The night before Virtual Melanin was to make a pitch to venture capitalists at New York's high-power Venture Downtown conference Tuesday, the three-man company hosted a blow-out cybercast at their Jersey City, New Jersey, studio until three in the morning.
"You've got to look at this as a lifestyle," mused CEO McLean Greaves as blues singer Queen Esther crooned behind him. "If you look at it like work, you'll burn out." Sure, they haven't started putting together their Power Point presentation, Greaves admitted, but they'll work on it after the party.
As the new-media market gets glutted with aspiring start-ups, can a company with only minimal sleep, "sweat equity," and a business-plan-in-progress convince investors they can pull it off? "You have to do your homework," said Jerry Colonna at New York venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners. "[Pitching your company] takes discipline."
Among players like The Mining Company and iVillage, Virtual Melanin faced some fierce competition Tuesday. But the company is confident: since they're starting at zero capital, even if they lose, they win.
Following in the footsteps of minority-targeted sites BET and NetNoir, Virtual Melanin markets itself as an urban alternative that operates - not surprisingly - with no overhead.
The company cleared US$100,000 last year by helming urban Web conference Cafe Los Negros and handling the online development for Spike Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule and the Bad Boy record label. But their expectations are modest, said Greaves. "We're not looking for a saving grace, but just to find the right partner that wants to work with us."
The conference itself was divided into two tracks of presenters that ran simultaneously. Virtual Melanin was unhappy about being slotted at 9 a.m., and the crowd was thin. When it became clear that the projector wouldn't handshake technically with their notebook computer, Greaves prepared to read the PowerPoint presentation. "I guess I'm going to shock everyone," he said. "The organizers were freaking out. I said, 'Hey - we have voices.'"
Greaves exchanged his wild leopard-skin patterned spectacles for a more demure black pair and launched into his pitch. "When Microsoft and Intel think of African-American and Latino content online," he said, "we want to be the ones they think of first." He emphasized that the African American consumer market controlled $324 billion in purchasing power last year. "Urban markets have always been the trendsetters for our culture and we want to make technology as popular as beepers and samplers are now."
After his speech, he met with a representative from Flatiron Partners and attorneys from Ernst and Young, arranging to meet up later that week. "Microsoft kept coming up, saying, 'Who are you talking to? ... Let's do a deal,'" said Tyrone Thomas, the company's tech officer. "But if everybody's doing a deal with Microsoft, how can they keep track?"
VM had their own problems to keep track of - just one hour after their presentation, the company was out of business cards because they had only brought 10.
Like the other companies at the conference, Greaves and his dreadlocked crew have recognized that the trick to selling a site or software is, in part, learning to sell your story. "Anybody that's smart is going to market themselves in a particular way," said Colonna. In a refrain that would be retold through-out the day, Greaves said: "This company started in Do-or-Die Bedford-Stuyvesant. It keeps us close to the street and gives us a hunger and drive to develop out from impoverished surroundings."
According to Colonna, the New York scene itself is at a "critical juncture," which could bode well for VM. "There hasn't been the kind of infrastructure to help these companies get established the way there is in Silicon Valley," Colonna said. "The New York tech sector is maturing."
By midday, while the conference continued, Virtual Melanin was already spent. Though they had paid US$395 for lunch and the evening's cocktail party, Virtual Melanin decided to pass on any further networking. "The conference has given us momentum," said Greaves.
As the remaining crowds filed into the next 20-minute pitch, Virtual Melanin wrapped up their CPU in a pink blanket and torn plastic bag, and strapped it to a portable handcart. They were headed back to work.
From the Wired News New York Bureau at FEED magazine.
