“Ground Control to Major Tom,” Mr. Prosina, 29, founder of Stellar Amenities, sang plaintively to a crowd of about 100 people in San Francisco’s Mission District on Saturday night.
Welcome to “Snark Tank,” where startup founders like Procina pitch their businesses and comedians criticize them for laughs. But amid the laughs, there’s a serious side to the evening. Many startups failThat’s why it’s important to identify and address problems early, panelists and startup founder survivors said. But getting brutally honest feedback can be surprisingly hard in Silicon Valley.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the nation’s startup investment capital epicenter, with every deal beginning with a “Snark Tank”-style pitch. In the second quarter of 2024 alone, $18.7 billion in venture capital poured into the San Francisco Bay Area. The market capitalization of startups in the region is $16.5 billion in the New York area and $2.5 billion in the Los Angeles area, according to data firm Pitchbook.
Despite the money pouring in, many startups struggle. “No one talks about Silicon Valley being the Valley of Death,” Snark Tank regular and startup founder Paul Jarcis, 40, said after the show. “A lot of founders come here and realize their product has already been built, or their idea doesn’t make sense, or they’re not competitive.”
Founders brave enough to pitch on “Snark Tank” aren’t just mocked, they’re also coached on basics like the importance of eye contact and keeping the microphone close to their mouths. They’re also grilled on key points: What problem are you trying to solve? How big is the potential market for your product? And what exactly is your startup doing?
The vibe of the show is a mix between a comedy show and a tech industry networking event. After the comedians had their fun, attendees were able to ask the founders questions, all wearing Patagonia activewear and Wharton Business School lanyards. One audience member wore a monogrammed jacket that read, “IDEA to IPO.”
The event was conceived by Elizabeth Swaney, 39, a former recruiter and Olympic skier who now works as a Starbucks barista and stand-up comedian.
Swaney said he wants to make technology more accessible to the general public in order to make the tech industry more inclusive. He said other tech events where founders seriously pitch their businesses to potential investors are “useful, but oftentimes boring events that don’t capture people’s attention.” In an interview. She now frequently hosts shows in the Bay Area as well as Los Angeles and New York.
Swaney’s golden rule when criticizing startup founders is to speak honestly. When giving feedback about their business, avoid mentioning their clothing or appearance (though she does admit that she did make an exception for the founder of a laundry start-up, who presented in visibly wrinkled clothes).
Panelist AJ Gandhi, a private equity investor and venture capitalist, said the show succeeds by taking something “super boring” and turning it into entertainment: “The only fun thing about Silicon Valley is making fun of Silicon Valley,” he said.
Companies presenting at last month’s expo included BioSieve, which develops AI software aimed at identifying potential new drugs for biotech companies; PigPug, which has developed an EEG headset to help children control symptoms of autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; Koda AIAI therapy app.
The panel told them Questions and provocations such as: Your slide about drug discovery is very vague, and your horoscope seems more specific. What would Silicon Valley be like if autism and ADHD were eradicated? And honestly, did this pitch deck take you more than 20 minutes to create?
The words of praise were also delivered with a twist. “How did we prepare the slides, rehearse it, be consistent, and really use everyone’s time well?” Haile posed the question to Doga Makiura, founder of Degas, a microfinance platform for farmers around the world, which was well received by the audience.
More than the joke, Rebecca Hardberger, a 45-year-old human resources professional, said she was struck by the business model of one founder who was pitching Applaz, a social network where people can connect. Her husband posts content through a notes app on his phone. “I know how awful Slack is, I can only imagine free-form notes,” says Hardberger. She keeps a personal record of times her husband has been hypocritical, but won’t make it public.
Applaz founder Constance Castillo said she isn’t intimidated by such “fear reactions.” “We want sharing notes to be about being your authentic self,” she said in an interview, adding that her platform allows users to post anonymously.
In interviews, some founders said they revised their pitch decks after receiving criticism from a panel of investors and comedians. Ahmad Reza Cheraghi, founder of Khoda.AI, said: We rethought the direction of the company based on the feedback we received that night.
But it was Prosina’s “Stellar Amenities” that garnered the most attention, in part because of the dramatic ending to her presentation.
As she finished her presentation, a large image of Hal 9000, the destructive AI from the 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” was projected onto a floor-to-ceiling projector screen.
This ominous reference makes the audience Question It’s becoming more common as AI products proliferate Looks like it’s been modeled Hollywood Dystopia Stories: Didn’t you see the end of the movie? Prosina is adamant that she’s not building an evil AI. “We’re building HAL 9000, and it’s a good AI,” she says. “It’s an AI that actually helps people.”
Proshina tried his hand at stand-up comedy. She said the event was cathartic and a departure from projecting an image of herself as a serious founder who has all the answers.
“I knew that if I did a really bad job, I could turn it into a joke,” she said. But she also got feedback that led her to update her slides to clarify the market share she wanted to capture and the valuation of her startup.
But she plans to keep calling her space-going chatbot Tom. “We’re not going to change the name. We’re pretty confident in the name,” Prosina told The Post in an interview. A few weeks after the event, at least one audience member was pleased with the branding: After the event, Prosina was approached by someone offering a $50,000 angel investment.
Swaney is working to make “Snark Tank” more than just a fun night out: She’s filed paperwork to form her own startup company, Tech Pitch Roast Comedy LLC, to run the show, and is working with lawyers who have served as panelists to draft paperwork that will allow panelists to acquire equity in the startups.
Swaney, who has also worked as a production assistant on television shows and a stuntman in movies, plans to pitch the show to potential investors and TV executives and is currently working on creating a presentation.
What would it be like if she presented on her own show? “I definitely need to improve,” Swaney says. “I would get pretty panned on my own show.”
