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Venture Capital - Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Trend Watch: Startup Elevator Pitches

Centernetworks has launched a video elevator pitch contest where founders get a few minutes of video time to impress reviewers. Its a similar concept to Bambi Francisco's Vator and now we understand that BusinessWeek wants to build or buy a similar idea, and would give away $500K to the winner. And Forbes has pre-empted BusinessWeek with a $100K prize for good business plans. Its all part of the trend towards the American Idolization of just about everything.
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We might have thought that there would be a scarcity of talent for such review systems to compete over but we have watched KillerStartups go from 20 reviews each day to 30 reviews of startups without blinking an eye. KillerStartups was founded in Buenos Aires by Gonzalo Arzuaga. The site's traffic has really taken off since launch. The site is built on Pligg, which is a Digg-like voting generator.

How to summarize the startups that make it to KillerStartups and which ones get votes? In general, they are mostly Web 2.0 companies many do very niche tasks. For example, ePassportphoto allows you to upload a self-photo and they will auto resize it to gov't standards. Hardly seems like a business. On the other hand, DesktopTwo is a major undertaking. Its a full blown Web operating system. As of today, both have only 1 vote, which seems unfair for Desktoptwo. We look forward to KillerStartups have more voting so we can get a better take on the wisdom or tyranny of the crowds but for now its a fascinating view onto how dozens of people each day or spending their time.