<story><title>Avoid the “Apply to Present” and “Angel Pitch Contest” Event Scams</title><url>http://calacanis.com/2015/04/24/warning-avoid-the-apply-to-present-angel-pitch-contest-event-scams/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nakedrobot2</author><text>Web Summit and Paddy Cosgrave, I&amp;#x27;m looking at you here. This is their mode of operation exactly. They fooled me out of 1000 euro and packed me in like sardines with a bunch of other poor fools. It&amp;#x27;s a bad memory of a huge, overcrowded, scammy event where the only winner was the organizers. And their formula seems to be working which is the most depressing part.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>onion2k</author><text>It works because too many startup entrepreneurs don&amp;#x27;t understand what &amp;quot;getting feedback&amp;quot; actually means.&lt;p&gt;A stand at an event designed for startup entrepreneurs should only be a valid incentive if your market is startups. If you&amp;#x27;re doing &lt;i&gt;anything else&lt;/i&gt; then you&amp;#x27;re marketing to the wrong audience, which is a huge waste of time. Feedback only counts if it&amp;#x27;s from potential customers, or better yet, actual customers. Having 1000 people file past your stand saying &amp;quot;That&amp;#x27;s really clever and innovative&amp;quot; is a great ego boost - but that&amp;#x27;s all it is if they&amp;#x27;re not people who will buy what you&amp;#x27;re selling.&lt;p&gt;When you&amp;#x27;re building a startup you should &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; spend money getting to events where your customers are going to be. Go to those (often quite boring) events and &lt;i&gt;sell&lt;/i&gt; to people. Being in the same room as a startup celebrity is &lt;i&gt;far&lt;/i&gt; less valuable to your business than a even one single paying customer.&lt;p&gt;If you do that then you&amp;#x27;ll have no problem meeting investors. In fact, they&amp;#x27;ll come to you.</text></comment>
<story><title>Avoid the “Apply to Present” and “Angel Pitch Contest” Event Scams</title><url>http://calacanis.com/2015/04/24/warning-avoid-the-apply-to-present-angel-pitch-contest-event-scams/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nakedrobot2</author><text>Web Summit and Paddy Cosgrave, I&amp;#x27;m looking at you here. This is their mode of operation exactly. They fooled me out of 1000 euro and packed me in like sardines with a bunch of other poor fools. It&amp;#x27;s a bad memory of a huge, overcrowded, scammy event where the only winner was the organizers. And their formula seems to be working which is the most depressing part.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wavesum</author><text>Same experience here. The first they scout you through your website, and act as if they had done some research, and drop the bait of free booth, then they &amp;quot;vet&amp;quot; you over Skype and later let you know you&amp;#x27;re a winner.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;By charging big companies big money we can offer promising startups like you this opportunity for free&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;All you need to do is buy couple of tickets for 1500+ euros and the free booth is yours.&lt;p&gt;Ouch. But we&amp;#x27;ve come this far, maybe it&amp;#x27;s worth a shot...&lt;p&gt;When you get to the place you realize it&amp;#x27;s 500 startups like you, crammed shoulder to shoulder. Very few investors around...</text></comment>