You Be The VC is a new competition from New York based Bang Ventures that brings an American Idol style popular voting format to seed capital raising. Wannabe startups put forward their startup ideas to an expert panel, and then the best of those ideas are presented to the public for voting. The top three companies win $15,000 each, Boston Office space and incubation services.The model is not dissimilar to Y Combinator, TechStars and similar programs, with the obvious difference being a popular vote.
The arguments relating to the growing voyeurism of modern society are heated ones; as some one who has read Ben Elton’s excellent take on the medium “Chart Throb” I’ve become very skeptical towards popularity contests, although I still find myself watching them from time to time. You Be The VC is a clever way of exposing Bang Ventures and the sponsors to a broader audience, but on the other hand I can’t help than think that it cheapens the whole Venture Capital profession, at least a little bit. I’ll probably revisit the site though to vote 
Entries close in December and entrants must either be a US Citizens or have US Residency. Winners must also take the offer of Boston accommodation and cannot opt to take the cash alone.
Somehow I doubt this will be a success!
There’s a sligthly similar competition on Flemish (Belgian) television where wannabe inventors present an idea to a jury, which will eventually decide upon one idea that will get funding to get properly developed, mass-marketed, etc. The concept above seems to be geared towards technology whereas the concept on TV here is about anything (one “invention” involved shovels…).
I’ve only seen a part of the first episode and I don’t plan on watching it again actually, so I’ve no idea whether it’s actually successful.
We can always debate about the quality of entertainment this produces–but I would not want my start-up to get tangled in some [scripted] television drama.
It is the last kinda distraction that you need.
Really a small prize to publish a good idea. If you are publishing your startup idea to the whole world you can be sure that someone with more budget and more resources will copy your idea in a matter of few days.
I agree with Martin. Intellectual property must be a big concern for startups to be so “public”. Especially if it is those web 2.0 ideas that they are talking baout in the video.
I really agree with #4, £7,500 is self funded, not VC money. I was always told VC is $1million+. Why bother with this, apart from the obvious bonus of free marketing.
Oh and I forgot to add, if you see their website http://youbethevc.com/ they really need to find a good web designer. Unless they are saving costs.
Derrick
I left out mentioning that 1996 called and they want their web design back
Sucks they want to force relocation to Boston… and the $$ seem pretty low… and I’ll bet the equity % they grab is pretty high… and the terms pretty onerous. -chrisco
PS: I’ve got a better name for them: Be The Grasshopper (http://www.bethegrasshopper.com).
Great. Crowdwisdom goes showbiz!
Woo! $15,000! That’s like, four or five months rent in Boston! I guess your could live in your office space.
15k won’t even buy you a spot at Demo!
$15k is kinda insulting if you ask me.
-Jeff O’Hara
http://blog.zemote.com
I had the interesting misfortune of going onto a similar show here in Canada called “The Dragons Den” with my site bikinizero.com
It became very apparent that these shows have very little to do with investment but everything to do with TV drama….
In my case it will generate alot of viewership due to the DD being the top show in Canada….so in a painful way it was worth it.
Man their webdesign is SO painful….
Uh isn’t there already a show called “American Inventor”??
Would looking like your VC help? I am referring to this advice: http://smartstartup.typepad.co.....-rais.html
Is this hot on the east coast too?
My company is producing a very similar TV series in New Zealand. we’re already in Production and have 6 Start-up companies that appearing in the television series.
The program has attracted major backing from some very high profile corporate sponsors and will go to air in NZ in March 08.
I’m very happy to see this type of format of Reality TV being established in the U.S as we intend to license our program internationally next year.
Hey Folks I thought I’d provide some color as I couldn’t get all the info across on CNBC or in the release.
First the contest arose out of my time teaching tech entreprenuership and dealing with a bunch of b plan commpetitions –as well as my time investing, starting companies, or being part of them. I thought it would be fascinating to see how it worked on a national level and also to see what the “wisdom of the crowds” would be as far as selecting the winning firms.
Second, as to “what the value of the prize is” –this isn’t simple. Our attorneys advised us not to put a dollar figure on it for a variety of reasons, but I will gladly let you all decide what its worth. The 3 winners will get:
1. Office space admin support for the summer
2. All their programming will be done by a great firm we recently acquired in Poland –or they will act as collaboratorss depending on the skill set.
3. All accounting and corporate structuring work nexxt summer will be done by Deloitte & Touche
4. Foley & Lardner will handle all their legal filings from ip to business registration and incorporation and anything else that pops up while we are developing them next summer
5. There will be travel budget, pr, web hosting, marcom materials, branding and position, and $15k stipen/prize in cash per winning start up for the summer. The companies providing these services will be named in the coming weeks
6. Many of the judges will serve as advisors to the start-ups. We are also naming a number of additional advisors over the next several months –these include everything from seasoned investors and start-up execs to senior service industry execs
7. We are wonking on dozens of additional leaads to provide even more services and items for the winning teams.
Whats the price of this, organizing it, mentoring the firms, getting together all these free services from top firms, plus developing publicity and an audience of already interested support — pick your number.
Are we doing this for free? No. We state clearly we are taking 25% for the summer and will reserve certain rights for follow on investing. What is our experience, we’ll check the site bio page and the announcments of the judges and advisors to continue to come over the next few weeks.
As to some of the other points. Yes the website is ugly as Hell. It is having a facelift that didn’t survive the beta and is being redone. Alas due to announcement commitments we couldn’t hold off launching yesterday. We did it very grudgingly. Next week there will indeed be a new look, additional content, and likely some more announcements on sponsors, judges and such.
On privacy, we have a statement or 2 on the site. Long story short no one see your application answerss except the Bang Team and the judges. Your idea will only be made public if you are one of the 20 finalists and only in the video elevator pitch (which we will help craft for maximum protection. These will be available online for the 2 weeks of voting.
At the end of the summer the start-ups will have a beta or better company, with all the programming, marketing planning, legal , accounting, etc done and a chance for more funding after that –plus $15k each. We are looking for additional partners on everything from air travel to office equipment to clothing for that matter which we hope to add to the prizes going forward., They will be announced over time.
Frankly we are doing this to a great part to have some fun and stipulate interest and activity –and to provide money and support for early stage start-up ideas. I think its pretty cool and a damn good deal, but you are welcome to disagree. If you all have any suggestions on improving it, changing the contest, the rules, the questions, hey I am totally open. We likely can only change so much to this version (Contest 1.0) but in the future we are game for very new things.
If you have any thoughts, ideas, complaints, questions, etc — don’t be shy –I won’t be in answering — shoot me an email at: mark (at) youbethevc.com and I will do my best to provide you an answer or opinion.
Guys, this is a great idea; I launched something similar some time ago which takes a different approach at incubator-type capital see http://www.tapcapital.net. In my scenario, you really ‘be’ the vc and you avoid alot of the headache of working with the Capis.
I’ve also got some ideas for some of your sponsors like vator.tv
I can be reached at: tapcapital@gmail.com
youbethevc people, let’s talk
15K?? Go raise it on your own, if your idea and solution is so compelling why participate in this contest when the industry has plenty of very high caliber investors willing and able to invest in new startups. This contest has one intention, to draw attention to the VC firm backing it and attempt to generate free buzz for them.
I think people focussing on the $15k are missing the point. Anyone can raise $15k, but how many people can also get a free development team, top-notch lawyers and marketers (WPP for goodness sake!), and this kind of attention and publicity? The cash is beer money; the value is in the package. It takes a lot more than a good idea to make a go of it. It takes connections.
Theres a similar show on CBC in Canada its called the “Dragon’s Den” where contestant pitch their business ideas to “cut-throat” venture capitalists. The second season shall air on Monday October 1st at 8:00 P.M.
So this show’s idea is not necessarily new when looked at from a global perspective (also considering the Flemish one).
We also had a Dragons’ Den in the UK, except it was with angel investors rather than VCs. We always like to do things on a smaller scale…
The CBC version is with angels not VCs.