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Ask HN: Presenting a company at TechCrunch50. Virtue/Vice?

6 points by agrinshtein ↗ HN
The TechCrunch50 is coming up in August sometime and the deadline to accept an application is at the end of June.

I am considering submitting my startup company for a shot at presenting at the TechCrunch50. However, I am thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of it and am somewhat ambivalent which way to turn. I would like to get HN thoughts on this.

Pros: (1) You get a lot of publicity. (2) Resulting in which...you can get a nice amount of venture capital. (3) It sounds fun. (4) It gives your team a date to perform by as well as something to look forward to. (5) Anymore I havent thought of?

Cons: (1) You open yourself to the competition by giving out your idea. (2) What if you don't need VC...is there a need? benefit? (3) Can you think of anymore?

Thanks.

4 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 18.2 ms ] thread
JacobAldridge
(2) VC - When my firm began, one of our commercial goals was that a specific market leader would want to buy us. We would never, ever sell to them - we just wanted them to want to buy us. Maybe you should treat VC in the same way - have VC firms wanting to invest in you, even if you don't need or want it. You can always make a decision when that's a reality, rather than now.

Cons (1) - It's obviously a generalisation, but if you've had the idea then chances are other businesses have too. TechCrunch50 won't expose your idea to the competition - they've either already had it or it's not relevant to them. Getting the publicity, however, links your business to this idea, which gives you the competitive advantage.

The only other Con I can think of is that you won't be ready, and will present poorly. But I imagine if that's the case, you won't get selected, and the Pros (3) and (4) will outweigh that concerns.

Conclusion - Virtue, good luck, kick ass.

agrinshtein
Thanks!

Great pointers. I especially liked your first one.

"Getting the publicity links your business to the idea" -- also a great point.

vaksel
1) Forget about it, chances are you suck at doing diligence and there is a startup doing EXACTLY what you are doing. If not, there are a dozen other startups doing the same exact thing. If not, the second you go live someone will start copying you anyways.

2) Publicity, you think you just throw up a page and you suddenly get a million users? TC50 will get you that first million or so users to try your thing out, and who knows maybe some of them will come back. Then a lot of other publications tend to copy paste ideas, so if you get covered by Techcrunch for TC50, you'll get a few dozen other mainstream articles to cover you.

I'd say the main con for techcrunch 50, is that there are 50 other startups being covered at the same time. So while you may have some awesome product, it will get ignored since everyone will be covering and talking about the new Mint.

paul7986
For us as semi-finalist (Tc40) it helped get the ball rolling; press, other public opportunities and people talking about our product, as well landing seed money!

You have nothing to lose and if selected or invited you should go without much hesitation, especially if such will be your first experience dealing with Silicon Valley world!