You could still donate for free, of course. Additionally, others would be more likely to provide blood for compensation. The overall supply would be greater.
Running good events is very time consuming, more than people often realize. And yet my landlord continues to "prey on" me by demanding that I pay rent. Somehow, he fails to see comrade Calacanis' logic that everything should be free...
He gives some interesting data points, but ultimately fails to prove the headline that "anything less is a costly mistake". In order to do that, he'd have to take a sample of websites and show a correlation between copy size and profitability.
I am Graham Lawlor, founder of Ultra Light Startups and organizer of the New York chapter (we are also in London and Boston now).
I just found this page via Google news alerts. I'm a huge fan of Y Combinator and everything they stand for - very much the same approach I had when starting Ultra Light. I'm thrilled that the YC community has found us. I'd love to hear more feedback and suggestions from anyone who has been to one of our events (or even if you haven't). If you'd like to reach out, send an email to info at ultralightstartups dot com.
PS. thanks wmeredith for catching my typo on the home page - I just fixed this.