In an effort to give early stage founders more frequent feedback for their pitch… essentially how they explain their value proposition to early prospective stakeholders… News Lab Inc (dba bizblip) launched Blippy Pitch. It’s an online video pitch competition where early stage founders can road test their pitch before getting in front of funders and early customers. Or to refine it while doing so.
The results are in:
Verified Backups advances to a seat at the next Pitches Get Stitches (and $500) in-person pitch competition, date TBD. (April?)
Founders of the three presenting companies all expressed a great deal of interest in getting feedback about what they need to do to improve their pitch, and in the rush to launch this new bizblip feature… that part got lost in the wash. With future Blippy Pitches I will be clear that bizblip readers are to leave comments on the pitch video page. Meanwhile, I ask my readers to reach out to the founders of these startups.. perhaps by LinkedIn.. and share with them some detailed and constructive advice about what worked and what can be improved.
Startup founders interested in taking part in what I hope to be a weekly Blippy Pitch contest are encouraged to contact me so I can send you on-boarding instructions so you can tell me a little about your company, apply to pitch, and upload a video. I’ve built the back end so that you can take down or replace that video any time after competing, and these videos are only seen by my subscribers — who almost universally reside in Missouri. I’ve done this because I interviewed more than 50 founders who tell me they want feedback, but don’t want a shark frenzy of random eyeballs, and they don’t want a video held against them when they later improve upon their pitch.
Paul Riat, bizblip publisher
News Lab Inc. makes money from paid subscriptions to bizblip.com and through sponsorship and ticket sales for our live events. Helping startups accelerate their growth (without violating solid journalistic ethics) just makes sense. Their growth fuels our news, and that drives our growth in all things. Calling upon you, a bizblip reader, to be a Blippy Pitch judge, is a natural extension of my corporate values and community building efforts. And I thank you!
yours,
Paul Riat, publisher (at) bizblip.com
(314) 352-9822
