Last Wednesday we presented at Under The Radar at Silicon Valley.

First the good news:
Great conference.
Great organizers.
Interesting companies and a great cast of characters (aka Judges), and
People we talked to and demoed to really dug what we were doing at Project Opus. Except....

Chris Sacca from Google.

Chris, was pretty pissed off with our home page. So much so that he chose not to explore our site further.

He wasn't too keen on the other presenters' sites either, but he did give them the courtesy of exploring their services further.
1. Jemendo. Chris criticized them for requiring him to register to sample the site. He also complains that their worthwhile mission is lost two pages down.

"If it wasn't for this conference, you would have lost me in the first 8 seconds, and I wouldn't have explored further". He did explore further and gave some helpful suggestions.

2. MusicStrands Chris criticized them for not providing full length tracks for listening, and a troubling user experience. Again "if it wasn't for the conference I would not have muddled through it." But he did muddle through it and provide some helpful suggestions.

I presented third. I go through my slides.

Project Opus enables:
The publishing of music without a middle man.
The monetization of music through sales, licensing, and advertising
The discovery of music through sharing technologies, calendars, moods, and activities
The distribution of music through a player and API not tied to a single website

We are developing the following three technologies.
one
two
three

I show screenshots of the Web site.
I introduce a new player (not yet released) that enables other communities to share music freely and openly.
I mention that we are close to a number of deals that will expand our library significantly to include established names with our independents.

I talk about open sharing of music.

I see people in the audience, nodding their heads. Some smiles.

Unfortunately for us, Chris Sacca is not one of them. He was just pissed off. Chris ranted on about not getting what we were doing and accusing us of "seeing money" and "biting at the heels of other aimless competitors in the space". "You've never looked at the end user."

A little frustrated I point out that "visitors can listened to full length tracks. You can have them in the format of your choice. You can move the files to any device you want. These were criticisms you had for the previous presenters. Bands are using our player as a way to monetize the music they are offering on their band and MySpace sites."

He was slightly taken back. I realize he NEVER even got passed the home page. We found out later that his big issue was the "Spread the Word" banner on our home page. It was very un-Canadian, he said. "I look at your page you want me to spread the word? I don't even know who you are and you are asking me to spread the word?" He basically didn't bother to look deeper. A courtesy he did give the other presenting companies that failed to meet his immediate expectations.

A bit frustrating really, since the 'Spread the Word" banner was a direct result of frequent requests from our community. Had he looked deeper, he would have seen our artist friendly license, our responsiveness to customer needs, our focus on supporting other communities outside of Project Opus, and our commitment to Fair Play.

Having said all that, Chris did make an important point. Our home page should be directed at what we are about, and how to use our services rather than advertising features to our present members. Private messaging and the forums are the best tools for that. New users are critical users for us. We really need to address our messaging (and usability) on our site - so they KNOW what the site is about and what it can do for them.

Point taken, but his ongoing-point only allowed the other two judges to ask a single question each. But in the end the biggest thing I learned was to not let anyone take over my presentation - even when making a valid point. I let Chris take over my presentation. I should have said, 'Chris you make a good point about the home page. If you didn't get past it, let me tell you or better yet show you what we are about and what we offer our members." We have been getting such good press and interest up until now, I wasn't prepared for Mr. Sacca.

In truth, his acerbic comments will vastly improve our site. So, a very grudgingly "thanks" is due.

**UPDATE June 21, 2006**
Chris Sacca contacted me regarding this post. He objected to my portrayal of events at Under The Radar. The nature of any blog is that it is going to be written from the point of view of the writer, but in fairness I should have included a couple of points in my post:
1. After the presentation Chris spent considerable time talking to my partner, Kay, about the site. He didn't have to do that, and his comments were indeed valuable.
2. Kay also took the opportunity with Chris to explain our position. This provided Chris with more clarity on what we were doing.
3. Chris' e-mail provided some analysis of the site to support his position that he had actually spent more than an hour on the site, and was not "just pissed off."

The fact that Chris wrote a significant e-mail to me regarding this says a great deal about his character: an important point not reflected in my original post.

I thank Chris for his feedback and best wishes.

One last thing... the title of my post was meant to be ironic.