Naptime!

Sundancing in the Dark South by Southwest is basically right around the corner, but it seems several techies needed a break before March offers the excuse for a tax-deductible trip to Austin. Investor Scooter Braun is be there (for obvious reasons), as is VHX cofounder Casey Pugh, ABC News's Maya Baratz, onetime Myspace prez Jason Hirschhorn, and Thrillist cofounder Ben Lerer. Judging from Mr. Lerer's Instagram, Gary Vaynerchuk is also along for the ride.

Startups are taking advantage of the festival's halo of hipness. The creatives at Kickstarter have devoted a page to Sundance entrants funded on the platform, and cofounder Yancey Strickler says he'll be in attendance. Uber will be there--and handing out hot chocolate. "All you have to do is tap the Uber app and we will come wherever you are to deliver sweet salvation from the epic cold," the company promises. Not to mention helping sooth the pain of Uber's high fares.

Two of the cast members of "Start-ups: Silicon Valley," Hermione Way and Marcus Lovingood, are in Park City and hosting something called Hollywood Meets Silicon Valley. In case you'd like a reminder of why people sell out for reality TV, here is the view from their window, as tweeted by Mr. Lovingood:

Popcorny Lest anyone get the idea Mr. Lerer is all high-minded indie films, all the the time, we'd like to point out this little admission via Twitter: "I sorta want to see Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters (I understand this makes me a stupid and bad person)."

Don't Kiss, Do Tell Speaking of Ms. Way, it seems she's still a tad confused by the concept of "discretion." To recap: Earlier this month, she was caught in a hottub on Necker Island with several people, including her host Sir Richard Branson and One Direction's Harry Styles, fresh off his breakup with Taylor Swift. Naturally, at least one tab came calling, checkbook at the ready, but Ms. Way turned the offer down. She explained in a lengthy Facebook note that she couldn't bring herself to violate the privacy of her fellow guests on Necker Island, who were very high profile, you see.

Well, it seems Ms. Way has decided releasing just a few more details won't hurt. She's now written a piece about her week-long visit for the Next Web, promoted on her Facebook with the teasing title, "What really happened on Necker." Did she mention the quality time spent with famous entrepreneur Richard Branson?

The week was jam-packed with activities on Necker including morning tennis tournaments with Richard Branson, kite races to Anagada and yacht racing.

Has anyone ever been this smug about not making out with a pop star?

Corrections for $2,000, Alex? Foursquare made its third appearance on “Jeopardy,” this week. According to cofounder Dennis Crowley’s Instagram of the blessed event, the app-savvy woman guessed correctly and went on to win $40,000 that night. As Mr. Crowley pointed out, Alex Trebek’s prompt was actually 1 billion check-ins behind Foursquare’s current totals. “Gowalla,” one Instagram commenter guessed facetiously--name-checking the Foursquare competitor that was acquired by Facebook and then shuttered last year. Considering the recent PrivCo report that Foursquare will be acquired for less than it raised by the end of 2013, you might want to watch the schadenfreude.

Now You Know "What is the plural of Sex on a Beach?" angel investor and Tumblrer Rick Webb recently wondered aloud to himself on Twitter (as one does). Luckily, GroupMe cofounder Steve Martocci was ready with a riposte: "It is plural, masterbate on the beach is the singular." And there you have it.

GIF Out of Here Buzzfeed is hiring an intern to run the company Tumblr. In keeping with the tech world's slouch toward goofy-ass job listings, the announcement asks, "Can you make an animated GIF of Joe Biden drinking a beer with a red panda?" If so, running Buzzfeed's Tumblr might be literally the only job in the world for which you are ideally suited, you crazy diamond.

Sartorial Corner Don’t get it twisted: In the wake of Michelle Obama’s bold new haircut, AllThingsD’s scoop mistress general Kara Swisher would like everyone to be aware that she, Kara Swisher, does not have bangs. “Side sweep. Never bangs, despite my mother’s best efforts at various D conferences where she got hairdresser under her thumb,” she tweeted in response to someone who suggested otherwise.

Who are you gonna believe, the fine-feathered Ms. Swisher or your lying eyes?

Hermione Way with a strap-on. Not pictured: investors from Gramercy Ventures. (Photo: Business Insider)

On last night's episode of "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley," the close-knit (like real close) brother-sister duo Ben Way and Hermione Way claimed to raise a $500,000 seed round for their health and wellness app Ignite--from respected angel investor Esther Dyson and Gramercy Ventures, no less.

(By email, Ms. Dyson confirmed that she invested $25,000. "I  guess I would say the tech industry takes itself way too seriously....and anything that gets the public interested in either tech developments or a healthy lifestyle contributes some value to the world," she said in response to questions about the perception of the show. We've reached out to Gramercy to confirm the size of  its investment. But it's worth noting that Gramercy managing partner Michael Gale delivered the good news shortly after saying, "I care about looking stupid"--perhaps in reference to the party he attended where Ms. Way pranced around in her birthday present, a strap-on.)

UPDATE: By email, Mr. Gale confirmed that Gramercy is an investor in Ignite, although not the size of the round. In an email to Betabeat, he wrote:

"We tried to ignore the whole reality TV aspect in making our investment decision and not be swayed too much by that. So we followed a fairly typical review process and made our decision. It is true however that within the context of reviewing the opportunity we did factor into consideration the TV show as a way to increase downloads of the app and that is an important part of the strategy. When the show was being filmed we had no idea what the response to the show would be nor what it would look like so we had no feel for pubic response to the show.

The company is off to a great start and we are very excited to be involved. We think there is a magnificent opportunity in this space and Ben and Hermione are very talented entrepreneurs."

UPDATE II: Mr. Gale confirmed that Ignite raised a $500,000 round with $475,000 from Gramercy Ventures.

So after some deeply embarrassing, amateur hour attempts to pitch Dave McClure and Jeff Clavier, which involved napping under the conference room table and wondering if the firm would decide within the hour, it seems the Ways managed to make a semi-convincing case for their Wii Fit/Withings scale/Fitbit-like combo, sans prototype. A good thing since Mr. Way floated the possibility of stiffing their design company on camera.

The chance that viewers noticed the company's big break? Pretty slim since Bravo tweeted out yesterday that the show would now be aired at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central on Tuesdays.

#SiliconValley is all new and on at a new time: 7/6c! Watch a clip: bravo.ly/S6hf1D

— Bravotv (@Bravotv) December 11, 2012

And that's after already moving the show's plum 10pm Monday slot, right after the capitalist screetch-fest "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." As an earlier email from cast member David Murray seems to indicate, this latest change was not planned.

Bravo reps declined to comment, but it seems clear the blame lies with abysmal ratings. According to Futon Critic, the total audience for the November 27th episode, at its original time slot, was 512,000, down from 634,000 for the premiere. "Bravo is a big cable channel. 500K in prime time would not be good," one ratings expert told Betabeat. "LOLWork," the show about the Ben Huh and ICanHasCheezburger, appears to be faring even worse, the season finale is scheduled to air at 1.30am.

It seems all that hysteria that Randi Zuckerberg would bring barbarians to Silicon Valley's gates may have been for naught. But cable execs with startup shows in the works--from the MTV show rumored to be produced by a Reddit cofounder to Mike Judge's version of the Valley--might want to take better care not to put recappers to sleep.

As for the Ways' app Ignite, since the startup's name competes with a New York lecture series, a Texas power company, and a social media firm, you'll have to trek over to the unfortunate URL signup.goignite.it to find it. The current version of the app holds a two-star rating on iTunes and some scathing user commentary: "Sorry but bravo won't help you succeed. Looks like this app was made by some kid over night."

Boom.

Dear 20 or so religious recap followers,

You probably noticed that I took last week’s episode off. I could give you a list of reasons: it was really busy at work, I was trying to wind down for Thanksgiving, and catching the West Coast feed starting at 10 p.m. Pacific is a bitch. But ultimately, I just didn’t feel like watching it. The first two episodes left me narcoleptic and an unopened Xbox game seemed like more fun.

But Nitasha, Betabeat’s editor, convinced me to give it one last try. Well, I’m glad I did. I managed to stay awake for the entire episode! And it was definitely the most authentic of the season. It may have helped that I was getting texts from Gabe Rivera, founder of the famous tech news aggregator Techmeme, that my startup and I made an appearance in this week’s show. (Gabe was in NYC at the time and claims that he was just “flipping” through the channels). My favorite subject was going to be on . . . me!

Recap: This week opened up with Hermione kickboxing with her trainer pretending the punching bag was Sarah’s face. Ben does some crunches. Kim goes to hottie Dwight for advice on quitting her job (Sorry, but Jay is still cuter). Sarah brags. Kim quits. Kim cries. Kim drinks some wine. Ben and Hermione get rejected by another VC. Kim parties. David, Ben, and Hermione head to a tech party. Hermione freaks. Hermione cries. Hermione drinks. Hermione throws a drink. Wrap!

How Real? Once again, I'll generously start them off at 100% real Silicon Valley. Last time I tried this, the show scored a miserable 10% (blame Sarah Austin.)

“Minimum Viable Product” +20%

Kim, the former NBA cheerleader, mentions to Dwight that she wants to quit her cushy job at Ampush and launch her own startup to initially build a “minimum viable product”. Mind blown. This is real techy, product management shit! Product managers refer to it as “MVP,” which loosely translates to building products with a limited features set in order to get traction and meaningful feedback from early adopters. So either Kim (1) has actually spent some time on product launches or (2) she reads way too much TechCrunch. Either way, respect.

Sarah Austin -50%

Ladies and gentleman, we have our Snooki. Sarah is still very tanned and still kind of a dumdum, but it’s pretty innocuous. She does these video interviews--sorry, lifecasts--with somewhat famous startup CEOs in a real folksy-how-do-I-turn-my-iPhone-on kinda way. It worked! I’m convinced she knows nothing about startups and tech! Then she goes and says, “I’m one of the original bloggers of Silicon Valley.” I think what Sarah meant was that she had a Blogger account and owned a Flip camera in 2007? I mean, c’mon, the Valley gave birth to tech blogging greats like Michael Arrington, MG “Fucking!” Siegler, Rip Emerson, and many others. She caps it off by proclaiming that she’s the White Oprah of the Valley. I better just move on before I bang my head into my brand new iPad mini. #humblebrag

Dwight’s Apartment +20%

This brogrammer lives in a pigsty. There’s like dirty sandals, unwashed dishes, probably a used condom all just laying about his one bedroom apartment. Later it comes out that Dwight lives in Sunnyvale, which is effectively BFE to the San Francisco tech set. But it is about half the price to rent there and it’s easier to tap older engineering talent that are likely to stick around. For a first time entrepreneur? Legit.

Kim’s $1M in Equity -15%

Someone’s been told a lie here. There’s no way in hell she’s walking away from $1 million in shares. I have no insights into their cap table or funding line, but unless she owns like 30% of the company, it doesn’t add, especially given the space that Ampush Media is in. At last count there’s like 4,000,000 of these Facebook ad optimization companies running amok in the Valley with little liquidation options on the horizon for these guys. Sorry, Kim. You’re still cute though!

Quoting Steve Jobs (Kim) -5%

Kim finally quits her job and gathers some friends to celebrate at popular SF club Harlot. Looking pretty inebriated, she mutters to Dwight how happy she’s leaving do her own thing because, “She’s been wasting her time living someone else’s life.” Shaking my head…it’s a Steve Jobs quote from a commencement address that he delivered at Stanford in 2005. Girl, that's just tacky.

My Debut +40%

You’ve had to endure three episodes to finally (finally!) see yours truly in a scene. I was working the door at a huge networking party that I threw during Apple’s WWDC. I don’t want to brag, but I fucking killed it. Totally legitimized the show over night. However, I instructed them not to shoot me from my right side. I will be talking to Randi Zuckerberg about that.

Appcelerator +10%

This is the amazing mobile startup that I work at. Total legit! Buy some of their software? #GratuitousPlug #AlwaysBeHustlin’

Tally

For episode 4, we get a record-setting final score of 120% real Silicon Valley! Granted it was mostly buoyed by the appearance of my awesome startup, my CEO (Jeff Haynie), and myself. But I think it's a sign of good things to come. In all seriousness, I think the folks in the Valley should be rooting for the show to be a hit. If it isn’t, this will likely be the last startup show for a mainstream audience that you will see greenlit for a while. And that’s a loss for all of us that call this wonderful place our home. [Ed note: Sorry, Best Coasters, it looks like New York is already on the hook for sloppy seconds.]

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.

Thankfully, Drew Olanoff at The Next Web was kind enough to single out some of the potential players so we can start doing our due diligence. According to Mr. Olanoff the show will "star" The Next Web's Silicon Valley video director Hermione Way. Her brother Ben Way, founder of The Rainmakers, Kim Taylor, digital director at Ampush Media, and Dwight Crow, founder of Carsabi.com also all appear in the preview.

A rep for Bravo told Betabeat that the cast is "not confirmed," emphasizing that, "Randi is not in the show." However, an NBC affiliate (Bravo is owned by NBCUniversal) also reported the same stars, along with Marcus Lovingood, founder of Futureleap. A Facebook post from Erin Kanaley Famularo, who used to work in consumer marketing at Facebook and now works as director of production at Ms. Zuckerberg's R to Z Media, seems to indicate that David Murray, who has worked at Google, Raptr, and Atari, will likewise be joining the cast. "Exciting! We can finally talk about this," wrote Ms. Famularo.

So let's make their acquaintance, shall we?