Silicon Valley’s famous Tech Evangelist & Blogger, Robert Scoble answered questions on what are the things and what you can do to get his attention. If you have an idea for a startup, you can use this to check whether you will deserve a look from super busy investor slash journalist such as Scoble.
It will be interesting if Aulia Masna can do the same thing with more relevancy to Indonesian startup scene.
Answer by Robert Scoble:
Easy. Send me email: scobleizer@gmail.com or call me on my cell phone +1-425-205-1921.
Just remember, you are competing with dozens of companies every day who want to get my (and other tech journalists’) attention. Just on one day this week 70+ companies came out from just one tech incubator (Y Combinator). If I wrote about just two of those companies every day it would take me a month and in reality I can’t do two a day.
So, what makes you more interesting than a Y Combinator company? Start there.
Some of my hot buttons:
- Sensors.
- Wearable computers.
- Big data.
- Mapping.
- Social networks.
- Anything on contextual computing.
- Tablets.
- Mobile.
If you have something hot that fits into one or more of the things above, that will really help.
Some other filters I use?
1. Are you really going for the fence? In other words, are you building a global brand like Spotify, Flipboard, Siri, etc? Or are you just trying to copy Uber and own, say, Germany. That’s a great business (ask the Samwer brothers) but it just isn’t interesting to me.
2. Do you have mind-blowing technology? A self-driving car, for instance? Then I want to talk to you about it (and I did, all the way back when it was a Stanford University project back in 2007)
3. Does someone I trust, like, say, Ron Conway, Esther Dyson, Dave McClure, or Reid Hoffman recommend it? Have they invested in it? (I have thousands of friends on Facebook, you figure out who are the ones that can get your product in front of me). That definitely helps break through my filters.
Things that turn me off?
- Yet another news app. The space is too crowded. Unless you have something extremely mind-blowing, go find something else to do. Really any app in a crowded space. Photo sharing on smart phones, for instance. You really think you are better than Path and Instagram? Really? Well, if you are Evan Williams, Mark Zuckerberg, or Jack Dorsey I might listen. Might.
- Yet another copy of something else. Uber is cool. It broke new ground for me. Lyft is sort of cool. Other copies of Uber? Gonna have to step up the game big time to get my attention.
- Companies that clearly aren’t set up to launch (the design isn’t top rate — ask yourself, are you as well designed as Path or Instagram? Then you are probably ready. If not, the market will punish you). Or the team clearly isn’t ready for the challenge. Keep in mind, I’m willing to sit down with you before you launch and let you know what I think off camera. I did that for Siri six months before it launched. Flipboard, three months. Etc etc.
But, really, I’m looking for futuristic things that will help me live life better. If you have one, drop me an email. I’m at scobleizer@gmail.com I greatly prefer email over Facebook, Twitter, Quora, or even phone calls. Why? Because that way I have a record of your pitch and I can forward it to my producer and ask him what he thinks.
(UPDATE: Since writing this I’ve been keeping a magazine on Flipboard all about Startups. It has more than 2,000 articles on it in less than two months. That shows the competition you are up against and gives you a sense of what works with the tech press).
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