[pavelkaroukin]

I am not a founder looking for an investment (at least, yet), but $50 in USA does not sounds bad for a lean start up. It act more as a filter than as an income for event host IMHO. Founder probably will spend more on a hotel alone.

On the other hand, practice of not disclosing fees and charging in the range of $1.000 - $8.000 definitely look shady.

Just my .05

[lsc]

what do you think it filters? Do you really think there are a large number of low-quality companies that would be deterred from pitching by a $50 entrance fee?

[hippich]

Well.. Let me show you it this way - If someone offered me a free 32" LCD good TV - I would definitely take it. Just because it is free and it feels like it have value.

If someone offered me it for $25 - I would pass it, since I have no place to put it nor I have time to watch it.

Similar could be observed in .99 games at any app stores. While 99 cents is really close to 0 cents for most US persons, still .99 games will have much less downloads. But ones who downloaded had much bigger motivation to actually play it and not just check it out.

Most of things should have associated costs. At least nominal. In case of such events it is good for both pitchers and for public listening to them. It is different topic if costs should be in dollars or some sort of efforts tho..

IMHO, as usual :)

[lsc]

oh man, your example really hits home:

>If someone offered me it for $25 - I would pass it, since I have no place to put it nor I have time to watch it.

Growing up, I hunted down free and really cheap computer hardware. I've always had a sizable stash of equipment that I'd play with, learn about, and eventually use to run services. As I've grown older, the initial purchase price has become less important, and the storage cost has become more important; my current workshop/office is maybe 200-300sqft, and it's got two people and a lot of hardware in it.

The thing is, here the cost is time, not storage space; and I think people learn the 'time is valuable' lesson sooner. But yeah, you would be keeping out 12 year old me, which is fine. Personally, I would think that the majority of people at these events would be past that point. dono.

You'd certainly need to apply another level of filtering; obviously you don't want to listen to a pitch from every joker with fifty bucks, the question then would be how much easier would that filtering process be if you first filter out all the 12 year old lsc types for whom the fifty bucks is a big opportunity cost. Personally, I don't think it would save you much time, but I could be wrong.

[pavelkaroukin]

>> But yeah, you would be keeping out 12 year old me, which is fine. Personally, I would think that the majority of people at these events would be past that point. dono.

Judging solely on all rage I see about costs associated with giving a speech at such events, I can see how it might filter non serious people. I am not saying that $50 or $8000 is right/wrong. I am just saying - it is filter. Even small bump in requirements tends to filter out non serious people.

Here is simple way I look at it - if you can remove 5% of total noobs and get $1000 to spend more on marketing materials, why you shouldn't do it?

[lsc]

>Here is simple way I look at it - if you can remove 5% of total noobs and get $1000 to spend more on marketing materials, why you shouldn't do it?

depends entirely on how many good prospects also get removed. A grand in marketing materials is not a big deal if you have enough money to invest.

If it removes more unsuitable than suitable candidates, then it's a good deal; I'm just not convinced that is what happens. I think you get some adverse selection- The sort of people you want to invest in are going to be focusing on their business rather than focusing on getting investment, so I suspect you'd get vastly better results making your event 'invite only'