Jason is real, his event is real too!
I first heard about Jason Calacanis when a good friend of mine, Sam Daoud, who happened to be a fan of Jason shared with me one of Jason's mails. I'm used to run into today's bla bla bla kind of business/technology reports, that tells you nothing useful, and I hate it because it wastes valuable time, but Jason's writings are different, they are irregular, which means he doesn't write to earn his living and he doesn't write if he has nothing valuable to write about.
Since then I started reading his mails as soon as they arrive, and when he announced the Launch Festival 2013 I said to myself this guy is REAL, his writings are REAL, his event must be real too and worths attending. But here is one little obstacle, I live in Jordan and I had to fly 20 hours to make it to San Francisco.
Anyway Sam helped me to make my mind, and I was the only one who flew 20 hours just to attend the Festival, people at the event were amazed when they knew I'm coming from the middle east. However the event was REAL, and far better than what I could imagine.
Startups pitches and demos were selected carefully. After almost every pitch you would say "Damn, they're good, this might be the next big thing". I was amazed when Jason told the audience that Zendesk pitched on this stage couple of years ago, and they are now worth of 100s millions of dollars, I'm amazed because my company uses Zendesk and I know it is an awesome tool.
After all Jason was real, very real, he was helping the entrepreneur on stage whenever something goes wrong during the pitch, he was highlighting the value the team is offering when the judges attack their work harshly, and at the end he puts his money where his mouth is.
Bottom line if you are a VC or angel investor, entrepreneur, engineer or creative designer, and you were not there, you might have missed the opportunity to invest in or be part of the next big thing.
Personally, I will be their next year, in Launch Festival 2014.
Thanks Jason for bringing all these people together, and thanks for the 1$ ticket :)
Aboud