#startupbattle
Last week, I just voted for the company I worked on: Hitchery.
This week’s contestants had a week to study the previous week’s contestants and to determine who won and how. For me, they were all winners for getting through the weekend and winning in their respective cities and regions. Here’s my take:
Best Presentations: Easy Answers (Miami), Reschedule.Me (Lexington), Webscrib (Athens, Greece)
Fastest Path to Profitability: Shtrafy-gibdd, (Kazan, Russia) They’ll get a government contract to build a traffic ticket payment system for the Russian government. The presenter had lots of energy and believed in their product.
Highest Social Good: A tie between Mindle (Sao Paulo, BR) and Kactus Studios (Chihuahua, Mexico). I’ll admit that I didn’t quite understand what they intended on doing.
I wish I understood what they are up to award: Volcano (Iceland). I understood it was a social game between family members so they can keep their relationships.
Loser: Beijing, China – No entry
My Personal Finalists: Webscrib made a good presentation, I just didn’t get what happened after content was marked up. Reschedule.Me could be really useful and I wish my calendar was so full that I could use this product. Easy Answers is intriguing and if they can make their survey system portable via a browser plug-in, I think they have a huge opportunity to win.
I’m going with …..you’ll have to decide for yourself….
Happy Entrepreneur Day!
To celebrate, some thoughts about my journey as an entrepreneur.
Most entreprenuers are not serial entrepreneurs. Not in any way shape or form. They have to wear lots of hats. Possibly have multiple sources of income. Have many different thoughts and ideas almost simultaneously. Most don’t do one business right after another. They try lots of things.
There is no replacing a founder’s excitement for their current project. Nothing can touch it. You can’t bottle it. When you talk to a founder who truly believes their idea, you feel it at an emotional level.
The founder’s enthusiam about what they do drives all things. Sales and partner deals, funding. Teams.
The best founders get their teams and partners to co-flow. Borrowing a concept from Bill Warner, the ability of the founder to get his team to co-flow or in my interpretation, share his vision while wearing their respective hats makes a team real.
No idea is bad. It is either the timing, the implementation, relevance of the idea, or the demand that makes it tangible or fungible.
Last night, the eight finalists gave their Startup Weekend – Boston presentations. From the presentations and overall vibe, I could tell it had been a friendly, highly productive weekend.
The general principle behind Startup Weekend is that you pitch an idea and/or be a volunteer to be on a startup team. The best ideas are selected via an audience vote and teams form up to start the company. Winners received some consulting from Techstars and Cooley, a law firm that has a startup practice and undoubtedly a great deal of market interest. Friday night started with over thirty short pitches that were narrowed down to eight. After the event, the team can decide if they continue.
The winner was Doodlebugging. Doodlebugging is a Twitter-based one to one marketplace application. I think they won hands down. Here’s why:
- The application/service is insanely simple.
- Their pitch: “Doodlebugging is like Craigslist but it doesn’t suck” adequately conveys the message and generates interest.
- The name, while being a bit long is very sticky.
- They create value by connecting people who are selling something with potential buyers – extremely quickly and efficiently. Imagine tweeting “I’ve got a kindle to sell” or “I need a kindle” and you get matched with a buyer or seller - right away!
The Second Place Winner was ReleaseQ. ReleaseQ lets you track upcoming releases of movies, books, music, and videos. Here’s why I think they won:
- Their target market is huge: Lots of people who love a movie or book topic want to know when new content is being released.
- Their revenue stream is extensible: Amazon, Netflix, or any reseller or distributor will want to promote their wares through the site.
- The software creates a highly effective community, informing its users of new promotional media and giving them a queue of the things they might look forward to and allowing them to connect to other users with similar interests.
It would be great to see these startups and the other ideas get to market! BTW, if you want a taste of what a startup is like, I encourage you attend Startup Weekend. You’ll have a great time and there’s no particular obligation past the weekend. You might just end up being on the team that creates the next big thing!
\in-TREP-id, adjective:Fearless; bold; brave; undaunted; courageous; as, an intrepid soldier; intrepid spirit
Intrepid is Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day in Facebook. I love the word since it completely defines the essence of any entrepreneur.
- As an entrepreneur, you’re bold enough to share and execute your beliefs.
- You’re brave in the face of competition and naysayers.
- You’re courageous enough to make the necessary investment in the idea to make it succeed.
- You’re undaunted by the many challenges you face.
- And if someone bottled your spirit, they’d be rich beyond belief.
Great word. Great notion as it relates to all who are in business. God speed.
