Ten Free LAUNCH PAD tables from Hacker News Thread!

2/7/2011

For some sad reason HackerNews “dead-ed” my post giving 10 killer startups free tables at the LAUNCH Conference. We selected

The original thread is below (without formatting).

We selected these eight: http:www.fastcustomer.com, dietmanager.org, http://socmetrics.com, http://mysyncpad.com , http://www.facecash.com http://www.sporkhub.com http://www.twimbow.com/ and guideme.com, and need to select two more from the list below.

Which two would you select?

ALSO, we are giving away 10 tables on this QUORA questions: Which 10 startups seeking angel funding/press should we free tables to the @LAUNCH Conference?

best jason

*	[dead] Ask HN: What are ten HN startups I can give a free table to LAUNCH?
	81 points by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago \| 148 comments

Dear HN,

I’ve got 150k square feet for the LAUNCH conference in San Francisco (in two weeks on Feb 23/24). We have 100 table tops (cocktail tables) just like at the Techcrunch50 show available.

I’d like to give 10 free tables to the startups that ask and get voted up the most in this thread.

That’s a table, internet, electricity and three tickets to the event–on me!

Seriously, let’s pick 10 companies that could use exposure to VCs, press and angels (there are 300-400 VCs and Angels coming to the event, as well as over 100 press already registered).

Note: two folks in the expo area are going to get to take the stage at the event. They will be selected by grand jury members.

13 points by d3x 1 day ago | link [dead]

I was going to apply to launch but I will not be ready. I am a single founder that created dietmanager.org ( originally named digest.io ) to help me manage my diet. Since then I have pivoted to support 455 different diets and not just the one i use which is the Macrobiotic diet. I am not the kind of founder that will ever get into Y-Combinator but I have a track record of making cool and profitable products. I am currently in discussions with several diabetes foundations and this will allow me to offer my product to their members for free. I have listed some of the cool features below.

1. Text “Breakfast”, “Lunch”, “Dinner” or “Snack” and the site looks to see what diet you are on and gives you meal recommendations so u know what and where to eat in your area.

2. I use kpi’s that matter; instead of calorie counting I track how what you eat impacts your mood, focus, weight, sleep and energy levels

3. When users enter things into their food diary I pull all nutrient info from USDA food database so that I can alert users of any deficiency that I detect.

4. I have custom KPI’s for each diet e.g.: the paleo athletic diet uses data from run keeper and services like that to tell the user what they were eating when they had their best times and the Hacker Diet uses my github commits to tell me what foods make me most productive and what foods make me not very productive.

The system is not perfect but its getting better and better with the help of my beta testers. At the end of march I will have at least 3 beta testers using each diet and at that point I am going to open it all up to the public.

BTW: The video is the old digest.io video. I am doing a contract gig this week so that I can pay grumo to make one of those kick ass videos that they make to explain the service.

Edit: I forgot to mention that if you dont want to eat out all the time like me, the system also hooks you up w/ local cooks that will deliver meals for your specific diet and gives you recipes / grocery list so that you can cook. I cant cook so I never use this option but it does exist.

—–

1 point by d3x 1 day ago | link [dead]

If anyone would like to participate in the private beta please e-mail me your HN username and the diet you want to try and your location.

edit: im need location because some I dont have enough meal info to generate the recommendations in some places. For example the hacker diet is only available in NY and SF because if you live in Arkansas I probably dont have any cooks in my db in that area or any restaurants that have register meals for specific diets.

–thx, dex

—–

3 points by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago | link [dead]

sounds rad… email me jason@launch.is

—–

15 points by ekanes 1 day ago | link [dead]

Hey guys,

Waiting on hold sucks. You call, navigate the prompts to the right department and then wait on hold, listening to terrible music and reminders of your importance.

We want to spin that around.

Instead, you tell us who you want to talk to at Verizon (eg someone in the billing dept) and we’ll have them call you.

http://www.fastcustomer.com

In making it, we’ve tried to be guided by YC’s “make something useful” reminder, along with the importance of solving a real pain.

Created with Paul Singh (hn:paulsingh). We’d love your feedback, and please take it for a spin!

PS: We’re adding companies as quickly as possible, but if we’re missing one that you use, please let us know and we’ll bump it up the list.

Edited to improve elevator pitch win quotient.

—–

3 points by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago | link [dead]

genius…. love it…. email me jason@launch.is

—–

1 point by zippykid 17 hours ago | link [dead]

Paul, nice work, I needed to talk to Chase yesterday and this would’ve been awesome.. spent 20 minutes traversing their phone menu and listening to crappy hold musak.

—–

1 point by ryankelly 19 hours ago | link [dead]

I like this idea! I could use it just about every day. How will you monetize it?

—–

1 point by paulsingh 19 hours ago | link [dead]

Thanks! Haven’t figured out the monetization side yet (though we have a few ideas we’ll be testing soon) – we’re super focused on solving our users pain first.

—–

20 points by speek 1 day ago | link [dead]

Zazu’s (http://getzazu.com) heading over to the Bay Area from Boston right around then to meet people. We’d love to be there, it’d be an absolutely spectacular way to meet people!

Oh right, should probably tell y’all what we do: We’re building Jarvis from Iron Man — though we’re starting a little less grandiose and building the world’s most kickass alarm clock.

—–

2 points by blhack 1 day ago | link [dead]

That’s awesome! I’ve been daydreaming about building something like this for a while now .

Is it free? Is there a paid version where a real live person reads my message to me?

In fact, now I think I might hack this up to run as an timer on my laptop.

Where can I buy zazu?

—–

1 point by speek 1 day ago | link [dead]

There’s a free version of the app on the Android Marketplace that uses a TTS engine but we’re about to bust some magic up in that bitch so it doesn’t sound like an 80-year-old smoker (‘scuse my french). There might be a paid version coming up soon, depending on how some stuff tests. iPhone app is in the works (timeframe in the magnitude of weeks), so is blackberry. We’re trying to hit every platform — so we do want to live on your computer too.

—–

1 point by blhack 23 hours ago | link [dead]

Well be sure to post when you finish the iPhone version, I’ll be first in line to buy it .

Out of curiosity, will you be able to activate the alarm even if I don’t have the app “open”?

—–

4 points by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago | link [dead]

Zazu…. your stuff is so hot. You’re one of the ten tables!

email me and I will set it up! jason@launch.is

—–

1 point by speek 1 day ago | link [dead]

Just shot you an email. Gracias señor.

—–

5 points by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago | link [dead]

Very cool description!

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3 points by drewvolpe 1 day ago | link [dead]

I’ve been playing with your app and you’ve got my vote. It’s fun to have HN read aloud while I’m eating breakfast. Good luck!

—–

3 points by speek 1 day ago | link [dead]

We’ve got some major stuff we’re about to launch, so keep your eyes peeled

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1 point by jeffcody 1 day ago | link [dead]

Cool – we are making an Android TV, but no Android market access as of yet – I’d love to be able to bundle something like this in the TV. Let me know if interested.. tx

—–

2 points by dwowens 1 day ago | link [dead]

I can’t wait to test the iPhone version.

—–

2 points by brendanhsu 1 day ago | link [dead]

Super sweet! keep it up

—–

2 points by cmeiklejohn 1 day ago | link [dead]

Cool!

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1 point by ryanwaggoner 1 day ago | link [dead]

We launched http://21times.org on HN in November to help developers build and launch an app in 30 days. Subscribers get brief daily lessons pushed to them via email and can track their progress with a single click in the email.

More than 1200 developers have taken the challenge with fantastic engagement scores (95% completed and ~35% reached their goal), and very positive feedback asking for more courses. We’re currently working on the next series of courses and some social motivation features to improve those engagement scores even more. We’re happiest when our users succeed at reaching their goal, and all of our development efforts are built around that target.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the great feedback and encouragement we’ve received from HN, and we’d love the opportunity to share what we’re building with a wider audience.

—–

6 points by simonk 1 day ago | link [dead]

Rhino Accounting (http://www.rhinoaccounting.com) – Free web based accounting for small businesses that integrates with Google Apps.

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1 point by aquark 23 hours ago | link [dead]

I’ve been looking for a web based accounting solution … but I can’t tell from your site what features you actually have. Do you support multiple currencies, budgets?

How do you intend to monetize it with an ‘always free’ model?

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5 points by toisanji 1 day ago | link [dead]

I’d love to get a table at LAUNCH. We are doing PR as a service to help startups be able to do pr effectively so that they can focus on building their core product. The site is http://socmetrics.com

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1 point by toisanji 23 hours ago | link [dead]

socmetrics helps you find bloggers to target when preparing your campaigns. It takes time to read all their posts and figure out what’s relevant to personalize each email. On the blogger side, they hate getting pitches that’s not relevant or impersonal. We want to help both sides get what they want:more buzz and more targeted product pitches they might actually want to write about.

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1 point by amirnathoo 1 day ago | link [dead]

I’m a paying customer and really excited about what these guys are doing. Am sure they’d get a lot of interest at launch.

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1 point by digiru 22 hours ago | link [dead]

I’ve used socmetrics. I’m a beta customer and being able to search and find influencers according to topic is awesome!

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2 points by conesus 1 day ago | link [dead]

NewsBlur, http://www.newsblur.com, is a free web-based visual RSS feed reader with intelligence.

NewsBlur is a RSS feed reader like Google Reader, but it has three distinct advantages:

* Shows the original site (you have to see it to believe it)

* Hides stories you don’t want to read based on tags, keywords, authors, etc.

* Highlights stories you want to read, based on the same criteria.

It’s a very original take on RSS feed reading. It’s also being built by a sole indie developer as open-source software: http://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur.

It’s freemium, with premium accounts costing $12/year for unlimited feeds, faster updates, River of News, and access to future features like the iPhone app.

It’s entirely self-funded, but it very well could become more. And it’s already profitable (but most of that is going to paying for servers). Nearly 10,000 users, hundreds of daily users, and lots of very happy folks using it. But there’s so much further to go and to build.

Having a table at LAUNCH would be an excellent way to meet potential investors. I’m entirely technical, but good tech means more good tech, so it’s also possible to meet more developers, too.

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2 points by StavrosK 1 day ago | link [dead]

Huh. I think I just found my new RSS reader, good job.

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1 point by Kilimanjaro 1 day ago | link [dead]

Reminds me of bloxor in the early days of feed readers, good ol’ days

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3 points by maxklein 1 day ago | link [dead]

I don’t have a startup myself, but I nominate Dustin Curtis’ LifePath (http://lifepath.me). It’s not launched, but it looks cool.

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3 points by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago | link [dead]

Dustin really hates me…. but I wouldn’t let that effect his participation in any way.

Dustin: email me for demo if you are interested in being on stage and/or being in the LAUNCH Pad/fka demo pit.

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2 points by bluegene 1 day ago | link [dead]

But that’s just a landing page, not a product. We(at least, I) don’t even have an idea what it is

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1 point by geoffclapp 1 day ago | link [dead]

I think a lot of us may have that “problem” as one of the requirements to submit to LAUNCH was to ensure that you did not have a web presence or public launch/description out there. Not sure if that is the same for the tables, but I think a number of us are playing it safe, just in case same rules apply. But your point is totally fair, in some cases (including mine) it’s hard to know what is what.

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2 points by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago | link [dead]

in the “LAuNCH PAD” area (the trade show area) the startups can be launched. we sell those for $1,500 with everything (3 tickets, internet, electricity, etc).

just thought i’d give 10 away here to help fellow startups out.

the conference should break even and I won’t lose more than $100,000 putting it on. heck, it probably will break even if things keep growing like they have!

if it does make a profit i’m going to put that toward angel investing at companies from the event.

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1 point by geoffclapp 23 hours ago | link [dead]

…or in DEMO terms, you can buy a table every year for the next 12 years at LAUNCH (if you don’t win one on HN).

Or you can go to DEMO this year. :->

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1 point by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago | link [dead]

Yeah, to get on the main stage you need to LAUNCH for the first time on the main stage. That’s the 1.0 competition.

For 2.0, you have to LAUNCH something new (i.e. a pivot, version 2.0 of your software) on the main stage for the first time.

The reason for this is that if you launch on the web the no one will come to the event.

As a group the startups agree only to have landing pages and to do very private betas—and no pre-briefing the press.

This means everyone is in their seats for the presentations and there is a LOT of energy in the room.

Conferences like DEMO let folks show boring stuff on stage that everyone has seen already… that why folks say it sucks so much. Well, that and the $20k price tag and absurd contract.

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2 points by geoffclapp 1 day ago | link [dead]

Don’t get me wrong, that’s why I put quotes around the word problem – I think that’s exactly how it should be (or it’s not really a launch, is it? :->) -> I just wanted to explain to that person why most of us had just landing pages, based on the conference. It’s how it should be.

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5 points by jeffcody 1 day ago | link [dead]

We are a group of 4 guys, trying to make something cool.

Vidtonic’s Homebrew DIY Android TV kit (http://www.vidtonic.com). The idea being if you can build your PC, you can build your own TV. The kit has everything you need to build your own Android TV (panels, main board, cool enclosure, etc..).

The TV kit is a 1080p HDTV, in sizes from 22″ up to 42″. We are expecting to start shipping kits this summer… we also will be selling the boards standalone as an Android development platform (it also has HDMI output).

The kit is for people that enjoy building, enjoy tinkering, and enjoy open platforms…

Hey, even if we don’t get upvoted, drop us a line if you are interested in the kit – we love feedback.

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1 point by Aegean 1 day ago | link [dead]

It’s pretty interesting. Do you handle Android and TV broadcast in separation? We build a hypervisor for android on omap processors (http://b-labs.com). It might be interesting to build a prototype demo for this platform.

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1 point by jeffcody 1 day ago | link [dead]

We have an ATSC tuner on board, and the transport stream output from that goes straight into the TI processor. We have our own input switcher and media player in Android that processes the video.

However, you have me very intrigued – I think there are ways we could use the hypervisor. Very cool. I’ll drop you an email, thanks.

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1 point by Aegean 23 hours ago | link [dead]

Sure, please do. It would be helpful to exchange ideas.

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1 point by curt 22 hours ago | link [dead]

If you guys have any manufacturing questions please feel free to email me, I’ve helped out a few companies that post on HN.

Manufacturing Guide: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840896

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2 points by aresant 1 day ago | link [dead]

Jason – I emailed you via your newsletter a week back in response to your LAUNCH request for kickass unlaunched startups – wondering if you received or just pushed the “Delete” button – sent from Zack.

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2 points by jasonmcalacanis 1 day ago | link [dead]

I get 400+ emails a day and sometimes can’t get through all of them.

Make sure you apply for the conference at the website since I have four people working full-time on going through applications and you can’t get lost there!!!

www.launch.is

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1 point by aresant 1 day ago | link [dead]

Jason, got your email – appreciate the response and responded back.

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4 points by roder 1 day ago | link [dead]

SyncPad – online collaborative whiteboard for consumers & enterprise http://mysyncpad.com

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2 points by pchristensen 1 day ago | link [dead]

I’m a fan and happy customer. SyncPad would demo extremely well at a conference.

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1 point by davidedicillo 23 hours ago | link [dead]

Glad you like it. Coming up with a bunch of new improvements very soon.

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1 point by wolfrom 1 day ago | link [dead]

Here we go:

Connecting with more and more services is becoming do or die for new products. There’s no point in creating the next big thing and then letting it starve to death in a locked closet. But the headaches involved with Facebook’s documentation, LinkedIn’s XML, and pretty much every part of Google’s APIs are hobbling the progress of the social web.

And then there’s rate limits, constantly changing methods, and the huge inefficiency of having to write up calls for each service separately to grab the same type of data. That’s why everyone is saying “I’ll connect to Facebook, and maybe Twitter, but that’s it!”

The Windsoc API is a unified social API designed and built to handle getting data, posting data, and even sharing data between two third-party services. Developers use their own keys and oauth callbacks, but Windsoc distributes the API calls between apps. Windsoc calls are consistent, discoverable, and based on community standards. The next Facebook, the next Groupon, and the next Flickr will all be built to run on top of the services that came before. Windsoc provides the tools to make it happen.

We’ll be ready to launch both the Windsoc API and the Windsoc Social Client (our showcase of API functionality at http://www.windsoc.co/) in time for Launch.

Coming another month from now is BetaRev, the first complete Beta Launch and Analytics tool, built using the Windsoc Social API.

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1 point by reubenyeah 23 hours ago | link [dead]

Are the API keys etc stored at your end or are they sent through the use of your API?

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1 point by wolfrom 22 hours ago | link [dead]

They’re stored at our end at the moment, but I can see that there would be value in allowing both methods.

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1 point by reubenyeah 20 hours ago | link [dead]

That’s what I was hoping.

I’m an Android developer, and it’s trivial to extract API keys etc from an application, and for obvious reasons, you don’t want to make it easy for applications to pretend to be your application.

Thanks for your reply!

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3 points by thinkcomp 1 day ago | link [dead]

FaceCash (http://www.facecash.com)

Mobile payments. Pay with your face.

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3 points by aihui 22 hours ago | link [dead]

Have you heard of BACON JAM and know where to get it? Why is it so hard to discover specialty products?

Love With Food (http://lovewithfood.com) is a a social media platform for food brands to easily reach out to home cook and foodies, so that

(1) food brands have a new marketing/distribution channel to promote their products other than regular grocery stores or farmer’s market.

(2) home cooks and foodies (like me) can easily discover unique products that are not usually sold in normal grocery stores, e.g. Bacon Jam.

(3) and a % of our revenue goes to FeedingAmerica.org to help fight hunger in America because we love others with food.

@jason – Love With Food is a 4 months old company. Is it too late to apply to Launch? Btw, thanks for the free table offer!

—–

The New Twitter supports Flickr Sets… HUGE!

9/15/2010

No comments

Wow… the new Twitter is just sick…. sick, sick, sick!

Killer infographic: Burning Man History

7/30/2010

No comments

This is total genius!

I'm deleting my Facebook page today

5/21/2010

No comments

I'm deleting my Facebook page today at 1pm Pacific today.

You can watch live here, and perhaps join me!

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/this-week-in-startups

Here is the email I sent to my list on Wednesday with why.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Jason Calacanis <jason@calacanis.com>
Date: Wed, May 19, 2010 at 5:07 PM
Subject: I'm deleting my Facebook page

Date: May 19th 2010
JasonNation Members: 23,286 emails strong
Location: Mahalo HQ, Santa Monica
Republishing: Republish anywhere (with header/footer)
Subscribe/Unsub: www.jasonnation.com
Some exciting news: http://tcrn.ch/bR35Xu
============================

JNation,

I've decided that this Friday at 1 pm Pacific, I will broadcast the
deletion of my Facebook page live on the Internet. (Watch it here:
http://bit.ly/bATQjU)

Simply put, I no longer trust Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg with my information.

Additionally, Facebook has become a waste of time for me. Every minute
I put into Facebook is a minute I will never get back. It's time I
could have spent writing one of these emails to you guys, finding new
startups to invest in, working on Mahalo.com (almost profitable!) or
spending time with my family.

Facebook is a Ponzi scheme run by a very bad actor. The best way to
express our discontent with Mark Zuckerberg is to simply walk away.

We trusted Zuckerberg with our personal information and he has abused
that trust over and over again. He won't even come forward and discuss
the issue with anyone in the industry–including his own users!
c
Question: What kind of CEO gets slammed like Zuckerberg has in the
last week and doesn't make themselves available to discuss the issue
with the press or users?

Answer: A guilty one.

You call this a gift?
================
In a final insult, Facebook lackey Tim Sparapani said this week: "The
flip side of this privacy story… is that we have customized and
individualized every single website out there for people, if they
choose to have it. That’s an extraordinary gift to the public."

Really?

Did I sign up for Facebook and give you my personal information so you
could give it to third parties WITHOUT my permission? Uhhh…. no.

We signed up with Facebook to share photos and updates with our
friends and families. You duped and double-crossed us by giving *your*
partners *our* private information so you could begin your world
domination plans one Javascript include at a time.

Essentially, Facebook is reselling our data in order to get websites
to add the "Like" button. It may not be a cash transaction yet, but it
is clearly quid pro quo. If you want to give the world a gift, how
about letting us export our own data?

Question: If you don't allow users to export their own data, but you
do allow your partners to suck it down instantly–and for all
time–what does that say about your intent?

Answer: It says your intent is bad.

NOTE: Hey Sparapani, the super savvy Danny Sullivan F.C.Y.A. (look it
up!): Facebook did not create the personalized web
(http://bit.ly/9hZQop).

Facebook alternatives
====================
If you're tired of Facebook's games, I suggest that you use the
following services: Twitter.com for Updates, Flickr.com for Photo
Sharing and Geni.com for your family tree. Those three services are
much better for their individual functions (updates, photos and family
connections) than Facebook!

That leaves casual games, the only piece for which I don't have a
really good recommendation (besides getting a sick iPad and playing
WeRule!)

Zynga, makers of Mafia Wars and Farmville, knows they can't trust
Zuckerberg and they going to have all their games off-site this year.
Sure they signed a five-year pack with Facebook this week, but that
must have been driven by Facebook desperate not to lose them. My guess
is Pincus got them to take only 10% of the virtual currency avalanche,
in exchange for their blessing on Facebook's standard 30% rake.

Zynga will also start a social gaming network, basically Facebook
without the photo sharing, later this year I'm sure. Pincus is way to
smart to get Zuckerpunched.

If only Evan Williams would step up and have the Twitter team build
(private) groups, photo hosting, video hosting and support for Zynga's
games, we would actually have a place to move to.

Twitter needs to create a viable alternative to Facebook this year.
Twitter has a leader you can trust; Facebook does not. You can do it
Twitter…. Step up!

Three ways to "leave" Facebook
====================
If you're going to join me (and folks like Leo Laporte and Peter
Rojas) in leaving Facebook, please consider recording yourself doing
so. Post that video to YouTube saying "I deleted/deactivated my
Facebook page!"

As we've discussed, there are better services for you to use from
companies you can trust.

I suggest doing one of three things below with your Facebook account
*after* you back it up.

[ Note: Before taking these steps, I suggest downloading your photos
manually and/or trying Backupify's beta Facebook backup service--which
is free. www.backupify.com. I'm an angel investor in this amazing
company.]

1. Just stop using Facebook: Don't log in, don't republish your tweets
to Facebook and don't update your status. Turn off all your photos.
This is a basic step that will also get you a lot time back for the
rest of your life. Try NOT logging into Facebook for three days and
see how much better your life is–I'm sure it will be! Take your
"Facebook time" and use it to actually ask a friend or family member
how they are doing. Take the dog or your kids (or yourself!) for a
walk.

The fact is, Facebook sends only a dozen folks to a link when I post
it. Compare that to hundreds to thousands of people clicking through
on Twitter (on a CTR basis Twitter is 10-20x Facebook!). Also, the
content on Twitter it typically valuable to me. The content on
Facebook tends to be "I'm playing this game" or someone "liking"
something inane. Get off Facebook and do something more productive.
Nothing important happens on Facebook–nothing.

2. Deactivate your account: This renders your account dormant, but you
can still log in at any time and "wake it up" again. Bear in mind,
your information is still stored on Facebook. They still have your
data. Having said that, there is no harm in trying this either…
Deactivate for the rest of the month and see what June 1st feels like
after you wean yourself off the Facebook crack. Just two or three
clicks and you can do it: http://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php

3. Delete your account: This deletes everything from Facebook–though
I'm not sure it removes your data from their partners sites and I'm
not sure how long they keep your data on backup drives. I'm hearing
conflicting reports, so if you know (or work inside Facebook and have
411), please ship it in confidence to me! If you're done with
Facebook, don't delay. Just do it! Those friends from high school will
Google you and find your Twitter account if it's at all important.
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

Conclusion
===========
I don't think Facebook is going away, but if they see 100 people turn
their accounts off every day, then 1,000, then some day 10,000, they
are going to start taking the issue more seriously. Good people of the
Internet should stand up for what is right and send a clear message to
Facebook: we don't trust you, so we can't participate in your service.

Questions:
1. Does Facebook provide any value to you?
2. Can Twitter or Zynga become viable alternatives to Facebook?
3. Are you considering leaving Facebook?
4. Rank, in order, the most loathsome companies and why: Goldman
Sachs, Facebook, BP Oil.
5. I will be in New York City next week for TechCrunch Disrupt. See you there!

Best regards,

Jason

—————–
—————–
—————–
—————–

Some housekeeping:

1. Mahalo is looking for developers! We use cutting-edge technologies
like Cassandra and Django, but you don't have to have worked with
those before to join our team. Nope, we hire people based on how we
think they will "fit our culture." Our culture is one of hard work,
dedication, resourcefulness, resiliency and is filled with positive
and quixotic individuals. You will not survive in a company like this
unless you are absurdly hard working, but if you are you will
immediately be given a ton of responsibility. You'll also get to work
in a pure meritocracy, where people rise and fall with their
contribution–not their age or ability to suck up to the boss. We love
hiring folks outside of Los Angeles and bringing them to live in Santa
Monica. So, if you want to work for the next three or four years at
Mahalo and crush it send me your resume and cover letter. If you would
like to take it easy, phone it in and not get taken out of your
comfort zone send me your resume and I will forward it to a BDC (big
dumb company).

2. The Open Angel Forum is booming! We're coming to Boston in June,
and London and Seattle shortly after that. If you know of any angel
investors in these cities send them to krute@openangelforum.com.
Details at www.openangelforum.com.

3. TechCrunch50 is, sadly, not happening this year. However, as the
creator of TechCrunch50 I will be marching on and launching 50
companies over two days in early 2011. Please bookmark
www.thelaunchconference.com for more details.

4. We just had the CEO of Groupon, Andrew Mason, on This Week in
Startups. He was great!
http://thisweekin.com/announcements/twist-52-with-andrew-mason/

5. I will be at the Wall Street Journal's amazing D Conference for the
fifth year in a row–and three years after launching Mahalo! Looking
forward to seeing everyone there and sharing some big news.

6. Having done eight angel investments this year I'm only going to do
two more I think. Those startups will, most-likely, come in through
the Open Angel Forum. The best way to pitch me on an idea is to submit
your company to OAF or send me a link to your product. I don't invest
in products that are not built already (why would you when you can
invest in products that have been built is my thinking).

7. I'm working on the book proposal after getting a bunch of
interesting offers. What would you want to hear about if I did a book?

8. If you are interested in pitching a show for ThisWeekIn.com please
send it to TWI's creative director Lon Harris at lon@mahalo.com. I
don't have any day-to-day involvement in the company. Feel free to cc
me of course.

———
Jason McCabe Calacanis
902 Colorado Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90401
jason@calacanis.com
www.twitter.com/jason
www.blippy.com/jason

Note: YoungStartups is charging to be on stage–don't participate VCs Kleiner & Bain

5/6/2010

No comments

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: small startup
Date: Thu, May 6, 2010 at 1:27 PM
Subject: Hey Jason- $1500 pay-to-play scam, with Kleiner, Bain supporting it!
To: jason@calacanis.com

I think you know this one but just fyi… I don’t know what’s more
appalling, the price or the participants!

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Avi Maderer
Date:
To:

Wanted to confirm you received my email about applying to present at
the 2010 New York Venture Summit being held on June 17th at the Hotel
Penn in New York City.

This exclusive venture capital summit, will bring together over 500
VCs, private investors, corporate VCs, angel investors, investment
bankers and CEOs of early stage and emerging growth companies; and
will feature more than 40 leading VCs on interactive panel
discussions; presentations by 50 cutting edge startups on three tracks
(Tech, Life Sciences, Clean-tech); and high-level networking
opportunities.

First round of VCs confirmed to speak includes:
David Anthony, Managing Partner, 21 Ventures | Eric Aguiar, Partner,
Thomas, McNerney and Partners | David J. Blumberg, Managing Partner,
Blumberg Capital | Steve Brotman, Managing Director & Co-Chairman of
the Investment Committee, Greenhill SAVP | Doug Chertok, Venture
Partner, Dace Ventures | Patrick Chung, Managing Director, SK Telecom
Ventures | Paul Cummings, Principal, Honda Strategic Venturing | Issam
Dairanieh, Technology Principal, BP Alternative Energy Ventures |
Daniel Deeney, Partner, New Venture Partners | Suzette Dutch, Managing
Partner, Triathlon Medical Ventures | Joyce Erony, Managing Director,
Signet Healthcare Partners | Matt Fates, Partner, Ascent Venture
Partners | Doug Fisher, Principal, InterWest Partners | Allison
Goldberg, Managing Director & Group Vice President, Time Warner
Investments | Habib Kairouz, Managing Partner, Rho Ventures | Dan
Keoppel, Executive Director, Strategic Investments, Verizon
Communications | Noah J. Kroloff, Partner, NGN Capital | Sean Marsh,
Co-founder / General Partner, Point Judith Capital | Jim Peters,
Managing Partner, Geisinger Ventures | Gavin B. Samuels, M.D., MBA,
Senior Partnering Director, Teva Innovative Ventures | Reese
Schroeder, Managing Director, Motorola Ventures | Deepak Sindwani,
Principal, Bain Capital Ventures | Jeff Steinle, Sr. Director,
Corporate Development, Medtronic | Bart Stuck, Managing Director,
Signal Lake | Jake Tarr, Managing Director, Kinetic Ventures | David
H. Wells, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers | Sharon Wienbar,
Managing Director, Scale Venture Partners | Brett Zbar, Partner,
Aisling Capital | Ryan Ziegler, Principal, Edison Venture Fund | David
Zilberman, Principal, Comcast Interactive Capital.

Featured Company Benefits include:

· Recognition as Top Innovator

· Access to leading VCs, Corporate VCs, private investors and
investment bankers

· Presentation slot

· Three Complimentary passes for company executives

· Additional discounted registrations

· Two page Company Profile published in event guide
distributed to all attendees and investors

· Media Exposure

· Two complimentary passes to attend Featured Company Coaching
session with VCs, followed by cocktail reception

Fee to present: $1,485

Alternatively you may register to attend at the “early bird” rate of $490.

Let me know if you have any questions and/or would like to receive the
application to present.

Avi Maderer
youngStartup Ventures
“Where Innovation Meets Capital”

p: 212.202.1004

f: 209.844.4397

e: avim@youngstartup.com

u: www.youngstartup.com

YouTube | Flickr

FLICKR Photos from This Week in Startups @ SXSW http://bit.ly/abSz6k #twist

3/14/2010

No comments

This Week in Startups @ SXSW 2010 – a set on Flickr http://bit.ly/abSz6k

Tech Products I love and Use Every Day (and my five year angel investor goal)

1/4/2010

No comments

Peeps,

Inspired by Mike Arrington’s (my partner on TechCrunch50) fifth annual
list, ‘tech products I love and use every day,’ I thought I would
liberate his format and list the ‘Tech Products @jason loves and uses
every day.” Mike’s post here: http://bit.ly/8U09Gn

SIDEBAR/DISCLOSURE: As of the start of 2010, I’ve set a five year goal
for myself: be the most sought-after, and value-added, angel investor
in the world. It’s a lofty goal and it’s going to create a massive
amount of conflict for me as an pundit, but you know what they say:
“no conflict, no interest.” As you look down this list of top
products, please be aware of the fact that I’m probably trying to
invest in ALL OF THEM. It would stand to reason that, if I love a
product enough to put it on this list, I would love it enough to
invest in it. My strategy for becoming the most sought-after angel
investor on the planet is five-fold:

1. Produce media that is helpful to entrepreneurs (like this email
list, This Week in Startups, etc).
2. Host conferences that help startups grow: like TechCrunch50 (coming
in September!) and the Open Angel Forum (www.openangelforum.com).
3. Support the hell out of the companies I do invest in as much as
possible so they tell other CEO/founders “Jason is the greatest, hold
a $25,000 angel slot for him”
4. Can’t disclose–competitive advantage.
5. Can’t disclose–competitive advantage.

Now, on to my list of the “my favorite technologies I use every day for 2009!”
========================================

1. Chartbeat: Chartbeat is Google Analytics on crack. This real-time
analytics tool shows me exactly who is on Mahalo, what pages they’re
looking at and where they came from. This allows me to focus our
editorial efforts based on popular stories on a given day or a new
trend. For example, two days before New Year’s Eve, one of our how to
articles, “How to Make Jell-O Shots,” started trending on Chartbeat.
We doubled down on that page and made it even better–in real time. I
almost don’t want to tell you about this product because I’m so in
love with it and consider it one of Mahalo’s secret weapons. I’ve
recently joined their board of advisers and I’ve been begging my pal
John Borthwick of BetaWorks to let me be the first investor in this
brilliant product coming out of his brilliant incubator (the same on
that brought you Bit.ly and Summize–purchased by Twitter).
http://www.chartbeat.com

2. Security Spy & Remote Patrol: Security Spy is a $300-400 software
product that allows you to connect dozens of IP-based cameras to your
home network. I’ve put six cameras in my home and I’m adding another
four this week. In Month One, I’ve become a combination of the
over-protective father and Scarface, sitting in my loft office with a
big screen TV displaying video cameras from around the compound. The
iPhone application, Remote Patrol, lets me pull up the same security
cameras over AT&T’s (horrible) 3G network. At $10, this software gives
my wife and I the ability, for example, to zoom in on our daughter and
watch her sleep while we are out watching “Avatar” or at a New Year’s
Ever dinner with friends. We are the envy of our social set because,
while other folks show photos of their kids, we can pull up live video
of our daughter on our crib cam. It cost me under $5,000 to install a
10-camera system which just two or three years ago would have cost me
$50,000 to $100,000. I know because I’ve priced these things out, and
many of my Brentwood neighbors have shown off their proprietary
systems, which cost 20x our open source commodity hardware systems,
and have less features. Epic WIN!
http://www.bensoftware.com/ss/
http://web.me.com/robb18/Remote_Patrol/Remote_Patrol.html

3. Sonos with Rhapsody: Sonos is a home sound system that allows you
to place a wireless speaker or amplifier in each room of you house.
These system connect to each other over wifi, creating a multi-room
sound system for about $400 a room. I now have 11 sound “zones” in my
house which I can control with my iPhone, iTouch, computer or the
overpriced but delightful Sonos proprietary remote. The system allows
you to integrate Pandora, thousands of categorized radio stations,
Napster, iTunes, Sirius and my favorite, Rhapsody. For $15 a month,
Rhapsody allows me to pull up every Frank Sinatra song ever recorded,
hip-hop stations from Seoul or Paris, WFAN from NYC or my Rilo Kiley
station on Pandora. At Christmas, I was blowing out Christmas music in
the driveway, backyard, living room, kitchen and other zones. Once
again, I was the envy of the entire neighborhood, and isn’t that what
technology is all about: making people insanely jealous at how blown
out your gear is? http://gdgt.com/sonos/zoneplayer/s5/

4. Tesla Roadster: For over a year now, I’ve had the privilege of
driving the world’s only in-production electric car and it is the most
delightful and exciting driving experience of my life. RANT: For over
a year, I haven’t visited a gas station and have been able to give the
finger to the bastards in the Middle East who believe that women and
gays are about as valuable as dogs, and that the freedoms we enjoy in
the United States are the root causes of all evil. If Obama had any
leadership ability, as opposed to his consensus-building nonsense, he
would have taken the billions we’re going to spend in Afghanistan and
simply spent that money on electric car and solar subsidies in
America. We have to stop wasting our money building schools and
bridges for backwards societies that don’t appreciate them and start
spending that money on energy independence. There is no reason we
couldn’t put solar panels on every rooftop in America, and electric
cars in every driveway, instead of spending money fighting enemies
that don’t want the freedom we’re promoting. Sorry about the rant, but
I’m really frustrated that Obama, who I voted for, is such a
disappointment. He was supposed to bring some innovation to politics
and his policies feel no different than the failed strategies of
Cheney/Bush (in that order). If I was president, I would cut our
losses in the Middle East and stop sending any money there, instead
investing it in nuclear, solar, wind and EVs. This is such an obvious
solution to everyone except the idiots we put in power. Shame on all
of us. END RANT
http://www.teslamotors.com

5. GoWalla/FourSquare: I’m so in love with location based services
like Gowalla and FourSquare that I tried to invest in both companies,
and was actually able to make a tiny angel investment in GoWalla.
These two services are amazing, and I could write and entire article
on why they are so important. In fact, I will do that! For now, why
don’t you go ahead and sign up for both and tell me what you think!
http://www.gowalla.com

6. Posterous: Every day, I try and share a dozen thoughts, photos or
videos, as well as sneak in three or four how to articles or buzzy
stories from Mahalo, and Posterous is my go to application for this. I
simply take a video or photo of Taurus and Fondue, for example, and
email it to post@posterous.com. That video will then be posted to
Calacanis.com, my Twitter account, Facebook, Flickr and a half dozen
other services. One email, 10
posts. You gotta love it! I’m absolutely
in love with this company, and I even interviewed one of the founders
on This Week in Startups:
http://thisweekinstartups.com/2009/09/twist-episode-14-with-garry-tan/

7. BlackBerry: I’m still addicted after all these years. My fifth or
sixth curve is still 99.999% rock solid for the most important
application in my life, email. I love you RIM, and I always will.
Really. Don’t pay attention to #8 below.

8. iPhone 3G/Android: I’ve got a jump-ball, love and hate relationship
with these two phones. They are my backup phones to my Blackberry, and
while I do all my email and 90% of my twittering on my Blackberry
Curve, I do 90% of my web surfing on these two phones and their larger
screens. 50% of the time, I have three phones with me, and 100% of the
time, I have at least two. I’ve got OCD when it comes to connectivity,
and given my day job and side projects, the cost of having three
phones is MUCH less than the cost of being out of touch. In 2010, I’m
going to try and make a decision which one of these phones wins and
it’s not going to be easy. Steve Jobs had the lead, but Google’s
Android is much more open and snappy than an iPhone. I’m loving
watching Google and Apple fight it out…My money is on Google in the
long-term, but most handicappers put this game at even money. The real
winner is the consumer, as Google’s free and open strategy is going to
put Steve Jobs’ “my way is best, consumer feedback be damned”
philosophy to the test.

9. Flip MINO HD: About $200 to have HD video in your glove
compartment, purse or laptop bag. Buy them three or four at a time and
give them to everyone in your family. Nothing is easier to use and
provides as much long-term value per dollar as this product. The best
Christmas gift you can give to your parents and siblings–period.
http://gdgt.com/pure-digital/flip/minohd/2nd-gen/

10. Audible: Ohhhhhhhh….. Audible. Mmmmmmm….. Audible, I love
Audible. I get two credits a month and fill my iPhone with audio
books. Spending hours a day on a computer makes my eyes too strained,
on average, to read. However, putting on my noise canceling headphones
and listening to books like “Shadow Divers,” “The Road” and “The
Post-American World” while running or playing poker is my guilty
pleasure. Have I read that book? Of course I have, you take me for an
illiterate? I “read” two or three books a month (wink wink!).
Seriously, feed your brain with Audible goodness. Disclosure: for
three years I’ve been talking about Audible on This Week in Tech.
After three years of my making love to the brand, the fine folks at
Audible decided to sponsor This Week in Startups for a couple of
months last year. Too kind of them, but I wanted to point out that
they have sponsored my media recently.

11. Mozy: Mozy online back up is a wonderful off-site backup system
that provides unlimited service for $15 a month for five computers.
I’m taking the absurd number of videos from my Security Spy camera and
backing them up to Mozy. This will result in Mozy backing up a
terabyte of information for $200 a year for me. That’s absurd. I love
this company and service.

12. Amazon & Amazon Prime: Amazon is one of the ten greatest companies
ever built. Jeff Bezos is, perhaps, the entrepreneur I admire
most–certainly in my top three. However, at the end of the day, it’s
Amazon’s perfect service and user experience that I love most. Amazon
Prime, which basically gets you products super-fast without worrying
about shipping, is a MUST for anyone who orders from Amazon more than
five to ten times a year. I buy everything from Amazon (or Zappos, now
part of Amazon), with rare exception–even when they are NOT the best
price (which is about 20% of the time). Why? I like shopping with
them. The experience is flawless, and few things in life are flawless.
Oh yeah, Amazon owns #10 on this list as well: Audible. Two flawless
services, and more evidence that Jeff Bezos might be the best
entrepreneur of our generation. (Sorry Steve Jobs and Bill Gates!).

13. Samsung BluRay with Netflix On Demand: Watching movies at home has
never been so good. Netflix On Demand is flawless and with the
exception of not enough high-def options it’s basically a “game over”
solution for on demand. Netflix is about to become to movies what
Sonos+Rhapsody is to music for me. We now watch more Netflix on Demand
than Netflix in the mail. Enough said.

14. Samsung 55″ LED TV: This TV is so real that most folks who look at
it say “that looks like real life, not a movie.” LED technology is so
clear it makes LCDs and Plasma’s look like tube TVs. Well, maybe not
that bad, but close. Combined with a BluRay player and surround sound
there is little reason for me to visit a theater for anything but the
top movies. Also, the TV is about one inch thick and lift as a
feather. I have folks put the width of the TV between their eyes and
look at me on the other side of it to show how thin it is. You can
literally fit the TV between your two eyes and move it with two
fingers.
http://gdgt.com/samsung/un55b8000/

15. Tricaster: The Tricaster by Newtek is a complete digital studio in
a box. This amazing device allows me, and Leo Laporte, to create
multicamera shoots without spending $100,000 building a studio and
having a half dozen engineers on call for a show. Instead you drop
$10,000 on this box and have one editor man the Tricaster and you’re
done. Leo has used the Tricaster to create a $2M a year podcasting
business with a half dozen employees and This Week in Startups is
making over $250,000 a year in advertising after only a couple of
months. The podcasting/video show revolution is powered by Tricaster.
I love this product.
http://www.newtek.com/tricaster/

a) Service that I’m playing with that might make the 2010 list: Canon
7D, Blippy.com, Backupify, Drobo.
b) Services that would have been on my pervious lists, had I done
them, but are too obvious to put on this list: Twitter, GMAIL, Macbook
Air, Plantronics DSP 400 Headset.
c) The 10 worst services/technology moves of 2009: I wrote about seven
of these before I realized I could get another email newsletter out of
them. More to come.

What are your “Top Tech Products for 2009?”

Please post your answers at Mahalo Answers: http://bit.ly/toptech2009

I will compile a list of your top products and why and send a followup
to you guys.

all the best,

Jason McCabe Calacanis
CEO, Mahalo.com
jason@mahalo.com
310-456-4900 mobile

To unsubscribe reply with unsubscribe in the subject line or visit
www.tinyurl.com/jasonslist
To signup if this was forwarded to you: www.bit.ly/jasonslist

=======================
Some plugs:

1. My 2009 angel investments: www.gdgt.com, www.challengepost.com,
www.gowalla.com.
2. Open Angel Forum, January 14th Los Angeles: www.openangelforum.com
3. TechCrunch50, 4th year! September, 2010: www.techcrunch50.com
4. My twitter: www.twitter.com/jason
5. My blog: www.calacanis.com
6. My day job: www.Mahalo.com, a knowledge engine. 15M unique visitors
in December!
7. We’re hiring 12 developers at Mahalo in
2010. Interested? email
Mark Jeffrey: mark at mahalo.com.
8. Will be playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event again in
2010 thanks to my peeps at Full Tilt Poker!
9. My podcast: This Week in Startups, www.thisweekinstartups.com
10. I exec produce: Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show,
www.kevinpollakschatshow.com — it rocks.

=======================

If you’re reading this message you read to the bottom of the email
newsletter. That’s it, there is nothing more to read. No more plugs,
no more insights and no more rants. It’s time to get back to work!

What would you do if someone disciplined (spanked) your dog without your advance knowledge or permission?

10/5/2009

2 comments

Interesting discussion going on over at ConundrumLand: http://bit.ly/53YBi

Video editor, Santa Monica

9/25/2009

1 comment

We’re looking for another video editor to work on This Week in Startups & Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show

Details below… this is an amazing “breaking in” type of position. You’ll get to be in the studio and watch interviews with internet celebrities and *real* celebrities.

email: job-qxy3u-1392598514@craigslist.org

Looking for a hard-working and drive editor/production assistant for our Santa Monica video podcasting studio. We specialize in multi-camera live web shows, broadcast to an international audience. Shows that we produce include “This Week in Startups” and “Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show” and “This Week in YouTube”.

Responsibilities include:
–Edit and encode weekly video podcasts
–Upload and distribute podcasts online
–Keep studio organized
–Set up studio for shoots
–Supervise shoots in studio
–Operate production equipment, including: lights, cameras, Newtek TriCaster, mics, audio mixer, etc

Qualifications:
–Basic knowledge of studio equipment and operations (don’t need to be an expert – we’ll train you in almost everything you need to know)
–Experience with Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, or other editing programs
–Experience editing programs with chroma-keying
–Must be motivated and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done

Plus’ include:
–Knowledge/experience with Apple Motion
–Graphic design experience
–Knowledge of HTML

Pay is $500/week plus free breakfast, lunch and fresh fruit every day!

Location: Santa Monica, CA
Compensation: 500/week + free breakfast/lunch/snacks
Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

How To Demo your startup (part two)

9/8/2009

2 comments

From my email newsletter September 1st 2008. Reposting. You can signup for Jason’s List here: http://bit.ly/11w4BK

September 1st 2008.

Last week, I camped out at Sequoia Capital on Sand Hill Road and did rehearsals with most of the 50 companies that are presenting–in fact, launching–new products at the TechCrunch50 event next week. These 50 represent the top 5% of the companies that applied to our demo-style event. Truth be told, the top 150 companies were all qualified to be on stage–if only we could have a five day event with two tracks.

These are the best of the best, and most of them came into “first rehearsal” with a demo that I would rate a seven out of ten. (Yes, I’ve come up with a rating system for these presentations, but that’s another email).

Actor Ashton Kutcher did his rehearsal last week, and I have to say it was kind of ironic to be sitting there giving presenting advice to someone who’s been in, and created, a large number of movies and TV shows. As an actor, Ashton obviously has the ability to draw you in, but presenting a product in this format is a very, very specific skill. He picked it up quickly.

After coaching hundreds of folks over the past two years, I’ve developed 18 solid rules. You can see the first 10 rules over at TechCrunch, which reprinted the previous email with permission here. These extra eight are very detailed and speak to some deeper techniques for capturing people’s attention and transferring your enthusiasm for your product to them.

These eighteen rules are just a framework, and are based on demoing at a conference. However, the rules can apply, to various degrees, to presenting your product to investors, partners and potential employees.

11. Show Don’t Tell
——————————-
This is the most important rule of demoing right after “get into the product as soon as possible.” Once you’re inside the product demo, you’ve got folks engaged. Next, you have to *keep* them engaged. When you’re speaking about your product, are you saying things like “With Mahalo you can find spam free, well-organized search results with related content”? Or are you saying, “Here is a spam-free search result. Notice how the sections are organized and we have the top most important Fast Facts on the side.”

In many demonstrations over the past week, presenters told me what the product did instead of showing me. Other times, they told me what it did, then told me a second time as they showed me. This is really, really annoying and wasteful. Your script should never sound like this:

–> “With YouTube, you can upload videos, tag them and share them with your friends.”
–> “Here we are uploading a video, tagging it and sharing it with our friends.”
–> “We just uploaded a video, tagged it and we shared it with friends.”

If you have limited time–and that is the case 99% of the time–I suggest just showing the product doing its thing.

If you have unlimited time, perhaps it’s ok to say what you’re going to do or recap what you’ve done. However, many of the features of these products are simple (i.e. tagging, syndication, etc) and it’s wasteful to explain to folks “we can tag your video,” “we’re tagging a video,” then “we’ve tagged a video.”

It’s like kissing a cute girl and saying “I’m going to kiss you,” “I’m kissing you” and “I just kissed you.”

Just kiss the girl, and if you did a good job, you’ll know by looking in her eyes.

(Awwww… youth is wasted on the young!)

12. Use inclusive words, live in the present
——————————-
When you’re demoing your product, it’s best to use inclusive words like “we” and “our,” as opposed to “you” and “your,” and it’s best to use active words. Let’s look at two short scripts for a mock demo of YouTube, shall we?

Try saying these out loud, and imagine you’re one of the 500 people in the audience.

Script A: “You”
–> “With YouTube, you can upload a video in five different formats.”
–> “Now you can tag your video and you can put it on your blog.”

Script B: “We”
–> “With YouTube, we can upload a video in five different formats.”
–> “Now we can tag our video and we can put it on our blog.”

As you can see, the “we” one feels more like a team effort and it draws the audience in. Now, for extra points, let’s change this from what “we” could do to something more active.

Script C: “We can”
–> “With YouTube, we can upload a video in five different formats.”
–> “Now we can tag our video and we can put it on our blog.”

Script D: “We are”
–> “We’re on YouTube.com, and we’re uploading a video, as you can see–we can do this in five different formats.”
–> “Now we’re tagging the video with “bulldog” and “cute overload,” and finally we’re on Calacanis.com posting the video. Bingo! We’re done!”

Active words engage your audience. Inclusive words draw them in. Your job is to engage the audience.

13. One driver, one navigator
——————————-
The best model for presenting your product is to have one person speaking while another person is demoing the product. There are a number of reasons for this, but the metaphor of a road trip should give you an idea of why. On a road trip, it’s best for one person to take ownership of watching the road while another person screws around with the GPS or maps. As everyone knows, screwing around with the GPS while driving can have disastrous results, and a navigator who tries to drive tends to be really annoying.

Whoever is the best speaker of your pair should speak and the other one should drive. If you’re equally qualified, then flip a coin, but never, ever switch roles in the middle of the presentation. It causes a major disconnect with the audience and you run the unnecessary risk of technical issues. It’s a waste of time, and everyone will think–correctly or not–that the reason you’re doing it is because the two of you are in some ego struggle to get equal face-time.

It’s best for the audience to connect with ONE person and to get into a groove with that one person’s voice. Imagine if David Letterman stopped his monologue half way through and had another comedian take over. Get it? Got it? Good!

Navigator: Your goals are to make sure a) that whatever the speaker is saying is reflected on the screen, b) that the screen is moving crisply and cleanly and c) that if a technical error occurs, you route around it without distracting your speaker.

Speaker: Your job is to a) clearly describe what you’re doing with active, inclusive language and b) engage the audience.

14. How to handle technical issues
——————————-
If you run into a technical problem, have a couple of anecdotes ready to go. For example, if you were Kevin Rose demoing Digg and the browser crashed, you could stop and tell the story about servers getting shut down by massive traffic and the digg mirrors that are setup by users to solve this problem. Here’s a script of how to handle a technical error:

“While Jason restarts his browser, let me tell you how we help sites handle the ‘Digg effect’ of 10,000 people rushing into their site in 60 seconds.” Then, monitor the driver, who should give a silent thumbs up when you’re ready to go.

Here’s what you should not do: panic and/or start babbling. The worst thing you can do is say: “Oh, ummmm…. our browser crashed. This is a new machine, I swear this wasn’t an issue before. Oh, no, ummm…. we practiced this ten times… uhhh… I can get this to work, really…”

If the machine crashes, take a deep breath and fix the problem while your driver falls into anecdote mode. If your presentation is FUBAR (fracked up beyond repair), than apologize and let folks know you’ll be a back in a moment. Here’s a simple way to say it: “It seems we’ve experienced a little problem. Why don’t we regroup for a few minutes while you guys take a quick break?” Or :”It seems we’ve experienced a little problem. Why don’t we let the next speaker present while we regroup? Thanks for your understanding!”

15. The Setup
——————————-
The first 30 seconds of your presentation is critical. There are a couple of ways to start your presentation that will work. Which one you select should be based on what’s the most effective at engaging your audience.

–> Method One: Get personal
Many of the best products ever built were done so out of the frustration of their creators. Cisco was built by two professors who were frustrated that their two networks couldn’t connect, so they set out to build hardware to “network networks.” YouTube was created because the founders couldn’t find a way to easily upload and share their videos.

A fantastic way to start your presentation is to share how you came up with the idea. For example, let’s take the fictional example of photo sharing site. I’ve include notes under each line for what the driver would be doing in brackets.

“Last year, I went on vacation in China and took over 1,000 digital photos… like this one of me eating fried bugs!”
[Scroll through five photos of China--including a really goofy one of me eating fried bugs that's sure to get a laugh!]

“Like everyone, I wanted to share them with my friends, but emailing them was cumbersome.”
[Show Yahoo Mail screenshot, including 17 attachments]

“I couldn’t easily describe or organize the photos in an email message, and I couldn’t host them in their original size, because it crashed my email client. Plus, the recipients would probably have problems downloading them.”
[Show Yahoo Mail giving a timeout error, then switch to a GMAIL email with broken images]

“So, I created Flickr, a free, web-based photo sharing site.”
[Show Flickr Homepage]

–> Method Two: Show the problem
A second effective way to start your presentation is to show the problem first. In the example of surfing the web while on the go, Steve Jobs might say something like this:

Steve Jobs: “You know, when I’m on the run and I want to get some information on the web, I’m left with one of two choices: Open up my laptop and fire up my browser–which takes four minutes…”
[Driver: Shows photo of Steve Jobs at an airport Starbucks balancing a laptop while dragging a roller.]

“… or I can take out my phone or Blackberry, squint and try to fill out forms so I can switch my flight times… but that winds up taking more time than opening my laptop!”
[Driver: Show JetBlue website loading broken on tiny screen, forms not working.]

“That’s why the iPhone has a screen which is 225% larger than a normal phone, has a real browser that works called Safari and still fits in the palm of your hand. It’s not too big, it’s not too small–it’s just right!”
[Driver: Steve effortlessly navigates LAX to JFK flight search on iPhone while in line at Starbucks!]

“Now I just need to order my soy latte!” (huge laugh!)
[Driver: Show Steve Jobs ordering from counter while holding iPhone in his hands.]

–> Method Three: Get right into the product
This method is great for sexy products. If you’ve got something that just looks amazing, you might want to consider just starting. For example, if you’re Kevin Rose showing off one of the Digg visualization tools, you should just throw it on the screen, let folks try and figure out the hotness and then explain what they are looking at.

–> Method Four: The Showman
This is the most dangerous, and advanced, technique in presenting. I don’t recommend it unless you’ve got a killer product, you’re entertaining as hell and you can straight-up drop it.

Greg Clayman, the futurist co-founder of UPOC, shocked everyone with this amazing video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2N-uCjQu10

You’re probably not Greg Clayman, so stick to Methods One to Three for five or ten years, and if your flow is tight, then think about upgrading to number Four. Or, if you’re a risk taker, go for it… just be prepared to fall flat on your face and be ok with it.

16. Horrible ways to start your presentation:
——————————-
a) Talk about your bio and your business accomplishments. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.)
b) Talk about the market size. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.)
c) Give an overview of the competitive landscape. (We don’t care, we can talk about that later if your product is any good.)

17. Describe your product five times
——————————-
Folks are going to come up with moniker for your service if you don’t, so I suggest challenging yourself to come up with a 10-word description of your product, then a six-word description and finally a three- or four-word description.

The best example of slogans come from the political arena:

“Stay the course”
“The buck stops here”
“Change you can trust”
“No new taxes”
“Ross for Boss”
“It’s the economy, stupid”
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Try and find a slogan for your company and repeat it a couple of times in your presentation:

“human powered search”
“the easiest way to share video online”
“the most powerful photo sharing service ever”
“answers, not search results”

Continuous partial attention is the mode most folks will be in during your presentation. They’re going to give you 60% of their attention while checking their Blackberry, looking around the room and thinking about their own plans to rule the universe. Knowing this, chances are they will only hear your catch phrase once or twice if you say it three times.

That’s why you say it 3-5 times.

18. Change up your style (i.e. shift your tone)
——————————-
There are many tones you can use in your talk, and it’s best to change them up. One tone, a mono-tone, is the worst. Folks hear you in that tone for more than 60 seconds and they zone out. Something else in their attention bank takes over. Here are some styles:

Excited: “This has never been done!”
Puzzled: “Has this ever been done?”
Low questioning: “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
Excited questioning: “Have you ever seen anything like this!?!”
Cavalier: “I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want Google knowing what i searched for last night!” (wink, wink!)

This is an advanced technique, and it might take years to flow naturally, but it’s worth starting now. One suggestion is to record yourself and pick out the natural transition in your talk and shift tone during them.

If you made it all the way to the bottom you’re one of the more intelligent members of the list–and probably very good looking as well. As such, please considering forwarding this email to the ten most interesting people you know saying “Jason’s a really cool cat, you should subscribe to his list.”

Have any suggestions for topics I should cover? Tweet them with @jasoncalacanis at the start, or email me at jason@calacanis.com.

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