$50,000 Prize For Top Company At TechCrunch20
Michael Arrington
45 comments »
If you aren’t one of the 200 companies who’ve submitted their application to launch at our upcoming TechCrunch20 conference, now’s the time to do it. The deadline is tomorrow, July 6. We will begin to announce some of the selected companies next week.
Not only will launching companies attend and present for free in front of an audience of hundreds of press, bloggers venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, we are also awarding a no-strings attached $50,000 prize to the startup judged “best in show” by our panel of experts. Some startups will find this prize a very useful way to fund further operations. Others, who are venture or angel funded, may see it as more symbolic. But our intention is to give even more of an incentive for the best startups to launch their products at the event, and give something back to the startup community.
Some of our sponsors will be donating additional goods and services to the winner. More on that on the TechCrunch20 blog later.
We are going to be making many more announcements about the conference over the next few weeks. This is going to be a very fun event. Register to attend here before it sells out; the early bird discount expires on July 15. Some of the venture capitalists who’ve already purchased tickets are listed here.
The prize seems good I would like to see 2nd and 3rd get something besides - a handshake also
- Good luck to all the companies.
$50,000? Where the heck did you guys get THAT from? All I can say is well done to the winner!
kick ass. nicely done.
God I love this blog.
Wouldn’t it be sweet if the money went to the highest ranking start-up that NEEDED IT.
Society’s ‘Winner take All’ tradition really needs to be rethinked in the Web 2.0 era.
If a well funded start-up sees tens of thousands of dollars and prizes as SYMBOLIC and the start-up that comes in a close second or third really needs to to thrive - it should go to them.
The wealthy winner is only there for the hundreds of thousands of dolllars in viral publicity that comes with winning and will last for months.
A cash strapped start-up that can compete THAT successfully and get THAT far with highly funded competitors is in reality a co-winner.
#5 - try not to be a complete moron. life is about competition. losers cry about equality. winners go home and “fuck the prom queen” to quote sean connery.
I love that quote !
@5
Not exactly. That’s why a lot of venture capitalists are gonna be out there
@5
It would be nice to think that a cash-rich winner would donate the prize fund to a less fortunate entrant, but would that ever happen?
Nope, I don’t think so.
“Wouldn’t it be sweet if the money went to the highest ranking start-up that NEEDED IT.”
I certainly hope this is one of the critieria of the panel of experts. This really is cool techcrunch is doing this though.
I am very surprised that only 200 companies have submitted ?
And also, if your picking next week, it seems like you must already have wittled down quite a bit, as I would expect/home a flurry of submissions at the last minute.
home=hope
Can anyone name some of the companies/sites competing? Be interested to see what kind of competition there is.
Hopefully we will be good enough to make it Mike, just putting final touches to application.
what a prize, excellent
I kinda agree with this guy here: http://www.techcrunch20.com/bl...../#comments
Will there be an NDA agreement signed by the panel? Seems like a good way for them to borrow some ideas to pitch at their meetings, get the complete details on the possible future competition: technology, business model etc.
Well, since the deadline is tomorrow the 6th then most likely I’m not going to be able to get in on this competition. But, please please do it again, perhaps on an annual basis, so more of us can get their entries in?
I agree with some of the comments here - I would like to see some of the 2nd and 3rd place folks get a prize too. That may prove difficult but I am sure sponsors would step up.
Hey, looks like pretty cool stuff! So many conferences and events out there…
And not only would I like it if there was 2nd/3rd place prize, but I’d like to see who else is in the race.
with $50K, i imagine the winning company / entrepreneur could probably afford to rent several prom kings or queens to bring home for an evening or two. ahem
interesting twist tho… $50K prize is a nice marketing angle. great idea mike/jason.
Umm, $50,000 is nice, but I would prefer to not have extra competition. =^)
By the way, the idea that the 50k would go to the companies that need it, well it sounds nice but isn’t very practical. Everyone can us an extra 50k, even if you just got a 10 million funding round.
Any startup that is giving away 50k before they have launched their beta, well lets just say I won’t plan on investing in them. Sounds like they have no idea what to do with their money.
2nd and 3rd place prizes would be cool, but lets wait and announce them after the submissions have been closed. =^)
mike arrington,
the presentation isn’t really free, per se…because you still have to pay the $2K registration fee, correct?
can you have someone represent you/your co., or must it be the actual founders on stage?
We submitted our start-up and are keeping our fingers crossed… Mike, Jason and Heather are doing a fantastic job and no matter what happens I would personally like to thank them for what they are doing and for the tremendous opportunities and doors they are opening for start-ups like us. It means a lot!
The $50,000 prize will go along way for an unfunded start-up (like us), but at the same time the experience, knowledge, friendships and business contacts that can be formed at the conference, IMHO are equally as, if not more important than any amount of money!! Meeting the smartest people in the world and having the opportunity to learn from them as well as show them “what you’ve got”, is I think priceless!
Is this event only once a year?
lawrence, selected companies do not pay to attend, either.
I think the 50K should go to a charity of the winning company’s choice. 50K is not a lot in the overall balance of things, and the Valley needs to make a statement that innovation is for the larger societal good versus the needs of any one company. It would go a long way to improving the image of the Valley and to the company winning the award.
Hey Ben, the ycombinator folks would disagree on the value of $50K, as there normal investment is even less than that!
Can we get a more precise deadline like June 6th 2007 12:00pm PST? I just want to know if my last minute cramming will be in vain
Too much “greater good” talk around here for me. I thought that TC readers where capitalists. Maybe a little refresher is due?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.....yn_Rand%29
I am sure that those who don’t win will benefit for just being part of the contest.
yeah I agree Mitch.
Midnight tonight (5th)? or midnight on the 6th?
*Types really fast*
testing…. just seeing what time it is in Techcrunch land…
*continues to type fast*
This (http://www.techcrunch20.com/blog/2007/06/29/one-more-week-to-submit-on-time-for-techcrunch20/#comments) answered my deadline questions.
I agree. Survival of the fittest.
There are 200 companies out there that have not shown ANYONE their stuff before September? Wow. Lots coming in the pipeline then (for the world).
I would be interested in this since - after 18 months of development - it falls around our anticipated launch date anyway. But who exactly reviews the applications? Do VCs review them or is it just the TC staff?
Maybe I missed it on here, but anyone read the article about Mike in Wired this month?
Mad props to TC for the competition. My team and I are about to launch. We thought about submitting it but decided not to. “Hey who’s our audience?” A: VCs and other startups who might not use our site but instead copy ideas… Are we wrong for thinking this?
Everytime I attempt to send in my application, I get the following error returned from the techcrunch email server:
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 554 The message was rejected because it contains prohibited virus or spam content
I’ve tired with a .doc attachment, without one, with all the URL links removed from my message, but nothing seems to help. Is anyone else experiencing this issue?
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