They are right. I've met ton's of "entrepreneurs" who knew nothing about business or even technology, but think the world owes them something for their magical idea. Regardless of how cool the idea really is, it must be very hard to work with these people without first teaching them the basics.

Obviously this doesn't apply to anyone who follows a relatively "lean startup" mentality [like those here], but there are orders of magnitude more people who do it the old fashioned way.

What exactly are you saying? They should be ripped off to teach them a lesson?

I know the sort of person he's talking about. If you don't explain up front what you want from them, they'll assume you were put on earth to help them in their glorious venture and complain endlessly about how you don't appreciate their genius, are only interested in money, etc. This is the sort of entrepreneur who budgets a fat salary for themselves from day 1. I've had people like that bellyache about how they can't afford to pay me more than peanuts despite the fact that they own 7 cars or a 40 ft yacht (actual examples from real life).

Edit: I have no opinions about the angel firms or their charging methods. I just got Trapper's point above.

When you say you got his point, did you mean you get how his point is related to charging people to pitch? I am completely willing to grant that such people exist and are unpleasant, but what relevance does that have here?

No, the point about how some entrepreneurs have a sense of entitlement. I think people reacted poorly to that here because they interpreted it as 'how dare you ask angels for investment', which would be offensive considering how many people struggle just to become ramen profitable, often for a long time before cashing in, if ever. Then there are other people who want to be compensated on the basis of projections rather than receipts. It's a blurry line since we know some companies where the founders make $$$ long before reaching positive cash flow.

As far as the 'pay to pitch angels' go, maybe they'd be better off describing themselves as a capital sourcing service or enterprise microcredit bureau or something, since people take 'angel' to mean someone willing to help when you've got nothing. I empathise with the tedium of dealing with self-promoters who think they're god's gift to business despite having money; on the other hand surely the payoff of being an angel is having founding capital in the one project out of 50 or 100 that hits the jackpot and eventually goes public.

No. Someone has to teach them the basics of getting an idea to market. Why should the angels do this for free?

This is not what it says on the box. What it says on the box is pay to pitch. Pay for a chance to be funded. If it said "getting an idea to market" training and people bought it, no one would be complaining.

I'm assuming you didn't read the article then.

"those who are chosen to move forward get weeks of free coaching and mentorship on their pitches before they’re asked to pay. Also, entrepreneurs don’t have to pay — they can drop out if they want."

So they get the stuff you want them to pay for for free. Then, they pay to pitch.

What am I missing?

From what I understand of it, it's common knowledge they will be paying for it, but can opt out if they don't like it.

Your claim is that they should be paying for the education they are getting.

My claim is that they are not paying the angels or forum organisers to 'teach them the basics,' regardless of what they get. The proposition moving money from one wallet to another is the "you can get funded this way" proposition. If that proposition is effectively fraudulent, the original blog posts sentiment is correct. Being able to opt out doesn't negate the claim that this is fraud.

BTW, I have also quoted and addressed the same sentence you accused me of skipping. I considered it and I was not convinced.

Founders are not paying for education. maybe you think they should. But they don't. Charging them to pitch and giving them education instead on the grounds that they need it is not ok. Entitled or not.

I see we take different things from this. I personally don't think that there is anything fraudulent going on, and don't want to be accusing anyone of anything. And, I don't care in the slightest either way really so let's stop indenting a nicely formatted article :)