By: Sean Wycliffe (Co-Founder and CEO of Dealflicks)
People frequently ask me how Dealflicks got into 500 Startups, so I figured I’d share our story. The process began in early August when my co-founder Zach Cancio and I attended an Orrick TOTAL ACCESS event and ran into Simon Ru of LessThan6Percent (also an LP at 500 Startups). We pitched him, exchanged info, followed up, and pitched him again. He introduced us to Dave McClure via email about a week later.
Around the same time, my friend (and now investor) Aryk Grosz of Mixbook encouraged me to attend unSEXY, a 500 startups conference. $500 for 2 registrations was a bit pricy in my mind at that time, but Aryk eventually convinced me to go.
The conference in itself was awesome, and we ended up meeting close to a dozen 500 Startups founders, mentors, and staff. It was amazing how accessible everyone was, but it was also interesting how some other startups (many interested in joining 500) failed to approach anyone.
After making friends with Elizabeth Yin of LaunchBit, she offered to introduce us to Dave. We were stoked, but we ended up waiting in line with her for close to 30 minutes to talk to Dave. After we pitched him Dealflicks, he hammered us with pertinent questions, then said that we needed to get three separate 500 mentors to vouch for us. We also approached Christine Tsai, told her about Dealflicks, and offered to follow up.
At one point, I almost tripped over someone who was sitting on the ground immersed in his laptop. I kept going and muttered to Zach, “Geez, what’s this guy doing.” Zach is also Dealflicks’ Official Scout, so after a few moments he realized that “this guy” was Aaron Batalion of LivingSocial. We weren’t sure what to do, but after a quick huddle, we reapproached Aaron and pitched him. He was super helpful and friendly, and we exchanged info.
After emailing everyone, we ended up talking to Christine early the next week. She also helped us get on the phone with Aaron later in the week. I soon met with Frank Langston of PayByGroup, and he suggested that I start sending regular updates to Christine and Dave (we did).
The day before we got into 500 Startups was a blitz. I met with Jameson Detweiler of LaunchRock, and he recommended us to Aaron and the 500 team again. Shortly after, I met with Chris Dyball of Groupiter and Ziv Gillat of Eye-Fi (also recommended us).
Jameson told us about a LivingSocial event that Aaron was speaking at that Thursday, but we were going to be in Texas. We really wanted in, so we decided to change our flight. Apparently, Jameson found out about this and let everyone know. Sometime around 1am, we received a welcome email to 500 from Christine, luckily before we booked the new flight 
Lessons learned:
1. Networking matters. You need to get out there, represent yourself and your startup, and pitch. Get intros, build relationships, work your way up. Don’t worry, no one bites (not even Dave).
2. Know your pitch. Everyone that I spoke to had great questions about market size, competition, team, traction, etc. Since we had thought through all these questions and internalized the answers, this was actually fun.
3. Go for it. We had just launched (500 looks for companies with traction), had a great full-time team, and were looking for some seed money. I hate applications (500 didn’t have an app at that time), love 500’s hustler attitude, and wanted to stay in the bay area, so we decided to go all out on 500 (didn’t apply to anything else). The process took roughly a month, but I’m glad we went for it.
About the blogger: Sean is the co-founder and CEO of Dealflicks. He is also the co-founder and president of ProjectPueblo, and 501(c)3 nonprofit that serves impoverished Navajo communities. Previously, he founded a communications startup and grew it to $1.5+M in revenues and spent two years in full-time ministry at Fontana SDA Church. Sean recently graduated from UC Berkeley in Economics with highest honors.