

Ask HN: Would a product or pitch workshop be useful? - joshu

I've been thinking about doing a weekly product/demo/pitch workshop down in or around Palo Alto.<p>I'd probably limit it to 5ish pre-VC companies, and try to make sure they're mutually non-competitive so that everyone could hear everything. Perhaps a few post-VC entrepreneurs could also chip in advice.<p>Caveats: I've done exactly one company and had exactly one exit.<p>Do you think this would be useful/fun/interesting?
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wheels
I think a lot of it wouldn't depend on your level of coaching as much as your
level of honesty. Most of the time when you start pitching you just need
people to tell you how much of a 'tard you sound like and why nothing you're
saying makes sense or is relevant.

One thing I could see being problematic is getting too nerdy of a slant on
such a gathering since it's pretty easy to slip into pitching tech rather than
pitching a business. I can remember seeing business folks' eyes rolling into
the backs of their heads when I started by asking, "Do you know what a graph
is?"

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joshu
> your level of honesty

I assure you, this won't be a problem.

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lacker
It would be interesting to watch these pitches online afterwards. Record it
and post them!

Also the quality of the pitches will be dependent on who you can attract,
which will be dependent on how many people hear about this. So you should
market it a little and make sure to title posts like this something like
"Founder of Del.icio.us Starts Pitching Workshop" instead of being understated
about your one company. ;-)

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joshu
Yeah, although I can imagine some poeple would want some level of
confidentiality.

I actually largely abhor pitches, so maybe it would just be product/demo
workshops? I don't know.

It remains to be seen how much of what I did was skill vs luck...

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sh1mmer
They might even get offers from a wider range of people than attend if it was
broadcast. That's the point of TC50 right? To give people a chance to pitch in
public.

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wheels
You don't learn to pitch at TC50. You learn to pitch by having done it 500
times before you're on that stage. What's being talked about here are some of
the first dozen of that 500. Recording your pitches for yourself is a good
idea. Trying to draw public attention to them is not.

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markessien
Why don't you do a music + pitch combination. Get an unknown band to play, get
a series of people to present their idea. It would be more interesting than
just a bunch of unversed, poor presenters reading powerpoint slides. If people
get used to the idea of a pitch being infotainment, they will start to do them
correctly. A pitch is an advertisment, and and advertisement should not be a
guy just reading some text.

The mixed audience will also give the presenters feedback from non-technical
people.

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joshu
lol wut?

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menloparkbum
I actually like the idea of adding music or something else that's weird and
quirky to the workshop. A bunch of guys pitching their startups sounds like
every other tech event that already exists in the Bay Area.

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dustineichler
I was just investigating this exact thing in the last few weeks. I'm pretty
much ready to start pitching, but i could definitely use a forum to try it on
first.

Please set this up!

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joshu
I'm also wondering if this should be a review instead of a workshop.

I'll start looking for some space, I suppose.

