gavinbaker

I’m a marketer and we help our clients with a few trade shows a year.

If you are going to have a booth, table cloth, marketing materials (flyers, brochure, etc) you cost will be more than then the $1,500 for the space. Depending on the type of show many will also charge you for WiFi and power. Even on the low spend side, I’d anticipate spending $3k plus your food, lodging and travel costs.

Upside is many shows will provide you with the whole list of attendees which while aren’t leads - can be useful for future outreach without hunting down names/emails on your own.

Like others mentioned if it’s not a lot of money, then go and get feedback about the pain your product is solving. In addition to that, you can meet other vendors who can be good referral and industry connections if you don’t have that yet.

My experience: I have built a failed product that no one needed before and it was an expensive (couple million) and long exercise (2 yrs) in futility that would have been helped by getting face to face with our target audience earlier, not later.

We have a small agency, and have these issues too. Most of the time it is just the occasional slow payed invoice. If they get past two weeks we shoot them an email.

Things we do to lower the risk as much as we can. #1 we get paid upfront for the month. #2 We always ask for a credit card or ACH as part of the contract, we still do get checks because for some that is the preferred method for them, but we try to get the CC / ACH.

For us, if it's becoming an issue over 1-2 months, I'll personally make the ask and find out if something is wrong. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt that the invoice isn't getting to them or was missed.

Something people have suggested is when the payment is late, a nice notification email that just says that you haven't received payment for this month and according to policy, work is suspended until payment is received.

The reason we don't do this is because for us 100% of the time it has been a missed invoice, not an intentional stoppage of payment.

Personally I think there is room for training in the way you describe it. I do not think I am very good at sales, so I've looked into a lot of programs to get better. But none touch on all the pieces you mentioned in your post.

Is there a big market? Not sure - would I be interested - yes.

Great. I'd be interested in the case study when it's ready. I shot you an email too. Looks like it could be a good fit for us.

I'm up in Knoxville (about 1.5 hours north of Chattanooga) and while our startup scene isn't as web focused or developed (the Co.lab is awesome). We do have some fairly major businesses, Scripps Networks, Regal Cinemas, Pilot Flying J, Bush's Baked Beans, PetSafe, Alcoa, SeaRay boats, MasterCraft boats and Ruby Tuesday top the list and really smart people at The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Lab - one of six national labs. If you ever want to visit, I'd be glad to play tour guide of my adopted city.

It is hard to be where you are. Thankfully life does move forward.

In my case we had a couple million invested in the world changing idea. Saying we failed was very very hard. Hard to tell my friends, our industry partners and my parents.

What I did - was take a long walk to my favorite rock on the lake. And I sat there in the cold and watched birds fly and fish eat and the sky change. I cried tears of frustration and of grief, for the possibilities that wouldn't be.

I then went back the office and made a list of things we needed to do. In my case our investors saw it coming because we'd missed key milestones for additional funding. Our team was small and I'd been open with them about missing the milestones.

We negotiated out of our contracts and made our final payments. In our case our board had made it clear we needed "wind down money" in the bank and we had it.

It wasn't easy, not by a long shot. At the end I was drained. I took two months off. I slept, I prayed, I read and I journaled. You may not be able to do all of that, but give yourself a break.

What I wished I had was someone to talk to who understood what I was going through. Plenty of people fail in business, but not many have a lot of money backing it, a lot of people believing in it and you feel like you let them down. Take up the offers of help to talk in person. I'd be glad to sit and listen if you want. The good news is that the sun will rise tomorrow and it will be a new day. And while it won't feel great, you will get through all of this.

Thanks for sharing this. I had a marginal experience with PA and your post is making me take a second look.

As an aside, it would be great to see more posts on HN about "why I chose X over Y"

I'd be interested. Could you email me too?

Based on what I read in the Facebook Effect he did sell ads, and wanted to sell more but advertising wasn't a focus in 2004-6. As a marketing person myself, I have a soft spot for him and do always wonder why he is made the villain in the Facebook story. Anyone know?

He makes a TON of great distinctions between roles (marketing, sales, product).

Great idea! Why is it great? Because it's a technical achievement that is easily understood by the normal web user. It shows how technology can be used in basic ways to make information easier to use. Well done.

Something that makes it easier to be a property owner is great. I see this not going after the current market but people like me who want to make renting easier.

I'd prefer it lighter as well