Watch a video of the awards ceremony here.
Three jam-packed days, and 52 startup demos later, we finally have a winner for this year’s TechCrunch50. Every day, the presentations just seemed to get stronger and stronger. There were so many strong contenders this year that we are awarding five jury selection prizes, in addition to the top prize. But there must be a winner, and that winner is…Yammer.
Yammer
Yammer is Twitter with a business model. Created by an existing company, Geni, to scratch its own itch, Yammer takes the familiar Twitter messaging system and applies it to internal corporate communications. There is such a huge demand for this type of service that 10,000 people and 2,000 organizations signed up for the service the first day it launched on Monday. Anyone with a corporate email can sign up and follow other people in their company. But if a company wants to claim its users, and gain administrative control over them, they will have to pay. It’s a brilliant business model. (Watch a video of the the winning demo).
The runners up are:
Atmosphir
Atmosphir is a gaming platform that anyone can use to create their own immersive, 3D levels. The tool works by dragging and dropping level elements into place – pieces of land, bridges, hazards, etc. To play your level, all you have to do is hit “play” and you can even go back to the editor after entering gameplay. Atmosphir is available for Macs, PCs and Linux machines and was developed by Minor Studios. (Watch the video).
FitBit
FitBit produces a small gadget that can be clipped discreetly to your clothes. It tracks your movement throughout the day and delivers reports on how active you’ve been. These reports can be accessed through a website and used to learn not only how many steps you’ve taken but your sleeping patterns and caloric burn as well.
GoodGuide
GoodGuide helps consumers find better and more comprehensive information about the products they buy and the companies that make those products. The site ranks products on their health, environmental and social “goodness”, empowering consumers to buy conscientiously. The founders say they have enlisted the support of scientists and technologies, as well as hundreds of information sources, to make the service as accurate and informative as possible. (Watch the video).
Grockit
Grockit is an online, interactive learning tool that brings students together to answer quizzes with each other. The startup has raised $10 million for what it’s calling a “Massively Multi Player Online Learning Game”, which takes its cue from World of Warcraft and applies that game’s concepts to SAT-like study groups. Grockit features a chat room where students can talk with one another as they deliberate over questions. They can also award each other points for their insight. (Watch the video).
Swype
Swype introduced a radical new gesture-based way to input text on touch-screens. Created by Cliff Kushler, the same man who co-invented the T9 predictive text entry system found on over 3 billion phones, Swype lets you simply connect letters on a touch-screen keyboard by making squiggles between them using your finger or a stylus. (Watch the video).
first!
At last, Michael Arrington finds his revenge against Twitter.
I can’t grasp why they picked a winner whose business model could be completely destroyed if Twitter basically rolled over on the other side of the bed tomorrow morning…
With absolutely nothing else to differentiate here, there is nearly NO innovation and definitely NO justification for them to have won this year’s TechCrunch50: 10,000 new members and 2,000 organizations is nothing; Twitter can do it better and if anyone bright over there actually has a say, something like this would be simple (relatively) to implement and MUCH more convenient for existing users of Twitter.
But I’ll leave my more detailed rant here:
http://www.html...vation-is-dead/
Agree with Chris~~ from an innovation point of view it’s well, not.
Hey! Hey! Hey!
Before all hell is raised! What was the criteria for choosing the winner and the runner ups?
Asides that, I will not question the judgment of the panel. Congrats Yammer!
This is the big idea? Twitter for businesses?
Hell I could have done that.
this is what michael meant the “O Shit” moment
@Chris C – Yammer has basically taken the few extra steps that Twitter should have made months ago, but instead was bogged down with their stability issues and actually had to ROLL BACK some features (’track’ is still disabled, as is most/all IM, and the conversation threading for @ replies is all screwed up – at least on the Twitter home page, on search.twitter.com it seems to mostly work for some reason…).
Basically Yammer placed the track feature/tagging formally into the UI, and created domain level security/segmenting. All stuff that Twitter could/should have done already.
Also long overdue: Sub-segmenting lists, more intelligent sorting options of follower/followee lists (last active, most tweets, most followers, etc.), tracking by keyword AND user/user-sub-group, etc. etc.
Agreed that it’s a bit disappointing that this is in fact seen as THE BEST idea out of the whole pack of 50+100…
Been using it since they launched. It is a great product and well executed. Congrats guys.
What are you working on?
is this big brother in a cubicle.
from my experience people dont like to be disturbed or followed while they work.
Imagine the Messages:
get busy, where are you, may i use the restroom, yes you may, sit in your chair, what are you doing, listen to me, i am your boss.
Personally, I feel like this would be more of a hindrance to work rather than any sort of benefit. If everyone is constantly checking to see what their colleagues are doing then no work will ever get done.
Working on http://www.hubdub.com. Basically Yammer lets the team communicate stuff like ‘fixing the rounding error bug’, ‘getting to work on forums’ or ‘pushing the release now’. We would never share this by email or IM. It is the sort of stuff you would naturally pick up if we were all in the same office together.
lets replace pointless meetings with pointless tweets.
A twitter clone that has been vertically positioned wins tc50?
please yammer don’t hurt ‘em
big upset
I agree. I can’t even believe DropBox didn’t even make the runner up. They should have won and I spoke with many many people at the conference of importance who felt the same. I guess their presentation got messed up, but come on with Yammer. I like the guys and the BM is cool, but the only reason they have a chance to succeed is that they presented at the TechCrunch 50 in front of the exact guy who would buy them in the event they had massive growth. Benioff is just mad he was there to be a judge because he can’t actually steal the idea (which would take a couple days to program) in good faith. He will corner these guys into a hole and give them $500,000 to sell and give them an ultimatum if they don’t. DotSpots is another company which should have been in the runner up list. The guy started Shopzilla and BizRate, he clearly knows what he;s doing.
DropBox was aborted by Live Mesh. Sorry.
Yammer is from a company called Geni. Geni’s CEO is David Sacks. Sacks is a close friend of Peter Thiel and the ex-COO of PayPal. Thiel (ex-PayPal CEO) is the major VC behind Facebook, Slide and Geni. Thiel was interviewed by Arrington on TC50. Arrington has also written very positively about Geni.com, although it’s a commercial failure (its main competitor has 10 times as many users).
So, quite possibly Arringtion is a little brown around the nose today.
Anyway, look up “Peter Thiel” and “David Sacks” on Wikipedia or Google, and search for Arrington’s articles here in TC and see for yourself.
huh? I think twitter should get this prize.
No imagination. biting from someone and spitting out as a different chunk. what has the valley become? Innovation Folks!!!!!!
It’s called “business” dawg. Make money…end of story. How many of MS Windows ideas were original in the 90’s (or even worked for that matter) ??? It served the needs of many and boasted revenues to prove it.
But MS’s ideas were not ‘features’ of other products, which this clearly is.
Same with that Xobni thing. Good thing they also got rolled over by PostBox this week.
Really no surprise here. I think I saw Steve Gilmore running behind the curtain
Congratulations! Is Twitter down?
btw: I think Twitter didn´t hear me. I´ve got the best business model for Twitter.
Why the hell don´t they do what I suggest. Okay, here it is!
Dear Twitter,
please ask your users alternative question in a smaller font near by the main-question “What are you doing?”, so it will look like this:
“What are you doing?” or “What do you think about the new Product X ?” (<-just smaller font)
These branded questions will work! Companys can hire Twitter to ask Twitterusers a branded question. They can pay price x per answer or price x for a day/hour/minute the question appears near by the main question “What are you doing?”
Don´t get me wrong. I heart twitter to the fullest, but now it´s time for me to ask Twitter:
“What are you working on?”
A friend from Germany
Do this yourself and maybe you’ll be the twitter clone to win next year’s TC.
Makes entirely no sense. No blasting about being a clone or anything and wins the TC50. Good job.
I vote for FitBit – truly unique. Would have also added Hangout and VideoSurf to the list.
Actually this is another re-do with small improvements. Google “FitBug” to see the product that’s been around for awhile now. Only thing it doesn’t do is sync up with bluetooth, you have to plugin. Adding bluetooth to an existing product is hardly innovation.
I vote for fitbit too. truly innovative and fils a need.
yammer is just a clone for business. already done by ididwork also.
Agreed. FitBit has greater mass market potential. A cheap hardware product with great margins and a potential for a subscription service with lots of possible add-ons. Not to mention tie-in deal potential with other products, such as the iPod, shoe and fitness companies, and even rental business at fitness places and resorts.
Just like “Yammer” is just another marketing euphemism knocking off “Twitter”, Yammer is just a Twitter knock-off with a very limited vertical marketing appeal…that Twitter could crush at any moment if they start a corporate service.
Why not just give the $50k to Zune if innovation doesn’t count? They could probably use it too.
I would have voted for fitbit too …
i don’t think “none of the above” was given enough consideration
Signed up for our org about half an hour after seeing the demo and watching them put it live. A couple days later, it’s already a staple in our org.
org org org
Yammer will truly be a twitter clone if it crashes because of all this traffic it’s getting
Blackmailing companies into paying. Genius!
Exactly… the business model won! The best part i don’t think there are laws against this. Yammer is legit blackmailing!
This compared to no money making model at all!!
That’s why I think the simplicity of it all is genius. Has left a lot of people complaining.. but they should be kicking themselves and learning a few things. If you want millions from VCs you need to show how to make money and sometimes it is simple.
Doesn’t Backpack already do this? http://www.back.../demos/journal/
By far the most fun thing to follow ever. Thank you and Thank you!
I dream of the future and it looks bright. Just the capability of what these new technologies and companies will bring is amazing. But I guess it would.
Thank you novelty.
Poor decision in my opinion. No innovation whatsoever.
+ 1. I agree 100%.
gooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!
Thank god it’s over. Tired of seeing the startup spam all over the TC homepage.
Wait until Twitter brings out the groups feature and this site will have no benefits over them.
I think this is Arrington’s way of closing the Twitter Meme
Twitter is officially old news. So ‘08. Yammer is the Sara Palin of mico-blogging, LOL.
agreed, i don’t get it.
its more of a nod that twitter to biz integration is most likey going to be the next “supposedly” in feature of an intranet/site and or be stand alone, however its still another gamble assuming it sticks, and ive already got a twitter, and a pounce, and now i you want me to adopt an internal yammer for my corp- ugh
fitbit more unique, but mainly on size alone
atmosphir cool but no real addictive gameplay was shown
the real winners of tc50 were the panels and Q&A
who won in the demopit?
and techcrunch should had viewer choice winner as well which would of been tonchidot…
iamnews.com won the chance to present from demo pit
Yeah, but only because a couple of other companies got disqualified for doing a better job at getting chips… Sucks!
Hmmmm… I still dont see some startup with real break thru in technology.. all companies some whr trying tweak here and thr the existing sucessful ideas to built the next company. Not so much impressed.
I love it that a copycat with a “brilliant business model” won people actually doing interesting and innovative things. How TechCrunchy.
Danny I couldn’t agree more, this farce of a selection in the face of some really innovative startups makes sad, cause it feels like the criteria was based on 90% business model and 10% innovation.
…and even still I don’t believe Yammer should have taken the prize.
HUGE upset
still, congrats to the team behind Yammer
Are you kidding?
Albeit this may be the best example of the articles about twitter in the enterprise, this is nothing new and nothing ground breaking.
I guess it helps to buy ads for your other company on techcrunch’s front page.
You’re right – I just noticed that. Isn’t that a blatant conflict of interest?! Also, how does a $10M dollar company make a new product, decide to spin it out, and still be called a “start-up”.
Time to put some rules in place TC50:
1. No contestant or affiliate of a contestant should be allowed to advertise
2. The start-up should not be a spin-out of a company over $5M
3. You should let the audience have a vote (or at least a have an “audience choice” award).
4. You should give extra points if the candidate company is actually working out of a garage. Double points if the garage is detached.
5. TC Poker Chips should be replaced with digital votes at a kiosk controlled by TC volunteers.
6. TC staff should choose 25 respectful and active commenters (with real names) and invite them to widdle down the top 100 applicant companies to 30 contestants.
7. TC 30. 10 per day. Three days so Arrington still gets his millions, but squeeze out the fluff.
8. After expert panel, have 3 audience questions per round.
Wanna stop relying on spell check and proof your article?
“But if a company ants to claim its users,”
Try:
“But if a company wants to claim its users,”
I was wondering what ants meant…
Want to stop being a dick and try some manners?
So lame. TechCrunch 50 companies sucked this year. I’m sorry to say.
Now all we need are twitter implants…
BORG: When you are assimilated, you will have a similar device.
CRUSHER: Hugh, do you understand we don’t want to be assimilated?
BORG: Why do you resist us?
CRUSHER: Because we don’t want to live the way you do.
BORG: Here it is quiet. There are no other voices.
LAFORGE: Other voices?
BORG: On a Borg ship we live with the thoughts of the others in our minds. Thousands of voices with us always.
CRUSHER: I think what you’re saying is that you’re lonely.
Just lost HUGE respect for tc50.
So it’s no longer about going from the garage floor to
hugely useful worldwide, but having NO original thought,
as long as you get to enterprise first?
Did only the VC’s actually vote?
> Did only the VC’s actually vote?
This is not a democracy, it’s a meritocracy
So: Yammer -> David Sacks -> Peter Thiel -> Arrington.
+-> Geni ads on TC -> Arrington
I was routing for Swype but would have picked Yammer second. Congrats to Techcrunch50 for putting on an Awesome event. I hope to be at attendance next year.
I think I’m with most people here. I don’t see much innovation other than thinking up a business model Twitter couldn’t do. Are all the good ideas gone?
Jason Kiesel
Founder & CEO
http://www.freedomspeaks.com
Yay Yammer!!
Someone tell me why TechCrunch and this event even matter? I used to frequent this site, but all of it lately is noice and useless startups that provide no real value. Quote:
“Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you working on?”
As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location
”
What am I working on? Are you serious? What business of yours is that? It’s already been proven that simple email interuptions take over 10 minutes to recover your train of thought. Couple that with prevalent chat and now this?
Knock productivity down yet another notch.
This Web 2.0 crap is just that – crap.
Geez, someone build something worthwhile
Honestly, TC has become vain and sensationalist like Hollywood. I mean, we all need another “Beverly Hill Chihuahua”
I Agree. TC has lost it’s roots.
That is a MAJOR point you have made. People already spend too much time talking about what they are doing instead of actually doing it.
Productivity gains? I would expect it to do the opposite.
I thought we already had this. It’s called instant messaging. How does this really differ? A company could always set up an IRC server or something and have everything logged. Why would a company pay for this service?
@sabernar et al. – I wouldn’t completely knock the micro-blogging model, for many people it creates interesting synergies, quick answers to questions asked, and most people under 30 (I’m not one of them) can supposedly do this stuff in the background multi-tasking.
For me, the real interest comes with the data-mining of the short/condensed posts (which is why Twitter, et al. need better tag/filter/search/sort functionality).
And compared to Instant Messaging, it can be much more asynchronous that way, sort of like hyper-concentrated email.
BOOOOOOO
Yammer might have won in this ‘virtual’ world. The real winners two years from today will be fitbit and swype. Both companies are heading to a major success.
The winning company, Geni, has about $11.5 million in funding through its corporate parent. A runner-up, Grockit, has raised $10.7 million. Last year’s winner, Mint Software, had already raised $5.5 million.
It’s not the raw and new type of startup you’d expect to see coming out and meeting an overwhelming market demand at a conference such as TC50. Good marketing opportunity for the company on stage for sure, but a contrast with the scrappy types of companies Mike tends to get most excited about.
I think you are focusing on the “winners” too much Niall. I would say that 90% of the value is just in launching in front of so many people. Adding an award to that adds something, but it isn’t nearly as important as the launch. And in those 52 startups there are a ton of very young, very raw startups that I hope to see kicking ass in a year or two.
Mike,
Conference feedback: As a demopit company I just want to say that TC50 was a complete fucking waste of our time. Terrible wifi, girls paid to collect demopit ‘competition chips’, very few journos who actually gave a shit and very little traffic of people. It was stupid of us to even think that a show that opened with ‘Ashton’ doing a site for ‘teen girls’ would be a good idea to get some real feedback.
The VC’s were mostly looking for the dream of ‘Web 3.0 way to put your dog’s profile on an iphone’ type shit. Blogging celebrities hid VIP backstage, while in all 3 days I don’t think I saw any Techcrunch people actually walk past our table. More fool us and the money we paid you.
You basically ripped off a bunch of startups. DemoFall may be crass, but they aren’t the hype hungry, fashion pandering egos like your setup has become. You pretended to want to help just to get some attendance fees, which I think is much worse.
You’ve lost grass roots and consider yourselves ’something special’ and I regret even considering this stupid rip-off. I read some bad stuff from last years TC40 conference and wish I had heeded it.
Future startups – stay away – save your money and go talk to real customers, this valleyway payola fashion demoshit stuff will just waste your time…
yes that i see, because this year the focus is not to support development what is targeting “ordinary” users. I mean you are funny, this winner idea you have it already as wordpress plugin even more brilliant business plan>free………so better to don’t focus on it. But you are funny
i would give that 50000 to the kids to develop the gaming platform if we don’t have to focus on winners and yammer have that “brilliant business plan” with an actual clone (if you don’t mind)
What, no response to Demopit payer Mike? Man up, or should I say nerd up.
trailofdead, you shall be assimilated. resistance is futile. also, you need a drink.
@Locutus, you sir, are a genius. My consumption of frosty adult beverages has begun.
I, for one, welcome our new Yammer overlords.
@Demopit payer
…well you’re an idiot for not seeing that in the first place.
The past 3 days were awesome. My business partner and I watched all 3 days – every minute of video + intermittent rap songs/slide shows.
Im pretty sure tc50 just put the nail in demo’s coffin, with the live ustream feed being the sledge hammer. Not only was the video feed unbelievably cool of mike and jason, it was a brilliant business strategy.
The quality of the presenting companies was unbelievable. My bpartner and I had to have said “that’s the winner” 5 to 10 different times. It was an impressive group of companies and a great 3 days. Thanks!
p.s. your comment system should play nice with opera
I forgot to mention the panels and keynotes – they were incredible.
Thanks pal! There were 7-10 companies that could have won. Remember, the grand prize is selected by Mike and I with the input of the judges (who can only see 8-10 companies each). The winner is our world view for better or worse, as is the selection of the 50 companies… again, for better or worse.
What makes the Sundance festival great is that they make an editorial decision as to what they accept and over time they do a great job and establish a certain reputation. We’re very happy with the projects we selected to accept, and those who won. Is is perfect? Of course not! There will be amazing companies we miss every single year, but as anyone who went to the event can tell you, the companies–overall–were amazing.
Additionally, if folks feel they can do a better job there is plenty of room in the market for additional events. Sundance is not the only film festival, and in fact there others like Cannes that are bigger and perhaps a little more fancy.
Companies prepared to launch for month in advance of TechCrunch50 this year, and I know folks are already planning their product launch for September 7-10th next year.
Congratulations to all the companies this year and I can’t wait to see next years submissions!
View Techcrunch50 winners’ websites together on 1 screen:
http://tinyurl.com/5otycq
Well said Dave! I agree completely. I was blown away more than a few times..
Congrats TC and Jason (great host/speaker btw)
What world do you guys live in? You need to see what’s out there… 1/2 of the stuff have been done many times and the other 1/2 were simply silly.
Thanks for the positive feedback! Having done 3-5 rehearsals with each companies it’s really thrilling for me to host the event and watch the companies present.
The average presentation during rehearsal #1 is about six on a scale of one to ten.
The average presentation during rehearsal #2 is about an eight out of ten.
When you see the companies get on stage they’re almost all an 8-10 out of 10. The secret to event has nothing to do with wifi, food, the space, the chairs or the microphones. Those things are important, but the truth is the event rises and falls with the quality of the companies.
The reason for TechCrunch50 being so amazing this year has to do with three factors:
1. The number of amazing companies that applied.
2. The brutal selection process we put the companies through.
3. The brutal rehearsals the companies went through combined with the non-stop effort the companies put into their presentations during the final 10 days. Many of the presentations went from good to great to amazing over the three days before the event.
It was a pleasure to co-host the event and get to know the companies.
I’m going to do a followup email on my email newsletter here: http://www.tiny....com/jasonslist
I will probably win TC50 next year. I’m working on a version of Twitter as well, except that mine is fuchsia.
Locutus, you are way off base. My app will install a small background app that will monitor everything you do on your machine and automatically Yammer exactly what you’re doing so you don’t have to type a thing:
Locutus is currently working on googling for Sarah Palin pics
Locutus is currently working on nothing for 2.34 hours
Locutus is currently working on typing a curly brace in IntelliJ
Locutus is currently working on not being a jerk
I would have several bathroom breaks in there as well. A few trips to foobies. Also I write Ruby so don’t use a lot of curly braces. I also sleep a lot. And don’t forget drinking on the job and fraternizing with female employees–both staples of a healthy workplace. I really do have a lot to yammer about.
My biased vote goes to GoodGuide, for its potential to really change the world.
I must disclose my bias as I’ve been a fan of GoodGuide/Taoit and Dara since they started and am absolutely thrilled to see the progress they’ve made. I’m thoroughly impressed by the course correcting I know had to happen behind the scenes to get to the right spot today.
The problems they are trying to solve are at an entirely different scale of challenge than the rest of these start-ups so hats off to what they’ve accomplished thus far and best of luck (for all of our sakes)!
It is easy to say this idea was stolen, but everyone said that about twitter ‘omg I could write a wordpress template that does this.”
However, after looking at it, I think the implementation of the idea was better done in backpackit from 37signals. They launched a feature called newsroom a month or two ago and makes more sense to integrate it with their other products.
congratz to the team, it looks like a great app. could be really useful in large development teams and teams doing agile.
Thier crunchbase page needs updating to say they are the winners btw.
Should there have been some disclosure that Geni are a TC advertiser :p
Darren: fyi, I make 50% of the decision and I had no idea Geni advertised on TechCrunch. It was fairly obvious to us that like Mint last year, Yammer is going to be a HUGE business success. Their product execution is amazing and their business model (pay a small fee per user to claim your network) is going to be HUGE.
GoodGuide is an amazing product as well, but my belief is that Yammer will be a bigger company. I also LOVED tonichidot but their presention (”look UP not DOWN!!!”) was amazing, but their project didn’t have a clear path to success. They were inspiring.
There is no prefect way to do this, and I’m very open to other folks coming up with prizes and new voting systems for the TechCrunch50. If someone wants to sponsor their own award we really can’t stop them.
The 50+ presentations are out there, and if someone wants to create a body of experts and have them vote their favorite and give that company a prize I’m all for it! That would be really cool if someone on this board was inspired enough to find 10 experts to review all the company presentations again and do open voting on all 52…. will that be a “true test” of the best company? No… because their is no true test other than time!
Mint has done VERY well over the past year, and Yammer is going to amazing next year. I’m 100% certain that in five years Yammer and Mint will both: a) exist as brands/companies an b) be thriving.
To me standing the test of time is important. Other folks showed more innovation, sure, but they are highly risky (i.e. Tonchidot).
Let the debate continue.
I don’t think Yammer will be around in 5 years. I like the thinking behind the product, but it has its work cutout. If the market need really exists, then I can see a twitter corporate version coming up overnight. Twitter brand is way too strong for yammer to compete against. I don’t see a defensible barrier. Good luck to them though.
I personally do not think it will succeed. Matter of fact I think it’s a failure.
a). Most programmers on the team this will be presented to by manager will probably say they can code same basic functionality and they should not waste money.
b). It’s hard to get companies to switch to solutions like basecamp that actual DO something useful without ‘omg but does it do this’ fit by managers. Why would they even pay for… this? Ok.. its like twitter.. don’t see anything.
c). It’s not productive, between this and time sheets. Why would I go and update my status on another program? I think they will have to pay me every time I do that.
Do you expect programmers or even web designers to agree to do yet another thing during their time schedule? Yes let’s update ticket, enter your time and ..umm.. tweet your status please. No, not happening.
“highly risky” innovation can use better the prize than “huge business already/ “oh what is happenning in the next room” kind safe circus.
It is JUST point of view how you give:support to who.
No?
Regardless of twitter making an adjustment or any controversy regarding the TC50 victory, Yammer will be super helpful for me as it gives our team the ability to get fast information from different locations. If we can give access to clients on a project by project basis also it will force us to do a better job, and potentially create a competitive advantage for us… if I can get my company to act.
I question the objectivity of TechCrunch at this point. I can’t figure out the criteria that could possibly rate a generic single function application over companies that are working on world changing undertakings. Meebo > Google, yep
With that said I still think Yammer is a good product and I wish them the best of success. They are a decent business. But not an innovative one.
That’s right, yammer on Guys about how everything sucks.
yammer, yammer, yammer.
I don’t know why anybody would want to be on stage at TC50 OR DEMO. I think it does more harm than good to get all this hateful feedback from sourgrape geeks.
+1
FitBit because they sell an actual device are mostly original. Boo to work-twits.
Amazing that no company in this TC has a potential to be a standalone company. All the companies seems like “buy me f**k me” companies in the best case. (Most are not even worth to put in the trashcan).
I don’t get the point about showing off the product during TechCrunch50 and not actually launch it to the public.
I hear Web entrepeneurs saying all the time that the first rule is to release early.
I guess that the whole Techcrunch50 thing is about meeting VCs and doing other fund raising social activities on the place, etc., but what about all the world traffic generated because of the event that many of them are wasting? (take Otherinbox or Devunity for example, and Icharts.net was even entirely locked out until today).
You’ll never know how worth is your business until you don’t launch it. This makes me think one thing: if you are conscious that your idea is weak, you look for contests, public demos, funding-before-launch, other forms of pre-launch marketing etc.
If you are really convinced about your bizmodel, you just go out with it and see what people say. But in the world, not in a conference room.
Actually, many of the companies has a very strong chance of building an audience and as such a business.
Keep in mind we pick companies that launch at TechCrunch50 and if you’re launching at the event you’re probably only doing 10% of what you’ll eventually do. The best way to run a lot of businesses is to get the product right and build an audience, after doing so you can figure out the business.
So, it’s logical that it might *appear* that many don’t have a model. Keep in mind, however, that the business model for most companies is advertising or selling the product (subscriptions). If you get traction those two things are easy to execute against.
all the best, jcal