Demo and Techcrunch50
I have just returned from CTIA Las Vegas and kind of rushed a post regarding the launch of Techcrunch50 and the DEMO debate.
Firstly a disclaimer I am a friend of Mike’s and my company MAXroam was a successful participant in Techcrunch40 last year.
Firstly on DEMO, one of the most noticeable things from the last DEMO was the lack of information flowing through if you look at the last DEMO event I can only recognise Seesmic, Ribbit and Skyfire all the rest are unknown to me.
One other thing which really bothered me was the launch of Toktumi which a lot of us commented on regarding its “me2″ product already being successful done by two other companies. I think that DEMO may be in danger of becoming a buy to show event and loosing its grass roots support. Where are the DEMO gods? I remember when I started out blogging winning a demo GOD was a huge deal, now I can’t even find out who won at the last event and am not that bothered if truth be known.
So onto Techcrunch40/50, of course they had their faults (No GSM, no WiFi) as anyone who attended our launch will verify but the event itself was strong, the attendance was excellent and the preshow briefings by Jason and Mike were, how can I put this, “constructive”
We paid zero besides travel costs, in fact since I had made my mind up to go we purchased an extra ticket before we were confirmed and took Conor O Neill of Irish start-up LouderVoice along with us for the ride.
The event had a feeling of all of us in this together, there were a serious number of VC’s represented in the room and we had numerous approaches. Heather was amazing I have never seen anyone work so hard in my life and remember everyone’s name and everyone’s product.
I for one don’t believe there is room for two in the same state and the same dates, I am also of the opinion that we couldn’t have launched at DEMO as we hadn’t access to those type of funds and if we had we wouldn’t have risked that much of our equity.
I think we will see Techcrunch50 create a new barrier in launch shows and I will definitely be attending again this year.
Which will you attend?, unfortunately you can only pick one
Right on the money. DEMO needs to evolve or die.
Hi Pat - I wanted to comment on your post that Toktumi is a “me-too” company already being done successfully by two other companies. I appreciate the feedback (even if it’s not very favorable). In fairness, I also must ask you if you’ve ever tried the service? I looked through the customer records and don’t see any record of you creating an account.
Toktumi is unique in many ways. First, There is no service on the market today that provides full PBX functionality, - including auto-attendant, receptionist capabilities, support for multi-line offices, etc - via a free software download that give your a number and dialtone in less than five minutes. Its never been so easy to set up a complete office with phone service.
Also, The ability of our softphone phone to work seamlessly with a standard telephone attached as a peripheral, or with PC headsets, provides unique flexibility not available from other office phone solutions or softphones.
Finally, our feature “search dialing,” which allows you to call any number - even those not in your address book - just by typing a name or keyword is unique in the way it taps multiple directories (on your PC and online) to pull everything together into one place.
Toktumi made 4 top picks lists from the show and has received favorable coverage from CNET, eWeek, Information Week, Financial Times, PC Week and many others.
Most importantly, people from all over the world are signing up for Toktumi, 1000 in the last two weeks alone.
Toktumi is designed for small offices and home based businesses. There are 40M workers in this segment in the US alone. A lot of these people haven’t even heard the word “softphone” and think “twitter” is a noise a bird makes. They want things to be easy, provide the features they need, take the pain and expense out of phone service, and just plain work. Toktumi is designed for them.
Thanks for listening!
Best regards,
Peter Sisson
Founder & CEO
Toktumi, Inc.
I really like Chris Shipley, Mike Sigal and Frank Kelcz of Guidewire (I even made Thanksgiving dinner for Chris - and others - in London one year, which was a lot of fun!). And, full disclosure, Guidewire has comped me tickets to previous events. But you’re right, the buzz on DEMO has gone. It’s not something I see a momentum building to every year, unlike other tech-related events. I’d go to Techcrunch50 in a heartbeat. Besides, that’s where all the scandals and fights blow up, too.