
sashaeslami
Please see this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7606587)

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SheepSlapper
This article is a long winded way of saying either:

a) Steal a badge b) Social engineer your way into the event, or c) Social
engineer a free badge

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sashaeslami
That's a great way of structuring it. Not sure what exactly "Social engineer"
means? Schmooze?

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battani
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_\(security\))

~~~
sashaeslami
Got it. Makes sense.

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scotu
A good way for the author to be catched doing it from now on... :)

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7Figures2Commas
So I'm supposed to trust my most precious photos to a company run by someone
who thought Wedding Crashers was a documentary?

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sashaeslami
Wedding Crashers was entertaining but not realistic :P

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7Figures2Commas
At least Wedding Crashers was entertaining. Your post, not so much.

According to your company's AngelList page, your startup has funding, you
generated $500,000 in revenue last year on 80% margins, and you're profitable
on $15,000/month in paid subscription revenue.

Notwithstanding the fact that the numbers don't add up (I don't see how you
produce 80% margin on $500,000 in revenue while supporting an 8 person
engineering team and paying yourself and co-founder a salary, or how a
thriving photo sharing service that claims 270,000 users only has "over 8
million photos & videos uploaded"), if you're profitable and doing as well as
claimed, why are you engaging in unethical and possibly illegal behavior to
save a few hundred dollars here and there on conference tickets? Not only
should you be able to afford the tickets, any highly-profitable company like
the one you supposedly run usually welcomes business expenses like these.

~~~
sashaeslami
You are assuming that we crashed those events when we were profitable.
Incorrect.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
I get it. You steal only when you need to.

I guess it never occurred to you that in choosing to showcase the techniques
you used to attend paid events without paying for them, you have merely
demonstrated your character, or more appropriately, lack thereof.

Some words of wisdom: the number of people who have lied, cheated and stolen
their way to success is much greater than the number who have lied, cheated
and stolen their way to success while being foolish or unrepentant enough to
brag about it publicly.

~~~
sashaeslami
Steal? Please. The poor founder or student who crashes the event, he couldn't
have afforded it in the first place, so wasn't gonna attend that event
anyways. Instead, now that he has attended that event, has more knowledge and
network, goes onto creating something better that can help the world.

Look at the big picture brother!

Sometimes it doesn't hurt to bend the "norms" if you're not hurting anyone and
in fact, you will use the new opportunity created as something that can help
the rest of the world.

An example,

we crashed a wedding almost three years ago, and as a result, we thought of a
way to help wedding couples capture their guests' photos & videos.

Imagine, a wedding couple, that just had their wedding the night before, the
next day they are in the airport and on their way to their honeymoon, they
open their Eversnap app and they see all the guests' fun photos & videos from
the night before.

They get an immense amount of joy from that.

In addition to that moment of joy those photos and videos are what is going to
strengthen their bond 10 years from now, when they look back and they remember
the best night of their lives. That results in a better marriage, therefore, a
better family, and therefore better kids, and therefore successful kids that
will do good in their life and make the world a better place!

To date, over 15,000 weddings have used Eversnap to collect their photos &
videos.

Now, what was the cost of creating 15,000 happy couples who will have
successful kids? Crashing a wedding. Who did it hurt? Who did it steal from?
I'd happily pay that price anyday if it means that I can make a global impact
and create something better in people's lives.

& that's just weddings. Now we've had over 100,000 group experiences where
people are collecting the complete stories of what happened during their group
experience and sharing it with each other. What does that mean? That means now
for the first time ever people can easily document their group trips, parties,
anniversaries, graduations, mitzvahs, from everyone's perspective. But the
most amazing thing that we see is that people start having a deeper bond with
each other now that they have documented and shared their group experience
between themselves. What does that mean? That means documenting history &
creating a stronger bond between people's families and friends. Why is
creating a stronger bond important? Human beings are social animals, the value
of the whole is bigger than the sum of individuals. A stronger bond means,
stronger friendships, stronger families, more good deeds, more happiness, and
more opportunities to happiness for more people in their lifetime.

What was the cost? Crashing a wedding. What was the benefit: Eversnap has made
270,000 people happier than they were ever before. And not only that, those
270,000 people will now share their happiness with millions of other people.
What's the goal of life anyways? Isn't it to make other people happy? Isn't it
to bring opportunities to people who've never had them before?

Please brother, look at the big picture.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
The poor founder or student who steals the car he couldn't afford wasn't going
to buy that car in the first place. Instead, now that he has a car, he can
drive to Sand Hill Road and get funding for his world-changing idea. Right?

If you lack the moral compass to understand that ends don't justify means, and
can't comprehend that by sneaking into a _paid_ event without paying you are
_stealing_ from others to benefit yourself, I pity you and anybody naive
enough to trust you, including your investors.

A person with an ounce of decency and any character whatsoever would not be
gloating about the fact that he lied, cheated and stole to gain access to what
wasn't his. He would be ashamed of his actions, not posting photos of
conferences he didn't pay to attend, after-parties he wasn't invited to and
liquor that wasn't purchased for his consumption. He would cringe at the
thought of encouraging others to use his tactics, which in your case include
"identity theft" (stealing another attendee's badge by representing that you
are that person).

You are not as smart, slick or persuasive as you apparently think you are. I
don't know if you truly believe your "I'm doing it to help the world bro!"
spiel, but here's some humble advice: if you mistake your ability to fool some
people some of the time for an ability to fool all people all of the time, you
will ultimately discover that you're only fooling yourself.

PS: I am most certainly _not_ your brother.

~~~
sashaeslami
7,figures,000 We agree to disagree.

The car example, is miss-using an analogy in an attempt to prove a point.
That's a logical fallacy. Also you use a lot of personal insults to drive a
point that you do not drive. But you seem to be a logical person in the other
HN posts's comments, so it must be the anger that is causing more of an
emotional response than a logical one. I'm really sorry to cause you anger.

and I know I'm going to get a -1 point for this comment, since I'm commenting
on the person and not the comment itself. But since you keep making emotional
responses, the issue is not the argument anymore but the source.

Unfortunately I rather spend my time in other ways that will benefit the world
than to argue in comments in circles and accumulate HN points that way. So
this will be my last comment to you. Feel free to reach out to me so we can
talk without hidden faces and names.

I wish you happiness. And a life where you can maximize your value-add to the
world, rather than just commenting on others' value-add.

Sasha

p.s. English is not my first language (hence the grammatical mistakes)

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jardson
Great article!

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HipstaJules
I saw someone familiar in the article

