![\"techcrunch-disrupt-nyc\"](\"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/assets\/techcrunch-disrupt-nyc-e1378883822191.jpg\")
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Once every 2 \u00bd hours, a startup, somewhere in the world, is being asked on stage to give confidential information about their startup \u2013 that\u2019s not a real statistic, but it certainly feels true today.<\/p>\n
Startup Competitions are bad. Judges in non-related sectors determine whether an early-stage gaming studio is \u2018better\u2019 than a boot-strapped big data startup. They give false senses of satisfaction that ultimately leave the founders trying to measure the impact of the investment they just made (\u201c5 tweets about us winning!\u201d), and they are flawed in their very assumption that there are enough startups to fill every startup competition. You\u2019ll notice that Rude Baguette doesn\u2019t do pitch competitions \u2013 we may eventually, but I really hope we don\u2019t, unless we do them right, like we do with Code in the Dark<\/a>.<\/p>\n Today, I want to talk about one part of the pitch competition: the Q&A section. \u201cWhat\u2019s your exit strategy?\u201d \u201cHow many Daily Active Users do you have?\u201d and \u201cWhat\u2019s your conversion rate from freemium to paid ?\u201d are all questions an investor should ask you \u2013 unless, of course, they are holding a microphone at a conference in front of an audience of 500.<\/p>\n Smart founders find politician-style ways of circumventing these questions: \u201cOur exit strategy is to build a great product that people use every day,\u201d \u201cwe\u2019ve been pleased with the growth rate in our DAUs \u2013 it\u2019s been very encouraging\u201d or the less-stealthy \u201cI\u2019m happy to talk with you after the competition about that, if you\u2019re interested.\u201d<\/p>\n No one is teaching founders which information they should give out to strangers and which information they have a right to keep to themselves, and frankly, the judges are more at fault than the founders. There is some truth to that fact that being on stage at the LeWeb Startup Competition is akin to a first meeting with 100 VCs, and so founders want to offer information that will get them a follow-up meeting; however, don’t be fooled into thinking that this is your only chance to meet that judge. If they are interested, they’ll answer your emails or talk to you backstage – after all, you were just on stage with them.<\/p>\n More often than not you see journalists as judges (journalists do not care what you should <\/i>keep to yourself \u2013 anything you say is a scoop), or late-stage VCs as judges asking how you\u2019re going to deal with their portfolio company, who works in an adjacent sector but may eventually come into your vertical.<\/p>\n If a journalist asks you what you’re going to do if Google copies you, just tell them \u201cGoogle\u2019s DNA doesn\u2019t really fit with this vertical, and we don\u2019t believe it\u2019s priority for them\u201d \u2013 I don\u2019t even know your startup, and there\u2019s a good chance that answer will fly, because Google is actively reducing the number of activities it does and is too preoccupied with Google+ and Google Drive to worry about your sector.<\/p>\n As for judges (myself included): if you want to ask about what they’ve been working on for the past 6 months, and where they\u2019d like to be in 6 months, go nuts. But don\u2019t ask them questions that should be asked behind closed doors. Putting a founder in an uncomfortable situation is a good way to see how he reacts under pressure, but a competition is enough false pressure on its own that you can just stick to asking them questions about their strategy, positioning, and thoughts on recent sector news and competitors.<\/p>\nJudges need to stop asking probing questions<\/h4>\n
Founders: you need to be ready for every question, but you don\u2019t need to be ready to answer them.<\/h4>\n