What I Learned By Entering the TechCrunch50 Conference

Larry Chiang loves observing how tier one MBAs network, self-promote and sell. He unearthed one HBS (Harvard Business School) grad rising named Ethan Anderson. He helped start RedBeacon and their visibility rose significantly after an industry conference called TechCrunch50. Here is a behind-the-scenes look at how a start-up CEO with a Harvard MBA works a conference.

Edited By Larry Chiang

By Ethan Anderson

Now in just its third year, the TechCrunch50 Conference has become the preeminent technology startup competition.  Over 1,000 startups around the world compete to be accepted to the Conference, where each of 50 finalists launch their companies on-stage in front of a panel of celebrity judges and an audience of 2,000 journalists, venture capitalists, and technology cognoscenti.

The process of applying and getting ready for TechCrunch50 is an incredible forcing function.  It forces you to plan your product development process with real milestones that cannot slip, it forces you to improve your public speaking delivery, and it forces you to channel stress and uncertainty into positive action.  So what did I learn in the process of entering our startup, Redbeacon, into the competition?

-1- You need a stellar product.

Conference organizers Michael Arrington, Jason Calacanis and Heather Harde, have to believe you’ve built something that will have a large, breakout success.  And they have a very good track record in their judgments so far.

-2- You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

Our team spent a tremendous amount of time preparing a professional looking video about Redbeacon to send in with our application.  And we rehearsed our demo again and again so when we did our first round interview with TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde, we were polished and assured.  As it turns out, the Conference organizer triumvirate begins forming their opinions early on and these opinions carry through all the way to the back room where the ultimate winner is decided.

-3- Listen to feedback from those who matter.

The organizers of TechCrunch50 don’t treat the 50 finalists like lambs being led to the slaughter.  In the weeks leading up to the event, they put the finalists through a grueling multi-session rehearsal process at the offices of storied venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital.  Conference organizers and one or more Sequoia partners scrutinized and suggested improvements on every word of the 7 minute presentation, and then gave us a rating from 1 to 10.  This can sometimes feel a little like a “stress position” derived by the CIA to extract information from suspected terrorists, but it’s actually an act of mercy.  If they didn’t spend the time to do this, we would be delivering something less than our absolute best on-stage.  And you never get a second chance to make a first impression (see lesson 2), especially when every VC in the world is tuning in.

-4- You need to take risks.

There are 50 fantastic, amazing, innovative companies presenting over two very long days.  If you want anyone to remember your product, your demo has to stand out.  We decided to demonstrate the power of Redbeacon, a web product to find and schedule local services, to show the audience how we could order 500 cupcakes with our logo on top.  Then we used the product to do a real-time request to find people to hand out the cupcakes to the crowd.  Could this have backfired?  Yes.  Many things can go wrong with a complex live demonstration on-stage, but it worked and everyone remembered the demo and the product as a result.

-5- You need to engage in a little self-promotion.

Not in a vain, gloating, or bragging sort of way.  But in a way that lets people know you’ve built or accomplished something great and that important people have noticed.  If someone posts or tweets favorably about you, go ahead and spread the word.  If you’re speaking or making an appearance somewhere, build up the hype a little.  When you’re an unproven startup, you need a great product.  But you also need the approbation of people who have gained the public trust (not to mention the ears of hundreds of thousands of potential customers).  This can feel uncomfortable at first because reputations have historically been generated over thousands of interactions with the same people over time.  But in this brave new world of real-time web and social media, it’s a mirror image.  A single interaction can be multiplied into thousands of “reputation impressions” that thousands of people you’ve never met see all at once.

So if you accomplish something great, don’t be afraid to tell the world – they want to know!  Speaking of which, did I mention Redbeacon won TechCrunch50 this year?  You should definitely check it out.

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Ethan Anderson is Cofounder of Redbeacon, the 2009 TechCrunch50 Conference winner.

Redbeacon enables consumers to connect with the right local business or individual to handle their service needs.  On Redbeacon.com, consumers can describe what they need done and specify when and where their job should take place. If selected, service providers are notified and given the opportunity to submit a price quote to do the work.  Consumers can select and book appointments with their top choice service provider based on business profiles, price quotes, and ratings and reviews from past Redbeacon consumers.  Redbeacon is free to use for consumers.  Service providers pay a commission of 10% of the value of jobs they win and schedule through Redbeacon.

This post was edited by Larry Chiang. To submit guest posts, email larry @larrychiang dot com