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Rollercoaster ride to TechCrunch50, nearly
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Originally written 26 August 2009
Confessing your tale of TechCrunch50 last-minute-rejection is all the rage at the moment (see this and this) and I hate to turn down a good band-wagon, so here's our story.
Our tragic tale begins and ends with rejection. The first rejection comes in the form of "We regretthat we are unable to pursue your application further" to which myreaction was "What? Not even an interview? Don't you know we're goingto change the world?!" followed by silent disillusionment anddespondency, followed by acceptance, followed by revival of optimismand moving on. Turns out this first rejection was all a twisted joke,because just as I had put TechCrunch50 completely out of my mind, weget another email: "We hope you're ready! We would like to inviteyou to select a time to demo..." followed by a demand that we make anappointment to talk to them in the next three days. Okay... does thismean the first email was a mistake? Or have they changed their minds?Is this second email a mistake? Should we ask them? Has too much workon yoomoot and not enough healthy exercise and sunlight caused us tocollectively hallucinate?
We decide to indulge the potentialhallucination and make an appointment. 24 hours after receiving theinvitation email I'm on the phone toMahalo-founder-come-internet-celebrity Jason Calacanis.This is decidedly surreal as I happen to be on a weekend break to seemy parents in Nottingham. Sitting in front of mum's cranky computer inthe family living room I don't feel like the genius co-founder of thenext Google; I feel like an overgrown teenager who should get a properjob. Still, I've asked my mum not to start calling for the cats to comeback inside and my stepfather has turned the volume down on his latestguns-and-explosions movie, so as far as Jason is concerned I'm in mystate-of-the-art teleconferencing studio in Silicon Roundabout.Still, I've been cyber-stalking Jason ever since we heard of TechCrunch50, sohaving the voice of this distant glamourised figure of the technoratiappear in my parents' living room still throws me.
I point Jasonin the direction of our demo video (First mistake? Would he havepreferred to see the live demo site? Does this look unprofessional?)and wait for him to call back. First question "So, this a site fordiscussing the news which is more organized than Yahoo! Answers?"Er.... no not really... (Oh crap, he completely hasn't got what we'reabout!). The rest of hisquestions are nearly all questions which were asked on the TechCrunch50application form: "How would you describe Yoomoot in one sentence? Whoare your competitors? Why would someone go to your site instead of usingcomments? How are you different from Yahoo! Answers [Yahoo!Answers again; does this mean he thinks we're competing with his ownMahalo Answers?]?" These are all great questions which we have great answersfor, but I am completely thrown by them. We had considered all thequestions that might be asked and the only ones we completely ruled outwere the ones we had already answered in the application form since,well, why would they ask them again? As a result my answers are garbledand overly-long. By the end of the interview I know I've blown it. Ifonly I'd had our TechCrunch50 application form in front of me I could have madenice, concise, enlightening answers just by reading aloud.
Idon't tell my co-founder because I don't want to seem negative, butafter the interview I feel it would be a miracle if we are selected toTechCrunch50. Sure enough, the deadline arrives and we are not amongst thechosen fifty:
"Unfortunately, we regret that we are unable to place your company as a TechCrunch50 finalist."
Havinggone through this once already it only takes me a few seconds to gothrough denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance and I feelkind of relieved not to have the tension hanging over me any more. Mypartner gets stuck on the denial stage for a bit and emailsTechCrunch50 to ask if they've made a mistake again. They haven't andwe move on. At least I no longer feel compelled to read Jason Calacanis blogging about his two pet dogs.
Confessing your tale of TechCrunch50 last-minute-rejection is all the rage at the moment (see this and this) and I hate to turn down a good band-wagon, so here's our story.
Our tragic tale begins and ends with rejection. The first rejection comes in the form of "We regretthat we are unable to pursue your application further" to which myreaction was "What? Not even an interview? Don't you know we're goingto change the world?!" followed by silent disillusionment anddespondency, followed by acceptance, followed by revival of optimismand moving on. Turns out this first rejection was all a twisted joke,because just as I had put TechCrunch50 completely out of my mind, weget another email: "We hope you're ready! We would like to inviteyou to select a time to demo..." followed by a demand that we make anappointment to talk to them in the next three days. Okay... does thismean the first email was a mistake? Or have they changed their minds?Is this second email a mistake? Should we ask them? Has too much workon yoomoot and not enough healthy exercise and sunlight caused us tocollectively hallucinate?
We decide to indulge the potentialhallucination and make an appointment. 24 hours after receiving theinvitation email I'm on the phone toMahalo-founder-come-internet-celebrity Jason Calacanis.This is decidedly surreal as I happen to be on a weekend break to seemy parents in Nottingham. Sitting in front of mum's cranky computer inthe family living room I don't feel like the genius co-founder of thenext Google; I feel like an overgrown teenager who should get a properjob. Still, I've asked my mum not to start calling for the cats to comeback inside and my stepfather has turned the volume down on his latestguns-and-explosions movie, so as far as Jason is concerned I'm in mystate-of-the-art teleconferencing studio in Silicon Roundabout.Still, I've been cyber-stalking Jason ever since we heard of TechCrunch50, sohaving the voice of this distant glamourised figure of the technoratiappear in my parents' living room still throws me.
I point Jasonin the direction of our demo video (First mistake? Would he havepreferred to see the live demo site? Does this look unprofessional?)and wait for him to call back. First question "So, this a site fordiscussing the news which is more organized than Yahoo! Answers?"Er.... no not really... (Oh crap, he completely hasn't got what we'reabout!). The rest of hisquestions are nearly all questions which were asked on the TechCrunch50application form: "How would you describe Yoomoot in one sentence? Whoare your competitors? Why would someone go to your site instead of usingcomments? How are you different from Yahoo! Answers [Yahoo!Answers again; does this mean he thinks we're competing with his ownMahalo Answers?]?" These are all great questions which we have great answersfor, but I am completely thrown by them. We had considered all thequestions that might be asked and the only ones we completely ruled outwere the ones we had already answered in the application form since,well, why would they ask them again? As a result my answers are garbledand overly-long. By the end of the interview I know I've blown it. Ifonly I'd had our TechCrunch50 application form in front of me I could have madenice, concise, enlightening answers just by reading aloud.
Idon't tell my co-founder because I don't want to seem negative, butafter the interview I feel it would be a miracle if we are selected toTechCrunch50. Sure enough, the deadline arrives and we are not amongst thechosen fifty:
"Unfortunately, we regret that we are unable to place your company as a TechCrunch50 finalist."
Havinggone through this once already it only takes me a few seconds to gothrough denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance and I feelkind of relieved not to have the tension hanging over me any more. Mypartner gets stuck on the denial stage for a bit and emailsTechCrunch50 to ask if they've made a mistake again. They haven't andwe move on. At least I no longer feel compelled to read Jason Calacanis blogging about his two pet dogs.