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Ask HN: Am I a Sucker for Paying to Pitch at Web Summit?

2 points by zabramow ↗ HN
Our company was selected to pitch at Web Summit, but Web Summit doesn't give free tickets to attend. Is this standard and, even so, does it make sense for an early stage company to shell out all the cash to attend and pitch or is this for suckers only?

10 comments

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If I found the correct site on Google, I'd personally stay away just because they were awkward enough to have a timer count down to higher prices. Yuck.
domjbs
How much do you have to pay and how ready is your company to win a pitch?
jMyles
I'm not familiar with the event, but these two of the three questions that immediately sprang to my mind as well, with the third being: Who is the audience and how likely is it that their interests are already aligned with your product?
zabramow
We're in good pitching shape and it's definitely the right market. My thinking is that early stage companies should not be spending big money on conferences and it will all things considered run us 5K. I also think it's straight up disingenuous to have an application process if acceptance still means you have to shell out cash to participate.

The other side of this is spend money to make money.

dreamweapon
Sucker, no.

But if your idea is such that you have to pay to "pitch" it, then either your idea just isn't so hot... or you need to find the right community to pitch it to.

domrdy
Are you under 25 by any chance ? Last year they gave out some free tickets for 'coders under 25' and 'women coders'. It's a cool event (love the food summit) and seeing Richard Stallman was pretty exciting.
gyardley
Welcome to the events business, where someone will happily sell you a dream of fundraising / winning an award / getting media exposure for the low low price of as much as they can possibly extract from you.

Yes, the occasional company comes away from these cattle calls with more than they came in with - which is why this sort of scheme continues. But for every one that does, many more just come away with empty wallets. Talking to investors is free - I'd put the money towards bettering your product instead.

mtmail
We once got invited to an award ceremony to pick up a prize "top small company in section XY" and we'd still had to pay for attendance. I think that event company didn't even have a agenda other than a keynote and giving out prizes.
JSeymourATL
If I'm a true VC-- why would I want to see a pitch that everyone else is privy to? I find the real deal opportunities where others aren't looking.

Incidentally, highly recommend Oren Klaff's book Pitch Anything! > http://pitchanything.com/book/

leoncrutchley
Bottom line to a question like this is "it depends". Define yourself in advance what your hoped for return on investment is. eg new users, new investor leads, contacts, new hires, press, the story etc. And see how you perform against your benchmarks. I ran a small startup in London once that paid to pitch at Techcrunch startup alley in SF. Well it led indirectly to my startup getting acquired and moved from London to SF where i live now. So it was worth it, but that value didnt directly come from the conference. Had I not gone though, i'd not have made the contacts that led to this journey..good luck!