We get a ton of pitches at TechCrunch every single day. It is a deluge we can hardly keep up with. Some are amusing, some are horrible, and a select few rise to the level of deserving a post. The large majority, though, never see the light of day. We thought: Why not let startups connect directly with our audience, and let the audience decide which ideas are worthy and which ones are not?
So today we are launching a little video project here at TechCrunch called Elevator Pitches. The premise is pretty simple: Startup founders and CEOs give us a 60-second video pitch about their companies, and our audience (that would be you) votes them up or down. You can think of it as a YouTube for elevator pitches (and, in fact, we are hosting the videos on YouTube and simply embedding them on the site).
I’ve hinted at this project before, but earlier today I spilled the beans at a panel I was on at NYU for Internet Week. Update: Allen Stern of CenterNetworks, who attended the panel, posted this clip on YouTube of me making the announcement:
This is very much a bare-bones beta, and we plan on adding more features and videos as we go. There are about 30 videos right now that we’ve captured at TechCrunch events. Some standouts include ones from Creative Citizen, Kongregate, Meebo, Netvibes, ProductWiki, Ribbit, SmugMug, Songza, and Ugobe. I’ve embedded two of them below.
Please tell us what you like and what you’d like to see. As we get more submissions, we’ll be highlighting the highest-ranked pitches on TechCrunch on a regular basis.
For startups who want to get on the site, right now the easiest way to submit a pitch is to upload a video no longer than 60 seconds to YouTube, Blip.tv or your favorite video-sharing site, tag it “tcpitch,” and send us an email to pitches[at]techcrunch[dot]com telling us where to find it. (Don’t worry, this process will be automated soon). We will also continue to videotape pitches at TechCrunch MeetUps and conferences.
Currently, we are only accepting pitches from CEOs or founders of existing startups and creative non-profits. The pitch should convey both what your startup’s product does and how you plan to make money. (More details here). Eventually, we’ll open it up to anyone who wants to pitch an idea and get feedback, even ones that are only at a conceptual phase.
This has been a pet project of mine for a few months, but it would have never happened without the work of several collaborators. To give the videos a consistent look and feel, BeFunky is putting them through a pre-release version of its Video Cartoonizer. The video editing was done by Lee Cummings. Brian Solis and his camera crew at bub.blicio.us also shot some of the videos for us. Our own Mark Hendrickson designed the site, and our developers Mark McGranaghan and Henry Work did the back-end work in their spare time. The site is built on Ruby on Rails.
Erik,
Cool initiative, but why did YouTube remove all of the videos? Share with us the reason please…I have a feeling this could be a great blog post…
-jay
This is an awesome idea. If you’ve already received coverage on TechCrunch, are you still eligible?
Very cool. We’ll get right on it to prepare our pitch. It’s always nice to see the people that stand behind a product or service present it themselves.
Cool feature, congrats on the launch.
My personal opinion is that the cartoonizer detracts from the videos. I think BeFunky has some interesting technology but it seems better applied to things other than professional pitches.
RSS - please?
hey erick!
finally, a really good idea that could/should have some serious traction!
i would add that if you could think about adding the following, might make it even better:
-links to actual power point presentation docs used by groups to pitch their apps. these are valuable, and for the life of me, I can’t find examples of these online. allow the group to vote/comment on these as well…
-allow the person who votes/comments on a video/presentation to have the votes associated with the person’s name. this would allow the person’s “skill/reputation” to be taken into account.
-allow a user to submit their background/resume/vita/linkedin profile/etc… so that people can get a feel for exactly who’s really judging the video/presentation. (i really care about what a seasoned VC says… not so much about some guy drinking beer!)
-also.. as an aside… why don’t you guys think about having a sponsored techcrunch business plan/venture competition… you can have it in multiple rounds, with the prize going up in value for each round… judging can be partially crowd based/expert based… it would/could rival what mit does!!
hope the suggestions help!!
caliventures@yahoo.com
Hey, fun! I was wondering what happened to this project - filmed ours at the Crunchies. Glad to see it’s getting off the ground. Great idea.
This is not a good idea.
Just like Social Bookmarking sites got manipulated - this too will be.
Ambitious Startups will solicit people to vote them up.
The video & PR oriented StartUps will be able to produce more compelling videos thus giving them an advantage
Some ideas are too complex with the focus on long term benefits - to really be understood by most readers.
great idea.
actually - there is a full crowd/investor/consultant based web forum for startups just about to be launched (during next week) which links starups and their pitches to potential investors.
the current thinking is that it is likely to be announced at the smstextnews unlimited drinks gathering on tue 10th in london.
this thread and development should/could be linked in to that - I am sure someone will contact you about it now you have posted this
this movement (on this thread) is totally and utterly needed - erick you should be congratulated.
Hasn’t anyone heard of Vator.tv?
Done already - and they have some decent traffic, and spent some journalistic time with startup founders etc.
They also add value by running segments catering to entrepreneurs trying to raise funding, giving advice, and directions to resources.
I think it’s a great idea, but it’s been done already, and pretty well, in my opinion.
I think its really cool,I guess your at the beginning of this and get a lot of feature wishlists, so I’ll add some:
Missed rss but someone pointed this out…
Another thing I really missed is tags to filter the videos by - like what field each company is involved in, geo location, funded/not funded… etc.
Great idea.
This will be interesting to watch
As already pointed out this can be gamed , financing will allow some to produce more professional videos etc.
easy solution would be to have another blog covering purely new startups ( ie no big companies or already established companies ). You make money from another page for your ads and your visitors win because we get to see real startups not many of the junk you cover because they know you personally.
So startups building a charity service that is not designed to make money need not apply?
Good Stuff!
Yep, needs more RSS.
http://code.google.com/android.....s/lbs.html
Anybody can build Location awareness into their Android app.
I am going to write a blog post about this now.
are you guys now competing against companies in your community? Weird.
I have to agree with Matt on #4. While the BeFunky cartoonizer technology is interesting and I’m sure it has it’s place, this site is not one of them. I found myself squinting at the video until I realized what was going on. The cartoonizer really detracts from the experience especially when the video fidelity is already compromised by the compression. Adding a filter that makes the video darker and even more blocky is, in my opinion, not a great idea unless you’re trying to be ‘artsy’. Since this is a site for a site promoting business pitches, and not some art project, the effect doesn’t fit.
Otherwise I think the site itself is a great idea.
As long as the videos are kept very short, great! I can’t watch Scoble videos - half an hour of listening to him laugh while we look at some doofus in front of a keyboard.
The cartoon effect is shit.
I like it! You should stick to the format of CEOs giving pitches at TC events - a lot more challenging with only 2 tries, an audience, and no editing.
How do you update the pitch? Our numbers are already dramatically higher than when this was filmed:
http://pitches.techcrunch.com/pitch/22-mefeedia
@Jay - I’m not sure what you’re referring to; the vids appear to be showing up just fine.
@Joel - Yes, companies already covered on TechCrunch are eligible.
@Matt and @Bryan - yes, we’ll definitely implement RSS
@sam - very good ideas all around
@Danny - good call, we’ll also work on search
@ole - non-profits are welcome to submit pitches too
Frank, @21, for now add a comment with the updated numbers.
I was thinking Ustream integration would make perfect sense. What if the highest rated pitch after a certain amount of time “won” the chance to present live on Ustream and then do Q&A with the chat.
Thoughts?
i have to say it is a very cool idea.
Fantastic idea but it seems like interfering to modify the videos in any way, like cartoonising them. Better to show them in original form - people will probably put alot of effort into making the videos look just right so it would be a pity to then modify them.
Great idea!!
Why can’t you look at the name of a company and tell what they do ?
Great idea. Vator.tv must be so happy
With the web trade secrets are the way to go because there is really no copyright/patent protection for startups. Bet the big players will steal the good ideas, program it from scratch in a month and name it something better, and launch it off there existing traffic. I’ll take my chances with contacting potential customers then giving my ideas to the large players.
Vator.tv case in point…
wow…i wonder if vator.tv pitched techcrunch prior to them coming up with this brilliant idea?
How about this as a way to make it fair. Don’t allow any cuts. If you see a cut get rid of it. That would make it much harder to dazzle people and win votes on marketing alone.
I also have a hard time watching these with the video filter. It is very distracting when you are trying to comprehend what they are talking about.
Thanks for all the helpful comments. This can go in any number of directions, depending on what people want.
It’s a way for us to engage with our audience and the startup community on a different level. We are going to try to keep it as simple as possible and see where it goes.
Does anybody like the cartoon effect? The idea there is to have a consistent look that is recognizable when these videos are embedded elsewhere, as well as to make it visually interesting.
Great idea, although hopefully the amount of manual effort in viewing/selecting/editing/posting the featured videos won’t result in a similar bottleneck to your textual submissions.
Not a fan of the cartoon look either I’m afraid.
Would you people shut-up about vatortv?
“oh someone else did it already, I guess we can’t”
There are so many me- too, three, infinity sites out there it isn’t even funny, so it is about execution or competitive advantage.
That’s why investors ask, “What’s to stop another company from doing this?”
> Does anybody like the cartoon effect?
Erick, I want to like it, but I don’t. I think it’s better to kill the cartoon effect so that it’s easier to recognize and identify faces.
Maybe play with the framerate or something that doesn’t distort people.
Brilliant! Very cool way to deal with the deluge. Well done.
How about pitches for companies that don’t yet exist? Just a college-kids idea… kosher?
VC’s should implement this technology on their sites.
How often will TC cover the top-ranked startup on that Pitch site, weekly - monthly?
it is very good idea and the cartoon effect doesn’t bother me at all.
Cartoon effect: is a No.
Great idea, but the Befunky video cartoonizer is annoying. Personally I have no concern over whether or not the videos have a consistent look to them.
I like the cartoon affect - it strikes a good balance between reality and animation.
But for something like this, which is kind of more serious - i’d like to see their face.
The cartoon effect really sux, but the site looks nice
This is awesome but the Charles Schwab type animation looks ridiculous.
I think the conceptual-ideas-phase video posts is just going to prove to be unpopular. The idea of “those who know, don’t speak, those who speak, don’t know” will rise to the top. Anyone intelligent enough to have a half-decent idea will kindly keep it to themselves until they can get it into a beta, or keep it to a group of NDA-ed folk.
Sharing your brilliant ideas with the world, if they’re actually brilliant, is a pretty quick way to get someone else with more resources first to market.
I agree with a lot of the other comments - the cartoon effect is unnecessary and is distracting from what the person is trying to say. I think this a great idea (especially for TC) and it will help other entrepreneurs gauge how good their own pitch is comparison.
Hey Erick, you co-panelists on that first video above look like they’re about ready to jump out of their seats from excitement.
Are they even awake?
@Chris, 47, or it could be a good way to connect with other like-minded people and investors who could make your idea a reality.