TechCrunch50: $3.5 million x Disingenuous | Hacker News Reader

TechCrunch50: $3.5 million x Disingenuous

inquisitr.com

35 pointsterpua10 comments

Riley makes an excellent point in this paragraph:

"But here’s my issue, and this is what I told Stone when I was asked: if this is really all about startups, and doing the best for startups, they wouldn’t be running it the same time as DEMO, and they wouldn’t be trying to "kill" DEMO as Jason Calacanis so nicely puts it. If they were serious about putting startups first, they would be focused only on creating more opportunities for startups to be discovered, and they’d allow their event to stand on its own merits without the need to constantly trash talk the opposition. Are we not better off as a web community having both DEMO and TechCrunch50?"

It would seem that both conferences could co-exist profitably and benefit the startup community. See also http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=154424

I understand that they do have to charge money to attend the event and for the "demo" pit. The obvious reason is the money to cover expenses and profit, but another reason is to increase the barrier of entry with pricing.

They are becoming victims of their own success and have some need to keep the floodgates from coming down on them and taking away from the value they intend on delivering. Too many sponsors, too many products and an overloaded venue (which would also make their wifi gripe even worse) all would make the conference worse.

If they were truly out for the startups and themselves... turn this event into a funding opportunity, where a larger sum of the money is not just given to the winner, but turned into some sort of angel funding. Arrington and Calacanis are avid investors, so put some of these profits to a mutually beneficial cause. That would be a change to the model! Otherwise, they will turn into another DEMO.

Our startup didn't make the cut, so perhaps I'm subconsciously biased. But even so, I think that TC50 is an acceptable venue, and they're fairly upfront with everything, as far as I can tell.

I agree with them DEMO drama - but I'm one to avoid social drama. Jason Calacanis, it seems, isn't. That's fine, he's the founder of the show, more power to him.

And as long as there's competition, everyone will benefit to some degree. Let's just try to lower the drama level a bit.

After reading this, it sounds like they both TC50 and DEMO need to take a leaf out of SeedCamp/YC's book and have (free) demo days actually geared towards startups rather than as a conference-type event focused on making them profit.

This has the credibility of Steve Ballmer writing a review of the new iphone.

Is Duncan Riley bitter about something? Say what you may, Riley did put out a few articles in his techcrunch days that were not that great. And the name of his techcrunch clone kind of sucks.

I'm no fan of either of them, but I don't think it's appropriate to publicly write a bunch of weak arguments against someone trying to make money by selling a service that people obviously think is useful.

I think its "appropriate" to say whatever the hell you want on your own blog. And I think that Michael Arrington has put out more than a few articles that were "not that great."

Duncan Riley is the Jon Katz of the second Bubble.

I'm laughing at the fact that I understand your analogy, but I don't think its true. In my opinion, the punditocracy could use a little bile aimed its way, because it's fat, insiderish, and generally has become what it sought to overthrow. Jon Katz had no bile - he was more of a Steve Gillmor, did too much drugs, irrelevant hippie type.

Of course, I (mostly) love valleywag, too.

I'm glad you understand. I was afraid that I was the only one left from those good old days.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com