Very interesting advice on how to make the most of the DemoPit. It seems like a complete scam to me - anyone not accepted into TC50 is invited to pay $3,000 for what will likely be nothing of value.
But if you take the approach this startup did, practice your pitch until it's rock-solid, then innocuously latch onto each passerby with a unique presentation, then you may actually end up with something of lasting value.
Even so, it's likely to end up a bitter disappointment for most, who I suspect are expecting much more from it.
Actually, a ticket to the event is $3k so we give these DemoPit tables away as a GIFT to the startups. They get a demo table for one day and TWO tickets. So, it's $6k worth of value...
HOWEVER, you have to be under $500k in angel startup to get them. so it's not like IBM or Google can buy them and put out Google Maps API or something.
Anyway, I understand being skeptical... the event business is filled with crooks like the DEMO conference which charge startups $5k for two minutes on stage or $20k for six minutes!!!
Mike and I started TechCrunch50 to destroy DEMO and that payola model. As a four-time startup founder/CEO I HATE folks asking me to pay... i came up with the idea for TC50 and pitched it to MIke to solve this problem.
If you were an east coast startup (or really from outside California) I could see the value, but if you are a startup in the Valley, it does not seem to really make sense. If you can't hustle and make the right connections, then what you are working on probably is not headed in the right direction.
We(nobodies from east coast) were a demopit company in 07. What it led us too was...
- Being featured on many of the high profiled tech blogs
- Being invited to present alongside MS & FB at an event
- Being selected into one of the incubators & some other things
Did it make our company a huge hit. No, but it indeed put us in the spotlight and made it easier to get press & some funding. Also, it was an amazing fun journey!
There are a TON of stories like that.... folks meet VCs, angels, partners, get press and find team members at the event. Networking is WELL worth it from my standpoint.
If you really want to participate TC50, you should try everything else. Talk yourself into TC50, leave a comment on every TechCrunch article for the next 14 days and ask for a ticket or an invite, wait in front of 635 8th Street and pitch to angel's you recognize the day of the conference, dress like a Janitor with an old college ID and a van to get in.
Invent something but do not spend 3K just to be on the DemoPit. The area no one cares about that day anyway. Leave the 3K in your bank account and be happy to have more runway, or get a freelancer to do "that thing" that will make your product that much better.
But if you take the approach this startup did, practice your pitch until it's rock-solid, then innocuously latch onto each passerby with a unique presentation, then you may actually end up with something of lasting value.
Even so, it's likely to end up a bitter disappointment for most, who I suspect are expecting much more from it.