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Offer HN: Are you a startup founder? Want some free PR?
31 points by fapi1974 on Nov 10, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 28 comments
I'm producing a webseries about Silicon Valley - it's basically Entourage, but based here in the Valley.  I'll be launching a Kickstarter fundraising project in the next few days, and as part of the fundraising I'm doing "30 Days of Startup Stories."  I will feature your story and you get to piggyback off the PR for the project.  What I'll need your best startup story to feature in my update.  I'll be asking for feedback on the stories, and the best ones will make it into the series itself - which would obviously get you even more exposure.  Remember this is drama - so it's not a product pitch - it's killer products, crazy founder stories, lust, betrayal, absurdity, coincidence, debauch, or whatever else you have experienced that will make people go "no...fricking...way." Here are a couple I've gotten so far:

- fired my best friend - lost a $10mm deal because I was 10 minutes late - lost 3 girlfriends in 2 months

Your only commitment is a few sentences of text to get featured in 30 Days of Startups...easy! Write to me at fernando at valleyseries dot com with 2-3 sentences on your startup and your story.  Or drop your story in comments if you'd like...I'm sure we'll get some doozies!



If I were an Angel or VC, I'd check this list against my upcoming meetings and cancel meetings with any founders who would or could focus time on being the "entourage" of the valley. IMHO it shows a propensity for focusing on the notoriety as opposed to the process. I believe Ashton said it best when he spoke about shutting off as soon as founders were affected by thoughts of "the effect" as opposed to being focused on the problem they are trying to solve.


So there are two separate issues here - one is the "30 Days of Startups" which is basically the Kickstarter fundraising period. Those stories are true - but will simply be a little blurb about the Founder's experience - no more than 5 minutes worth of work for some exposure. If the story is popular though, that's when we would work it into the series. Since the series is fictional, the story would only form the basis for something we'd develop - it would be up to the startup if they would like the "Fictional" exposure. But to be clear - even in the fictional series, I'm going to focus on credible ideas and work with some serious entrepreneurs!


And yet Techstars NYC forced all its startups to be part of a similar show on Bloomberg.


The founders featured in the Bloomberg series agreed to the coverage. There were other TechStars NYC companies that did not agree.


Not exactly.

Bloomberg chose not to feature everyone, but all startups had to agree to be on the show or leave the Techstars program: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3133198


Not sure what this will do for the startup community as a whole... I personally wouldn't want to contribute to the "over hype" of start up life - people think it's all fun and games but often forget how much work goes behind building a successful business and product. Just my 2 cents.


Dropping out of University of San Francisco before my startup even launches next month. Spending all my money to pay a couple developers for the prototype and hoping all goes well. I am very confident.


I'd probably need a bit more detail - but send me an email!


Story for you: I quit my corporate job and then had a co-founder bail on me 1 week later. So I had to ask my old boss to take me back. Luckily he agreed. I then quit 6 months later.


Sign me up - send me your details via email. We might want to anonymize it :-)


> lost 3 girlfriends in 2 months

How do you even get 3 girlfriends in two months?

Surely anything shorter than a few months with someone is not considered a girlfriend!


It's not difficult if you meet and get friendly with a lot of women. Keep in mind boyfriend/girlfriend is just a title and you can actually have one for a day if you want.

Hell, Kim Kardashian had a marriage for 75 days, that's about the same time frame, no? #rimshot


Also, the point of the story was that each of them was a "real" prospect that the founder was really into. But multiple stood up dates sent them packing!


how can you possibly be "really" into someone that many times in 2 months... it's like something out of High School Musical


My friend and I were just discussing how awesome it would be to have a reality show/movie/drama series about some startups and founders in the valley–but mixed with a lot of what you described (lust, betrayal, absurdity, etc.).

Post your kickstarter project when it's live–I'll contribute.


Awesome! I'll do that. And the cool thing is that all sorts of people have THOUGHT of doing this - but no one really has,yet.


Call me crazy, but I'm kind of glad I don't have enough drama to make it on this show...


Not crazy at all - and honestly I want to do a great job of showing how dreary and depressing it can get - the internal drama is real!


You might be interested in talking to this guy:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3221094


Great suggestion - will do.


We have cool stories, but we are based in Mexico City. Is that cool?


Of course! Remember these are ideas that will form the basis for some fiction - I'd love to hear all about it!


Nice idea, going to cause some trouble I think..


aren't all disruptive/new/exotic ideas causing some kind of trouble?


I hope so!


do companies have to be in the valleys?


Not for the little profiles I'm doing during fundraising - just an interesting story is great.


We're not based out of silicon valley, so I'm not sure if we qualify. That said:

"Cofounder: set up shop in grandma's living room and lived on the couch. Me: quit my prior startup, endured business partner's rage, dumped girlfriend, moved to a different state. Business: bootstrapped, profitable, growing."

Probably not dramatic enough, but there it is.




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