“Major Tom’s ground control,” Prosina, the 29-year-old founder of Stellar Amenities, sang plaintively to an audience of about 100 people Saturday night in San Francisco’s Mission District.
Welcome to Snark Tank, where startup founders like Prosina pitch their businesses and comedians rip them apart for laughs. Amid the laughter, the evening has a serious side. Most startups fail, so it’s important to identify and address problems early, say panelists and victims of their startup founders. Still, brutally honest feedback can be surprisingly hard to come by in Silicon Valley.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the startup investment capital of the nation — and every deal starts with a pitch like the ones on “Snark Tank.” In the second quarter of 2024 alone, $18.7 billion in venture capital poured in young companies in the region, according to data firm PitchBook, compared with $16.5 billion in the New York area and $2.5 billion in the Los Angeles area.
Despite so much money pouring in, many young businesses fail. “What people never talk about is that Silicon Valley is the Valley of Death,” Paul Jerseys, 40, a regular on “Snark Tank” and a startup founder himself, said after the show. “A lot of founders come here to find out that their product is already built, or that their idea is pointless — or that they don’t have a competitive advantage.”
In addition to facing ridicule, founders brave enough to present on the Snark Tank are taught the basics, like the importance of making eye contact and keeping the microphone close to their mouth. And they pick up on the big stuff, like: What problem are you trying to solve? How big is the potential market for this product? And what exactly does your startup do?
The atmosphere of the show resembles a comedy show crossed with a tech industry networking event. Attendees, who can ask the founders questions after the comedians entertain, sport Patagonia activewear and Wharton Business School lanyards. One audience member wore a monogrammed jacket proclaiming “IDEA to IPO.”
The event was initiated by Elizabeth Swaney, a 39-year-old former recruiter and Olympic skier turned Starbucks barista and stand-up comedian.
Sweeney said he wants to make technology more accessible to the average person in hopes of making the industry more inclusive. She finds that other tech events, where founders seriously pitch their businesses to potential investors, are “informative, but they’re often dry, one-off events that don’t grab people’s attention,” Sweeney said. in an interview. She now frequently hosts shows in Los Angeles and New York in addition to the Bay Area.
Swaney’s golden rule for winning over startup founders is to give genuinely feedback about their business — and don’t include their clothing or appearance. She admits she made an exception for the founder of the laundry startup, who showed up wearing a significantly wrinkled outfit.
Panelist AJ Gandy, 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 in Silicon Valley is to make fun of Silicon Valley,” he said.
Companies featured at the show last month included BioSieve, which is working on AI software aimed at identifying drug candidates for biotech companies; PigPug, creator of a brainwave headset that helps children manage symptoms of autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; and Hoda. AI, an artificial intelligence therapy application.
The panel sprayed them questions and provocations such as: Your drug discovery slides are so vague they make the horoscope seem more specific. What would happen to Silicon Valley if autism and ADHD were eradicated? And: Be honest, did it take you more than 20 minutes to do it?
Even the praise was delivered with a twist. “How come you had slides that were prepared and you rehearsed this and that … it was consistent and really made good use of everyone’s time, why?” Heil asked Doga Makiura, founder of Degas, a microfinance platform for farmers around the world. The audience lapped it up.
Rebecca Hardberger, a 45-year-old human resources professional, was shocked not so much by the jokes as by the business model of one founder who pitched Applaz, a social network for people post content from the notes app on their phone. “I can see how bad the Slacks are — I can only imagine free-range notes,” said Hardberger, who keeps a personal account of all the times her husband is hypocritical, which she has no intention of making public.
Constance Castillo, founder of Applaz, said she is not deterred by such “fear reactions.” “We want sharing notes to be your authentic self,” she said in an interview, adding that her platform allows users to post anonymously.
Several founders have said in interviews that after taking their pieces from the investor group and the comedians, they re-examined their ad decks. Ahmad Reza Cheragi, founder of Khoda. AI, said it was is rethinking the direction of his company based on the feedback he received that night.
But Prosina’s star amenities drew the most attention, in part because of the dramatic ending to her performance.
As she wraps up her presentation, a large image of Hal 9000, the destructive AI from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, appears on the floor-to-ceiling projector screen.
The ominous reference prompted an audience member to ask a question that’s becoming increasingly common as more AI products seem to be modeled after Hollywood’s Dystopian Plots: Haven’t you seen the end of this movie? Prosina swears he’s not developing an AI that will turn evil. “We’re doing a Hal 9000, but a good one,” she says. “The one that really helps.”
Prosina, who does stand-up comedy, said he found the event cathartic — a break from projecting an image of a serious founder who has all the answers.
“I just knew that if I did a really bad job, I could turn it into a joke,” she said. But she also received feedback that prompted her to update her slides to clarify the market share she hopes to capture and what her startup might cost.
However, she continues to call her space chatbot Tom. “I will not change the name. I’m pretty confident about the name,” Prosina said when The Post caught up with her weeks after the event. And at least one audience member felt comfortable with branding: After the event, Prosina reached out to someone who pitched in a $50,000 angel investment.
As for Sweeney, she’s in the process of turning Snark Tank into more than just a good night out. She has filed to incorporate her own startup company to run the show, Tech Pitch Roast Comedy LLC, and is working with an attorney who served on the panel to draft documents that would allow the panelists to raise capital in the fledgling business.
Sweeney, who has also worked as a TV production assistant and understudy in movies, plans to pitch the show to potential investors and TV executives — which means she’s working on her pitch.
What might happen if she were to perform on one of her own shows? “It definitely needs work,” Sweeney said. “I know I’m going to get roasted a lot on my own show.”
