Please, please don't. (Photo: screencap)

At this point, it's like shooting very large fish in a very small barrel to mock startup music videos. Everyone keeps doing them, and they're always awful. But this latest installment from 500 Startups is probably--though it strains belief!--the worst yet.

We never thought we'd say this, but shouldn't you guys be working on your pitch decks or something?

It's bad enough that, by covering "Thrift Shop," they have once again gone for the obvious, already exhausted viral hit of the moment. (Of course, we're long past begging Silicon Valley to show some originality.) To make matters worse, no one in this video shows any evidence of excitement, much less musical talent. The chorus is so lifeless we're forced to assume the singers were also swilling entire bottles of Nyquil at the time.

Also, way to rip off Adult Swim's trademark title cards, merely to inform us that "it's 500 motherfucking startups, we swear a lot here."

Good for you, bros. Good for you.

(Original photo: flickr.com/niallkennedy)

Lying Bitches 500 Startups founder Dave McClure, known for his rather dirty mouth, made a big slip-up at the Nebraska-based thinkfluencer festival Big Omaha today. According to Valleywag, Mr. McClure was giving a talk at the conference when he asked someone how good her iPhone battery life was. When she responded with a presumably positive answer, Mr. McClure called her a "lying bitch." On stage. In front of tons of people.

Mr. McClure responded by clarifying his comment:

https://twitter.com/davemcclure/status/332946952176156672

Okay then.

Man about Internet Anil Dash stepped into the fray, corroborating Valleywag's reporting, but saying that Mr. McClure apologized for the faux pas.

https://twitter.com/anildash/status/332950633424502785

But then he added more context:

https://twitter.com/anildash/status/332951296816599041

Wonder if this whole debacle is making Mr. McClure wish for the heady days of reality show stardom.

No One Knows Anything at Twitter Even though Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey claims that he is "not even thinking" about taking the little company public, that doesn't mean other people aren't. Jean-Phillipe Maheu, a Twitter employee and former Bluefin Labs exec, was stopped by an immigration agent at JFK airport, but not for a typical immigration check. Instead, Mr. Maheu was asked the $64,000 question: when the hell is Twitter going to cave and make it rain with an IPO? Mr. Maheu didn't finish his tweet, so maybe he's not even thinking about it.

https://twitter.com/jpmaheu/status/332806410545025024

Nuptial Update Are you getting SO PUMPED for Sean Parker's Medievial Times-themed wedding of the (19th) century on June 1? We know you're busy polishing off your sword and ironing out the wrinkles in your Elven Hooded cloak, but before you get too carried, you should get acquainted with the surroundings of the wedding's exotic locale in Big Sur, Calif. It's a hot spot for celebrity weddings, as SFGate.com discovered. The city, which is about two hours south of the Valley, has seen several (real) celebrities get married like Michael C. Hall, Natalie Portman, and, ugh, Anne Hathaway. If you can't be an A-lister, you may as well get married like one.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dorsey Jack Dorsey is really freaking us out this week, perhaps more so than usual. First, he's doing these weird selfies on his Vine account that nobody can explain, and now apparently he discovered the Marilyn Monroe tag on Tumblr. His always erratic Twitter account that usually spews non-sequiturs and documents the San Francisco sunrise is now spitting out quotes from Ms. Monroe. This one below is particularly special because we ask this every day.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/332864581653368834

X Marks the Spot Rumors surrounding Microsoft's new iteration of its Xbox videogame console are in high gear with the nearing of the console's reveal at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington on May 21. On Tuesday, the International Business Times reported that it had confirmed that the new console would be called Xbox Infinity, although Reddit users appeared to debate the validity of this source. The device, which internally is going by the codename Durango, has seen numerous name ideas emerge, from Xbox 720, NeXtbox, or simply Xbox--just like Apple did with their newest iPad. No Xbox Cheetoh Fingers, then?

Zynga Death Watch Zynga employees appear to be so distressed about the state of their company that they are willingly running into traffic. The Village Voice reports that Zynga NYC's mobile team had its second annual footrace today:

They waited until one light turned red, made the cross-walk at one side their starting line, and ran through a hastily pulled ribbon at the other cross-walk to finish. There were pictures. And applause. And a lot of people standing around going, "What the f*ck?"

Runnin' Scared was kind enough to get a video interview, which you can watch below:

Lafayette Foot Race from Voice Media Group on Vimeo.

Mr. Monahan (Photo: Jesse Thomas/Facebook via Tipster

Earlier this afternoon, Gawker republished photos and a video of AlphaBoost CEO Matt Monahan drunk and naked during a vacation to India. The escapades were originally shared by Jesse Thomas founder of JESS3, a social media advertising firm.

Venture-backed startup founders are fond of booze-soaked jaunts to unwind from the pressure of crushing it, celebrating a big milestone, or just because they can afford to. The difference here is that Mr. Thomas graduated from ill-advised Instagram shots of popping bottles to sharing a video and photos of a stark naked Mr. Monahan cavorting on the beach, somewhere approaching blackout drunk.

And that Mr. Monahan got caught on tape at the same time that he's trying to sell his company.

In the video, Mr. Thomas’ girlfriend looks on aghast while Mr. Thomas laughs and shouts, “Matt, you got a small ass dick, yo, what’s going on? If you’re gonna get naked, you gotta have a big ass dick, what’s going on?” The scene ends with a shot of an empty bottle of Johnny Walker Blue.

Gawker says the three arrived at Surya Samudra, a private beach resort, a few days in advance of Dave McClure’s “Geeks On a Plane” (GOAP) tour--"a sort of mega-nerdy season of Real World"--sponsored by the likes of GE, Google, Qualcomm, PayPal and, yes, JESS3. Mr. Monahan also serves as a mentor for GOAP.

Last year, Mr. Monahan raised $1 million in seed funding for AlphaBoost from Mr. McClure’s 500 Startups, as well as Gary Vaynerchuk’s Vayner Media, and About.com founder Scott Kurnit.

The images and video were not only shared on Mr. Thomas' private Facebook and Twitter accounts, but also from the official JESS3 company accounts, reaching tens of thousands of followers and subscribers.

Adding to the potential embarrassment, emails forwarded from a tipster to Betabeat indicate that around the same time Mr. Monahan was partying at the resort, he sent out an email to investors detailing discussions with "stakeholders" at companies like Facebook, Salesforce, Adobe, and more--and promised meetings with Google and Yahoo scheduled for next month.

(The tipster is not an investor. We have reached out to Mr. Monahan and will update the post when we hear back.) [Update 6.24 pm: We received a call from Mr. Monahan, who is still on vacation in India. He asked that the correspondence below be taken down. We have declined that request.]

Despite the fact that a deal hadn't materialized, Mr. Monahan predicted that a "verbal offer we received will likely materialize in mid-March and provide us with leverage we can use to negotiate with others." He also said, "The AlphaBoost entity would be shut down, and the entire team would take positions at the acquiring company." Back in January, Mr. Monahan told investors and advisors, "If we do not sell the company before April 1st, we will start to speak with investors about a Series A to ramp up our products and revenue."

Here is the email that Mr. Monahan sent to investors last week (emphasis Mr. Monahan's):

From: Matt Monahan <REDACTED@alphaboost.com>

Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:07:37 -0800

Subject: AlphaBoost UPDATE - 2.15.13

To: Matt Monahan <REDACTED@alphaboost.com>

*A quick note to catch you up on the last few weeks and our plan moving forward...

*In the past few weeks, I have had discussions with stakeholders at Facebook, Salesforce, Adobe, Oracle, Acxiom, Rubicon Project, AppNexus, Demand Media, and Experian. Candidly, some of the discussions fell flat.  The feedback I heard was "Not a good fit given corporate strategy...", "too small of a deal for it to be interesting..", "we only want a portion of the team..", etc. I have Google and Yahoo meetings scheduled for early March.  I am also setting up meetings with folks at companies like Science Inc, Intelligent Beauty, The Honest Company, and NastyGal to discuss options.  These types of companies have plenty of cash and are in dire need of our teams' skills

-- customer acquisition efficiencies on Facebook driven by owned and operated marketing technology. The verbal offer we received will likely materialize in mid-March and provide us with leverage we can use to negotiate with others. The deal on the table is taking shape as an exclusive license of our technology wherein we transfer our codebase to the acquirer in exchange for a lump sum of cash to be booked as AlphaBoost revenue.  That profit would then be distributed to equity holders and investors.

The AlphaBoost entity would be shut down, and the entire team would take positions at the acquiring company.  This deal structure was proposed to avoid a lengthy diligence process, and to minimize liability for all parties involved. The amount of cash paid for the exclusive license is still being hammered out but should provide a nice return.  That is all of the information I as of now...

The team is still heads down building product and servicing clients.  I am beginning to set up meetings for mid-march with investors to discuss the prospects of a Series A as a back up.

Have a great weekend, and let me know if you have any questions or ideas.

MM

And here's another email from the same tipster that Mr. Monahan sent to investors and advisors last month:

On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 7:01 PM, Matt Monahan <REDACTED@alphaboost.com> wrote:

Dear AlphaBoost Investors and Advisors,

Sorry in advance for the long email, a lot going on, in a really good way...

*As I reflect on AlphaBoost in 2012, some thoughts come to mind:*

- We learnt some valuable lessons that we will carry with us forever.

- We had some major wins with clients, products, and within the team.

- The team has become lean and mean, and is firing on all cylinders.

- The team and business model are maturing.

- We have honed our focus on a product that is meaningful and differentiated.

- We keep getting new media services customers through word of mouth and good work which is exciting

- We are optimistic about the prospects for AlphaBoost's investors and team.

- Startups are hard, but that is the fun part :)

*

*Company Overview as of 1/31:*

- We have 4 months of runway left assuming static incoming revenues (but we are expecting revenues will grow).

- We are aggressively trying to extend our runway with presentations like this<http://www.slideshare.net/mcmonahan/direct-response-on-facebook> targeted at specific customer segments, and up-selling current / past customers.

- We have meetings with our first enterprise subscription clients in the next few weeks, and hope to sign up a few for subscriptions that will cover burn and extend our runway.

- We have 5 full-time people (2 engineers, myself, 1 account service person, 1 product designer)

- We are now tracking +$32M in client media spend, a +60% increase in the last 30 days.

- We have 372 unqiue ads accounts connected to the system.

- We are now open to the public and you can sign up for a trial for free at http://alphaboost.com -- you must have Facebook ads attached to your account for the system to work.

- We have found a sweet spot at Search Marketing Agencies and are pursuing revenue generating partnerships.

*The Plan for 2013 (GOOD NEWS):

* We are at an inflection point at AlphaBoost given the state of our product, scale, traction, expertise, team, and the macro opportunity.  I am currently pursuing a corporate transaction because I think we can make the economics work for everyone involved.  We are talking to several parties, and...

*We received a verbal acquisition offer today from a publicly trade company with a very strategic need for AlphaBoost. I will know more next week. Stay tuned...

* I have attached the collateral we are using to contextualize the acquisition (this is not for distribution).

Cross your fingers for me and the team.  We have worked hard and would love to put a big W on the board and money back in your pocket.

If we do not sell the company before April 1st, we will start to speak with investors about a Series A to ramp up our products and revenue.

Feel free to call me if you have any questions or just want to talk about the weather.

Thanks for your continued support, over and out,

Matt Monahan

CEO // AlphaBoost

That's the thing about verbal offers. You should really wait until the deal is sealed before hanging out with friends like Mr. Thomas.

Mr. McClure

#RealTalk Dave McClure, our favorite giver of zero fucks, went on a bit of a Twitter tear the other day. It started with the admission that he'd "just had really hard tough love talk w/ startup founder. fucking sucks, but better harsh truth than bullshit 'you'll make it work' lies." He didn't stop there, adding that "what really sucks is none of other investors (incl big lead VC) have the balls 2 tell them its not going 2 fucking work & shut it down."

He concluded: "the Silicon Valley story is indeed the 1% story of Instagram $1B win, but also 99% broken dreams, shattered hopes & try, try again. sigh."

Okay, 'fess up: Who's the startup? Tips@betabeat.com if you wanna talk.

Not So Super Today, in unlikely historical connections: Wired reports that the decades-long legal battle over the ownership of Superman has been resolved... using the precedent set by the conclusion of Winklevoss vs. Facebook. To simplify a byzantine copyright nightmare: In 1938, the creators of Superman sold the rights for a mere $130. For decades, Jerry Siegel’s heirs have been attempting to rectify the move. In the latest chapter of the saga, they argued that an agreement reached in 2001 wasn’t finalized, meaning that the Siegel heirs could press for more rights and more money. Lots and lots of money. It also presented a potential legal problem for the studio with Man of Steel, which is scheduled to hit screens this summer.

In 2008, the courts sided with the Siegels. That’s been overturned, though, thanks in part to a ruling against the Winklevosses claim that an earlier settlement with Facebook hadn’t actually been binding. Warner Bros. now has the rights to make the movies free and clear--and without having to hand over more moola to Siegel's heirs. Hope the Winklevii and Mark Zuckerberg are proud of themselves for this.

It Ain’t Me, Babe Last year’s coverage of the booth babes of CES took a more circumspect, critical view. “That Mad Men bullshit doesn't represent who we are as an industry anymore, and it certainly doesn't represent what we should aspire to become. Technology is about the future, and this attitude is from the past,” Mat Honan wrote over at Gizmodo.

But Business Insider went back to business as usual this week with its slideshow ogling the antiquated, alienating marketing tactic.

glad we've moved past meta booth babe coverage and circled back to unironic booth babe galleries

— matt buchanan (@mattbuchanan) January 10, 2013

That wasn’t the only sexism on display. Skillcrush, the tech literacy startup, took a stab at “unpacking male tech privilege,” starting with the backlash that followed a petition to get more women on conference panels.

Indeed, blockbuster tech shows tend to surface all manner of moral quandaries, apparently, such as what happened when CNET's corporate owners intercede in news coverage to their own advantage. It was enough make Sam Biddle go straight quid pro quo.

(GIF HAT TIP: @jwherrman)

Viva Las Vegas Maybe the Buzzfeed editorial team skipped CES, but that doesn't mean head honcho Jonah Peretti missed a chance to visit Sin City. Photographic evidence comes from the unlikeliest of sources: Namely News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch, who tweeted that "At CES getting many brilliant presentations. So far most fun Buzzfeed."

We'd almost be afraid to hear what secrets were discussed. Our faces might melt off, like in Raiders of the Last Ark.

WTF Consider the charmed life of Kevin Rose. Sure, Digg crashed and burned (only to be resurrected by Betaworks once it was out of his hands), but Mr. Rose landed on his feet. He's now a venture partner at Google who spends his time Instagramming things like his Hawaii vacation and also this:

The caption: "Hanging with Tim Ferriss, yes this is normal."

Here's what we'd like to know: What was Mr. Rose wearing to the party? Was this, by chance, a furry party?

Open the door and influenza Could someone check on Chris Hughes? You might find him huddled in a corner at the New Republic between two bookshelves overflowing with pamphlets from the 1950s, clutching a giant bottle of hand sanitizer. Earlier this week he tweeted a link to a New York Times piece (with an xpost to Facebook) and commented that "Flu, stomach viruses, and whooping cough are at record levels this season. Reminder: wash hands compulsively."

Okay actually now we're terrified too. If you need us, we'll be looking for Mr. Hughes' Tamiflu stockpile.

Mr. Goldman

Shai Goldman, a venture partner at 500 Startups, recently announced another sign of the seed stage fund's growing interest in New York City--besides poaching a Silicon Alley stalwart like Mr. Goldman, of course. This February, the firm plans on opening a coworking office at 28th Street and Park Avenue in the Flatiron, not far from General Assembly.

500 Startups is known for its global focus. The only physical space the firm had up until New York was a corporate office in Mountain View, "which is where we run our accelerator throughout the year," Mr. Goldman told Betabeat by phone. But 500 Startups opted for a different route here. 

"We didn’t want to do an accelerator in New York at this time," he said, "We don’t really see a gap in the market." If you classify accelerators as a three-t0-four month program with some equity or cash component, Mr. Goldman explained, "There’s actually more accelerators in New York than there are in the Bay Area."  He estimated that there are six in Bay Area and eight or nine in New York.

Considering the expected shake out in the accelerator market, coworking seems like a safe choice. 500 Startups will charge $500 per desk per month with room 40 people. He estimated that the space will house four to five existing portfolio companies and another five or so outside startups.

The intent of the office is to bolster an offline community to go with its online platform called Dashboard.io. Paul Singh, one of 500 Startups cofounders, also happens to be a hacker and built the forum where 1,000 portfolio founders and 200 mentors communicate daily. Mr. Goldman described it as a cross between Quora and Facebook, with conversation threads and a place to ask questions outside one's area of expertise. Mentors also use the scheduling function to book virtual office hours.

"The heart of our organization is really this community where they’re actively engaged in a daily basis," said Mr. Goldman. "It’s pretty unique. I don't really know of any VC fund that has the same dashboard function, as we call it. I know First Round Capital has more of a Wiki style, but there are no mentors that are part of that. It’s part of our value add."

He hopes a physical space will augment that. "We just feel that New York is really a landing spot for folks, for example, from Toronto, Montreal, through Europe, from the Middle East and Israel. If they’re gonna open an office in the U.S., it’s most likely gonna be in New York," he said. "We want to do more in those regions I mentioned," he added. So as companies mature and want to set up operations or a salesforce in New York, they can pick up a desk or two. Same goes for the firm's 200 mentors around the globe. "They'll have a place to come and do their work and also hold office hours."

Mr. Goldman, who moved to 500 Startups from Silicon Valley Bank last fall, said the VC firm functions more like a startup in terms of increasing head count in different geographies and establishing structure as you grow. "We’re moving quickly and doing a lot of new things and testing different ideas. I’ve never actually worked for a startup," he said.

Startupland, he explained, can only stay insulated from broader economic forces--like, say, today's warning about a new global recession--so for long: "The LP's that fund booms are, after all, pension, municipal, and sovereign wealth funds. Consumers need disposable income to invest in the latest products,  as do the companies who serve them and advertisers who reach them."

The latest venture capital numbers and tales from the boardroom seem to indicate that some of Mr. Ries' predictions are coming to pass.

In a trenchant blog post over the weekend, Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson said, "it is a tougher time for early stage consumer internet companies than I have seen since the 2001-2004 time frame. And I think we are still in the early innings of this more challenging environment," noting reports of a 42 percent drop in VC funding for consumer web and mobile companies for the first nine months of 2012 (year-over-year).

Looking at same report from Dow Jones VentureSource, the Wall Street Journal noted that:

“Just under half of the 165 companies in the consumer information services sector that raised first rounds in 2010 have raised a subsequent equity round and fewer than one-quarter of those who raised a first round last year have done so.”

Those numbers spurred fears of what Ed Zimmerman called a "Series A Funding Cliff," where the emergence of seed funds and so-called micro VCs has not been matched by an increasing number of funds in the next stage. That results in the kind of bottleneck that's bound to create carnage, though at the the moment, the impact has been softened by “the seemingly inextinguishable thirst by larger companies” like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Groupon to “acqui-hire” talent, he explained.

Meanwhile, between heady times and inexperienced entrants, "investors have gotten a little sloppy," says The Verge:

The temptation to pick up a company on little more than a good first impression or a colleague’s recommendation was strong. One entrepreneur who raised over half a million dollars for his startup last year told me that he fudged the presentation to investors — the technology didn’t work yet, so he used a video and pretended it was live.

But the constriction is not just at the seed stage. Last week, Bloomberg noted that investors were wary of sky-high valuations in ecommerce companies like Fab, Gilt Groupe, and celebrity-infused BeachMint and ShoeDazzle.

After pouring more money into retail startups in the third quarter than in any period since the dot-com bust in 2000, venture capitalists concerned over the formation of an e- commerce bubble are balking at deals they consider overpriced. The valuations in recent funding rounds and executive exits suggest investors are no longer willing to sink cash into online stores that don’t have proven growth prospects.

Concern over growth prospects--and profitability!--are also hurting Foursquare's attempts to raise a $50 million round, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Foursquare is expected to bring in about $2 million in revenue this year, people familiar with the matter said, by selling targeted coupons. That is well behind the pace set by Facebook, which generated $153 million in revenue selling ads in its fourth year, and Twitter, which sold $45 million in ads at the same point in its history, according to research firm eMarketer.

Foursquare also faces "a backdrop of growing skepticism about young technology companies in the wake of deep stock-market declines for their publicly traded peers," i.e. Zynga, Groupon, and Facebook.

Mr. Wilson's astutely analyzes some of the underlying causes of this capital crunch, including competition for consumers' attention as large platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn "suck up a lot of the oxygen" of time spent online in the English-speaking world.

there are still occasional new entrants into this list and departures too. tumblr and pinterest have risen a lot in the past couple years while myspace has declined. but consumer behaviors are starting to ossify on the web and it is harder than ever to build a large audience from a standing start.

What's more, he argues, the turn towards mobile means has led to difficulties in getting that coveted homescreen spot. Careful observers of the startup scene have no doubt witnessed startups get "stuck in the transition" from having a good-looking product that does what it promises fail to get a large user base. As Mr. Wilson says:

you need to master the "download app, use app, keep using app, put it on your home screen" flow and that is a hard one to master.

For some evidence of that, look at a mobile-first companies like Foursquare. As the Journal noted, only 8 million of the company's 25 million registered members use the app at least once a month.

Perhaps because of those challenges in adoption and engagement, Mr. Wilson notes that momentum for late stage investors is moving away from consumer towards enterprise. Dave McClure of 500Startups vehemently objected to that shift in interest, calling it a "huge error," and seeing an upside even in the flailing trajectories of Groupon and Zynga, especially as nearly "every possible internet distribution channel has MORE users than ever before – whether it be search, social, mobile, video, local, SMS, email, chat, etc.":

The number of recent internet services that have grown from nothing to hundreds of millions of users is frankly rather astonishing – Pinterest, Instagram, Groupon, Zynga – all of these took less than a few years to get to hundreds of millions of users and in some cases billions of revenue. While Groupon & Zynga have certainly fallen Icarus-like from higher heights, it’s still the case that both are amazing for how fast they grew and acquired users via search, social, and other channels.

Despite their respective reading of the tea leaves, neither Mr. Wilson nor Mr. McClure is backing off consumer Internet investments. And the decreasing cost of building scaleable software-based companies means one can live lean to survive harsh startup cycles. But especially in New York's app-happy tech scene, entrepreneurs might want to look down at their home screens and keep Mr. Wilson's litmus test in mind.

Season 1 . . . Episode 2 . . . no end in sight . . . I’m not sure how much more I can take.

Now that the dust has settled from the PR, subsequent Valley backlash, promos, more backlash, and last week’s premiere, we actually get to see what we have here with Bravo’s "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley." Basically, it's formulaic reality show.

The genre's hooks and tricks are well established, they just happen to be filmed in Silicon Valley with cast members that are, well, made for TV. I think for many here, there was still some hope that the show would offer a national audience an insider's look into the motion and the madness in which the Valley operates. Not so much.

Back in 2001, there was a great startup documentary called "Startup.com." It would have been such a worthwhile endeavor if the producers aspired to create something like that. Instead we’re left with what venture capitalist Ron Palmeri of MkII Ventures calls, “The Housewives of Silicon Valley.”

However, I will say these characters are kind of lovable. (Emphasis on “kind of.”) I even tried to make fun of Sarah Austin on Twitter, but I don’t think she got the joke:

@spencerchen @p_kassie hahahaha no she's the one who meets me in the morning and brings hot coffee lol#siliconvalley

— Sarah Austin (@sarahaustin) November 13, 2012

(Noteworthy here is that whatever was written about the Valley’s disdain towards the cast members was misguided. It’s the idea of a startup reality show that Valley folks disliked, not the people involved.)

Anyways, enough about what could have been and more about that Sony Vaio.

Recap: Ben Way and Hermione Way return to The Villa dejected after being turned down by VC Dave McClure. They start screaming. Um, okay. Kim Taylor is pissing and moaning about work because she’s been there for two years and the cofounder is thinking about bringing in someone more senior to handle sales. This is her first startup job after being a NBA cheerleader, so you know, why wouldn’t she be considered for the Chief Revenue Officer role? Sarah is talking about “Lifecasting” again. I don’t even… oh hey, pool party! David Murray made an “Oedipus” reference to siblings Ben and Hermione during the pool party. Awk!

Friends of the cast finally get some airtime here. I guess all that hard work lingering around the cast members finally paid off! Sarah hosts some VC pitch event. She’s wearing a cute, burgundy dress . . . her tan looks awesome? Totes. Hermione vists Sarah at the Four Seasons to extend an olive branch in the shape of a homemade tiara. Sarah dismisses the hope that she and Hermione will be friends anytime soon. Whatevs. David and new hottie Jay Holanda go play in the park together. Ben and Hermione pitch Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC. Denied! Hermione elects not to sleep underneath the VC’s conference table this time. Smart girl, she’s learning! David and new hottie Jay play Magic and do some brogrammer bonding. Sarah and Jay go on a date, but Sarah ruins it by ‘lifecasting’ it. The end.

How Real? Once again, giving the show the benefit of the doubt we’ll start them off at 100% real Silicon Valley. Last week the show scored a respectable 60% real Valley. Let’s see how they do this week . . .

Getting Rejected By VCs - 10%

After VC Dave McClure shot down their first pitch, Hermione slumps back to The Villa physically tired and emotionally exhausted. There’s quite a bit of drama’ing it up here. Getting rejected, especially at the seed rounds, is quite common for first-time founders. While the constant rejection can take a horrible toll on your ego and self-confidence, founders in the Valley tend to have thicker skin. Being better prepared helps. They certainly don’t scream from the Villatop every time a VC says no. I know one founder that pitched 50 Valley VCs before getting funded. I didn’t even know there were 50 VCs in the Valley.

Lifecasting -30%

Kassandra, Sarah’s assistant, asks Sarah if she’s going to Lifecast her date with Jay. Sarah responds that she’s going to because it’s the way for her audience to get to know the ‘real’ Sarah Austin. At this point, I feel it’s my moral obligation to educate the world that we in the Valley have no idea what the hell she is talking about. I’m pretty sure that Sarah means she tweets and Instagrams. If so, yeah, we do do that.

The Pool Scene at the Four Seasons - 20%

I don’t know where to start. There’s a poodle, spray tans, pretty flowers, and a lengthy conversation about feelings and being BFFs. No. No. No! Whatever free time startup people have (and it’s very little) are spent grabbing a quick meal, a few Fernets, and being generally exhausted. We don’t have enough time to have feelings here in the Valley. 

Sony VAIO -10%

Ben is seen pitching Jeff Clavier with a Sony VAIO. I’ve heard of these things and I’ve seen them on BestBuy’s site before. I’ve just never seen one in the wild here in the Valley. The Valley is MacBook Air country or if you’re a designer or developer, you’re on a MacBook Pro. Maybe it’s a product placement deal?

Tweeting About Your Date -20%

Sarah meets Jay at his place for their long-awaited date and she starts secretly live tweeting the big event. Here’s another thing that Valley types just don’t do. Between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Socialcam, Tumblr, etc…there’s already an abundance of sharing for the tech set throughout the working day. If there’s one last bastion of privacy that we all hold dear, it’s with our love lives. At the most, we make those posts #PathOnly (yes, that’s actually a thing).

Zzzzz

For episode 2, we get a final score of 10% real Silicon Valley. Worse is that the Valley’s interest in this show is sliding like Groupon stock. It just has not been that entertaining. It neither gives you enough of real startup life, nor is it an entertaining reality show. For anecdotal evidence, take a look at the photo I snapped of my girlfriend Amy White during the show. She heads up marketing for Highland Capital Partners and loves Jersey Shore. If Bravo’s Silicon Valley can’t capture her interest, I’m not holding out hope for the rest of the season.

Spencer Chen is head of partnerships at @appcelerator (and Betabeat’s 86th most entertaining Tech Twitterer!) Follow him@SpencerChen.

Mr. McClure (Screencap: BravoTV)

The moment you've all been waiting for is briskly approaching. Though the much-maligned Start-Ups: Silicon Valley reality show doesn't premiere until Monday November 5th at 10 p.m., Bravo has begun publishing clips to its website in order to sate our boundless curiosity. AllThingsD picked up on the two drama-filled scenes, one of which features 500 Startups cofounder and noted giver of zero fucks Dave McClure.

In the clip, Mr. McClure has taken time out of his busy schedule to go through the pitch deck of brother-sister duo Ben and Hermione Way for their "health and lifestyle startup" called Ignite. Mr. McClure quickly asks to take over the laptop and flip through the pitch deck himself, which Mr. Way immediately classifies as "annoying."

"It was slightly disrespectful, him going through the whole thing and making his own judgments," he tells the camera in a cut-away confessional. As AllThingsD notes, that is, of course, why Mr. McClure was even looking at the deck in the first place. We can't believe he spends his off-time browsing through poorly-designed PowerPoints just for fun.

Mr. Way, it seems, is definitely not here to make friends.

Cash monies.

Got a bunch of stuff hanging in your closet you're no longer thrilled with? Well, the Los Angeles-based marketplace Tradesy wants to help you out--and the company has just raised a $1.5 million round to do just that. Participants include Rincon Venture Partners, 500 Startups' Dave McClure, DailyCandy founder Dany Levy, Daher Capital, Bee Partners, Double M Capital and Launchpad LA.

The site is the second project from Tracy DiNunzio, who previously started RecycledBride, a marketplace for wedding-related resale. But she wanted to do something broader all along, she told Betabeat. 

About three years ago, Ms. DiNunzio explained, she looked at her and her friends' closets and thought what a waste it was everyone was wearing just a slice of their wardrobe and shelling out too much money for new clothing, when someone else would likely be happy to take it off their hands.

Nowadays, Tradesy isn't the only marketplace attempting to crack fashion resale. Here in New York, for example, there's Material World and The Cools, just to name two. But at the time, she didn't find her resale options particularly exciting. "Ebay was very complicated and confusing," she said, noting that women make 85 percent of consumer purchases online and yet constitute only 47 percent of Ebay users. (Her team has since done studies suggesting it takes the average woman something like 35 minutes to create an Ebay account and post their first listing on the auction site.) Hauling one’s unwanted clothing to a consignment shop is even less appealing, especially given the minuscule payout.

Hence, the idea of a peer-to-peer clothing resale marketplace.

That was a bit broad for Ms. DiNunzio's capabilities, however: "I had no background in technology, I had no experience--I was actually an artist," she explained. "The only thing I knew how to do was write an email." Advisors suggested she test the waters by launching a niche vertical first, so she built RecycledBride, which Ms. DiNunzio says is now the world's largest wedding marketplace.

With the site up, she was able to collect the data and feedback to build Tradesy and get it funded.

Asked about the challenges of building the general interest Tradesy versus the niche RecycledBride, Ms. DiNunzio laughed and admitted, "Honestly, it's much easier because I have a team and money now." But she also granted that, "The woman who's selling or buying a wedding dress is willing to invest more time and effort in the process."

"In the fashion space, this is really about creating convenience," she added. Hence her team's biggest challenge is taking what they've build for RecycledBride and "improving upon it for speed, ease and trust and security."

That's far from the team's only challenge, however. Tradesy also aims to provide Zappos-like customer service, including handling all shipping and fulfillment--meaning scaling is likely to be a bit tricky. Perhaps that's why Ms. DiNunzio is so delighted to have the new advisors:

"The money's great, but it's also the value of the experience and the advice that we're getting from all these investors that's really exciting," she said.

Mr. McClure, ringleader. (Photo: flickr.com/joi)

Goodness, the early-stage scene in New York City sure is getting crowded. Pretty soon investors are going to have to start throwing them 'bows if they want to get past their competitors and reach the most promising founding teams for so much as a hi-how-are-you chat.

The news today, via TechCrunch: Dave McClure's 500 Startups has just announced the addition of two "amazing geeks" to the team: Shai Goldman here in New York, and Pankaj Jain in India. They'll be venture partners, focused on making deals in their respective locations. 

The announcement on the company's blog explains the move:

Why India and New York? They’re both teeming with vibrant growth and change, not just in technology and business, but also in culture, fashion, sports, music, and media. This growth has been matched recently by a tremendous burst of innovation in tech startups, and people using this technology to solve real everyday problems.

500 Startups already has "~50-75 investments" here in town, ranging from MakerBot to DailyWorth, as well as a whole passel of mentors.

We hope this means Mr. McClure will be spending more time in New York City, the true spiritual home for anyone who drops so many f-bombs.