We are a startup accelerator
We provide marketing consulting to new ventures, turning great ideas into successful companies.
Contact us
Categories
- Anticipate (2)
- Case studies (1)
- Communicate (21)
- Competition (2)
- Create (13)
- Exit strategy (2)
- Funding (6)
- Jobposting (1)
- Standing out (15)
- Startups (19)
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
The penny machine
in: Communicate, Funding
An entrepreneur walks into the maple-paneled boardroom, glances around the table at the well-groomed investors gathered there, and reaches into a large leather bag. He pulls out a strange machine, roughly two feet high by one foot wide, sets it carefully on the table, and plugs it in. The room is expectantly quiet. “Does anyone have a penny on them?” asks the entrepreneur. The general partner raises an eyebrow as one of the junior staff hands over a faded copper piece. “Now watch.” The entrepreneur inserts the coin into the top of the machine, and pulls a small lever. There is a low-pitched whirring, a pause, and then a shiny new nickel tumbles into the small shelf at the bottom of the machine. The only sound in the room is the ventilation system, cooling the warm Palo Alto air. “That’s a neat trick,” says the silver-haired general partner, straightening up in his seat and grinding his brown Mephistos into the new rug beneath him. “Do it again.”
View Comments