Dueling conferences

Michael Gartenberg | April 04, 2008, 08:42 AM

Huge dustup over Demo and the TechCrunch 50 conference, mostly fueled by comments like "Demo needs to die". It's a boring story IMHO and the industry's equivalent to inside baseball but it does raise the question of where do smaller companies go to get the proper attention and visibility, especially in the age of the Internet. Let's face it, ten years ago, you needed to be at one of these types of conferences, there were far fewer people covering them and getting the message out. While there's probably less industry journals, there are far more folks writing about things these days and it's far easier to get visibility if you know what you're doing.

Frankly, Jeremy Toeman offers the best advice for startup looking at both of these venues.

if you are a brand-new startup and have NO marketing department and/or PR firm, don’t do either. You’ll have a devil of a time getting anyone’s attention outside of the 6ish minutes you actually get on stage. You’d be better off launching at some quiet time when you can get people to notice you without all the hoopla.

Totally agree, you're better off finding a slow news week (there are plenty) when journalists and analysts are looking for something interesting to write about. Some of the best products and companies have launched this way and gotten better press, attention and overall buzz.