<story><title>What being hopelessly single taught me about pitching tech celebs</title><url>http://www.geekwire.com/2011/hopelessly-single-taught-pitching-tech-celebs</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>pg</author><text>Maybe my case is unusual because YC takes applications online, but I don&apos;t like it when people walk up to me and &quot;pitch&quot; me by reciting some preformulated speech about their startup.  I can almost never understand what they&apos;re talking about.  And it makes me feel like a target, in much the same way it probably does to women when guys walk up to them and recite preformulated pickup lines.&lt;p&gt;The unit of conversation with a &quot;tech celeb&quot; need not be a pitch.  I&apos;d suggest trying an ordinary conversation instead.  I don&apos;t know about other people, but it would definitely work better with me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zach</author><text>This is a tough thing for founders.  I was in this situation earlier this year after I won a ticket to Google I/O.  One of the events was a Google Ventures mixer, which turned out to be a &quot;speed-dating&quot; event.  I was excited to meet Joe Kraus, who gave my favorite Startup School speech ever, but what to do in this format?  Launch into a cooked-up pitch?  But I wanted to talk to Joe, not use him for target practice based on his job.  But wasn&apos;t that kind of what I was expected to do?  Still, what a borderline-presumptuous missionary tack to take with someone I respect.  But wouldn&apos;t I get over that knowing teammates were counting on me to get us funding any way we could?&lt;p&gt;At last, I decided to skip the pitch, chatted very pleasantly with Joe, got some great advice and his card.  In retrospect, that was really about as much as I should expect in a five-minute sit-down.  He seems twice as much of a great guy as I thought he was.  The pitch can wait until the next time we cross paths or it&apos;s been a lot better tested.  But I better recognize now how awkward these situations can get.</text></comment>
<story><title>What being hopelessly single taught me about pitching tech celebs</title><url>http://www.geekwire.com/2011/hopelessly-single-taught-pitching-tech-celebs</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>pg</author><text>Maybe my case is unusual because YC takes applications online, but I don&apos;t like it when people walk up to me and &quot;pitch&quot; me by reciting some preformulated speech about their startup.  I can almost never understand what they&apos;re talking about.  And it makes me feel like a target, in much the same way it probably does to women when guys walk up to them and recite preformulated pickup lines.&lt;p&gt;The unit of conversation with a &quot;tech celeb&quot; need not be a pitch.  I&apos;d suggest trying an ordinary conversation instead.  I don&apos;t know about other people, but it would definitely work better with me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>donalddesantis</author><text>Thanks for the comment, Paul. Blog posts are funny, b/c you have to boil down a bunch of complex ideas into something people can grok while skimming. I actually don&apos;t like the word &quot;pitch&quot; or think of myself as someone who really pitches things very well at all. But it does describe sharing your ideas with other people, capturing it in a single word. A more accurate description would be &quot;sharing your vision&quot; or something similar.&lt;p&gt;If there&apos;s one thing I&apos;ve learned over the years (whether meeting new startup people or trying to get a date) it&apos;s been the &quot;don&apos;t be a douchebag&quot; rule. Treat people like people. The best &quot;pitch&quot; is actually not a pitch. It&apos;s authentic, where you&apos;re talking to someone who you &lt;i&gt;honestly&lt;/i&gt; believe will be interested in what you&apos;re doing, and you&apos;re sharing something you&apos;re sincerely excited about.&lt;p&gt;The last person you want to be is one of the &quot;Jersey shore meatheads&quot; trying to dry hump some poor woman out on the dance floor (to harken back to my earlier analogy). :)</text></comment>