Tech satire.
I gotta say I love it! Memes. GIFS. YouTube vids. TikTok clips. The whole nine yards.
As a testament to how much I love satirical memes and GIFs, six years ago, when I was testing out “best” cold email methods, as a semi-random A/B test, I emailed half of the folks I reached out to, leading or ending with either a meme or GIF. The list ranged from authors to musicians to researchers to Fortune 500 executives to founders to professional stone skippers. And the results weren’t half bad. Out of 150 odd emails, about a 70% response rate. Half of which resulted in a follow-up exchange by email, call, or in-person. The other half were gracious enough to say time was not on their side.
So when I learned, from the most recent episode of Angel podcast, about David Cowan’s version, I just had to check it out. And I wish I had only discovered it sooner. Made by Director Martin Sweeney, and co-visionaries, Michael Fertik of Reputation.com and David Cowan of Bessemer Venture Partners, bubbleproof is tech hilarity… made by the folks who have tech day jobs. Though I still haven’t watched the 6 seasons and 53 episodes of the Silicon Valley TV series yet. Sorry, friends who keep recommending it.
I just finished episode 5, where they share a snapshot of comedic ideas and pitches – from lipid fuel technology to an Airbnb marketplace for prisoners. And not gonna lie, I had a good chuckle. But when the episode wrapped up and I finally had a chance to think in retrospect, those ideas could have been real pitches in some world out there. When I first started in venture, I met with my share of cancer cures predicated off of a happiness matrix and feces fuel and African gold brokers. In case you’re wondering, yes, I did get pitched those. The last one admittedly should have come through my spam folder.
In these next few weeks, while you’re WFH (work from home), if you’re curious about tech from the ironic perspective of those who live and breathe it every day, check the series out. Only 10 episodes. 7-15 minutes per. (And while you do that, maybe I’ll finally get around to watching Silicon Valley. But no promises.)
As a footnote, Bessemer also has a track record for being forthcoming and intellectually honest. I would highly recommend checking out their anti portfolio, that lists and explains not their biggest wins or losses, but their biggest ‘shoulda-coulda-woulda’s’.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
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