Can you believe this newsworthy event was months ago and I am just writing about it now? As much as I would like to bore you with my excuses for laziness and preoccupation, I think I should get to the gore!
The competition began with more than 50 (mostly) worthy opponents (new start-ups), all slammed into one 40x20 room. All thought they brought the goods, although some must have been kidding themselves. So after alot of scratching and pulling hair, possibly a little bribery, three lovely ladies made their way into the finalist ring to battle it out for $50,000 in prize money!:
SchoolTipline
Weighing in at a maximum of 150lbs, these goodie-two-shoes love their mom and just want to make schools a safer place. They offer an anonymous reporting system designed to empower school children to report almost anything to school officials. The site is well built and they have impressive traction, supposedly they are close to a deal with a major school district (thousands) in Canada.
Pros: Good product, charismatic management, good traction, "sticky" customers
Cons: No protectable IP, plenty of competitors
They're quick, scrappy little fighters - but if they find themselves on the wrong end of a right hook from some 225 goliath, they could be in trouble.
Klymit
These science nerds turned alternative sports punks are the best funded competitor in the battle. They appear to have a noble gas based technology that they claim provides super effecient insulation. Using their valve (patent pending), jackets, pants, tents, whatever can be filled, emptied, and refilled with this gas to provide adjustable insulation. Concept is cool and they claim to be working on deals with several of the major outdoor companies.
Pros: Some IP (intellectual property), good advisory board members, maybe some traction?
Cons: inexperienced management team, playing in a red ocean with alot of big sharks
Greeting Call
I must be honest, at first I had to wonder about these flower-lovin, feel good boys - but they are the biggest and most experienced of the finalists, so I quickly changed my mind. Greeting Call is a profitable company - they provide a service whereby purchasers of flowers or other gifts can add a voice-recorded personal message to their delivery for a small fee. Apparently they already have deals with some major national and international florists and a large national grocer.
Pros: traction, traction, traction
Cons: easy to duplicate, big sharks
The Mayhem!
The day of the finals started out just fine, nice cool winter afternoon.... All the finalists got to make their beg - i mean pitch - and then.... It's unclear who instigated the madness, but their were reports of lazor sharp pencils and pointed paperclips being launched with rubberbands from the area around SchoolTipline. One pencil lodged itself in the neck of an innocent spectator (now assumed deceased). Greeting Call, thinking it had been aimed at them, began attacking with giant thorny Rose stems! Klymit wasn't going to be left out, so they came flying in, slicing and dicing with freshly sharpened snowboards. The bloody madness lasted for almost 10 minutes, by the time it was all over there were so many laying on the ground, I couldn't say how many deaths there were. Once order was finally restored, the 1st place prize was awarded to Klymit, 2nd place to SchoolTipline, and 3rd to Greeting Call (possibly for trying to fight with rose stems?!)
*Obviously, some of the facts of the events mentinoed above may have been modified, misconstrued, or completely made up. If you didn't already know that - well thats just sad. The truth is:
Overall the competition went very well, with over 50 companies submitted - and the 3 finalists all being of high quality. The event went well and was full of energy (although no real violence). All three companies gave good presentations, although some were more polished than others, and the results were as reported above. Congratulations to all the competitors in the 2008 BPC - it was a great event as always!
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