SomePitching and the Finnish ministry of transport and communication have signed a contract to arrange 6 business idea competitions in Finland in 2013-2014. As part of this development, the 6 tournaments will also be satellite tournaments to the actual SomePitching competition, arranged once a year in the autumn.
First of the 3 tournaments will be arranged in 2013, and will be arranged together with a number of partners, most notably the ES-organisations of Oulu, Turku and Lappeenranta (dates coming later).
The satellite tournaments are often closed sets, and for this first tournament the participating 7 teams have all gone through a 3 week coaching program of VTT and OuluSES, called the StartUp Challenge competition. You can sign up to voting (starting Monday) at our technology provider Innopinion’s page here.
What is SomePitching all about?
SomePitching is an online competition for new business ideas and teams. The competition allows public voters (anyone) and invited judges to vote and decide the best ideas. The best ideas and voters will be rewarded with prizes.
Startups from anywhere around the world can get publicity and detailed feedback from hundreds or even thousands of potential customers and users, and from a distinguished serial entrepreneurs, investors and experts.
Check rules and instructions to learn more.
SomePitching competition is built on the world-class Innopinion technology platform, that enables engaging various stakeholder groups into idea and feedback processes to analyze and develop these into actionable items.
SomePitching is completely free for teams and voters.
Innopinion is the basic technology behind SomePitching’s process in engaging various stakeholder groups into evaluation and analysis of participating ideas. Lately Innopinion has received major credits in International level for its innovative approach, and we wanted to share a bit more about how our core process actually works and what the company does.
Innopinion was chosen among 9 promising Finnish startups to ring the Nasdaq bell with then minister of economic affairs Jyri Häkämies last October. This would be a major milestone as such for any company, startup or Finnish or not. Hats off for that. At that time the service was under the name Innozed, but due to trademark issue in Germany, the company had to change name to Innopinion. The service has significantly developed since, and SomePitching is the test bench for the newest of new features that will come available.
The process how we work, goes something like this.
All pitched ideas will receive an equal number of feedback and analysis from the participating crowd, Innopinion makes sure that the evaluation questions are being distributed equally among participants, and that all friend-fan-follower effects are minimized to give as neutral analysis to everyone as possible. The evaluation process and SomePitching voting method has been continually developed, and thus we don’t yet know for example how exactly the voting will take place in the autumn when the next actual SomePitching competition will take place. (We may have a surprise or two in our sleeves before that… stay tuned!).
What we do know, is that there will again be a jury that will participate in evaluating the finalists. We have already some ideas who will be in the jury, and by looking at our past Jury members’ list you can imagine the level of experts accepted and invited to the jury, and mostly the same names will continue with some additional (even more experienced and more International) experts joining in.
The jury will evaluate X amount of finalist startups/ideas, and again Innopinion will make sure that all these will get equal amount of analysis from the jury. The jury is not voting democratically, but each and every jury member will give personal evaluation only, which is then collected and calculated to the actual jury votes. Jury and the general public together decide the winner, and we will make sure that even the most highly regarded jury members can not influence the other jury members or the results. It’s as equal and neutral as it gets, anywhere!
Innopinion handles all distribution of questions to most suitable participant possible, based on a number of criteria; who they are (neutralizing process), availability, role, skills and experience, their own preferences, gamification matters, etc. Let’s see how the process runs in the autumn, there’s still plenty of time to develop the voting and analysis technology further and add new features to it.
One upgrade will surely be the gamification of the voting activity, there’s plenty of improvements already there, and we will also announce new individual and team voting methods in the future. Remember to check back here and our Facebook pages for later announcements. We’ll announce a major new sponsor soon…
Four business ideas in total survived the SomePitching rating process and from the hands of the jury. The SomePitching had more business ideas, but only these four had the quality to pass all levels.
The winner was Presefy – the cloud service for mobile presentations. They’ve won leads and contacts to business angel organizations plus few smaller prizes. You can check their website.
The second was Oikeat Palvelut from Oulu (Giveology and appreciation of good life is growing business).
The third was spendLO, a web-based community utilizing a modified reverse auction platform.
And the fourth was MJOBS.TV – Online Content Marketplace.
SomePitching is proud to announce a top partner and a great prize for the competition – welcome KPMG!
KPMG has been kind enough to sponsor a nice legal services prize for a chosen finalist! The chosen team will receive legal advice from KPMG for 3000 euros worth! In addition to the main prize, KPMG will grant all finalists a 50% discount for 6 months for their services. We’re proud to have such a generous sponsor with us, and hope that all contestants consider using their expertise to the max – just as we do!
KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. Globally, we have 145 000 outstanding professionals working together to deliver value in 152 countries and in Finland we are over 750 situated in 16 locations.
The first week’s top five contributors are determined. They will receive 15 Euro gift certificates to Amazon.
Additionally they are still in the race to win 700 Euros worth of main prizes and in the raffle to win Valkee Brain Stimulant headsets.
Let’s congratulate the top five:
1. HoxBox, 3200 credits
2. Ansa, 3000 credits
3. dafu, 2650 credits
4. Xka, 2500 credits
5. Johnny, 1950 credits
We’ve added more prizes to both participating teams and the voters.
Voters
Voters have now a chance to win also Valkee Valkee Brain Stimulation Headsets (check Valkee website). Also top five weekly contributors win Amazong gift certificates. Check prize page for more details.
We also have two main prizes, a 500 Euro alarm system and 200 Euro gift certificate, which are raffled between all top 20 contributors.
Teams
Team get a chance to showcase their idea with two finnish business angel networks and use their services. Also we give one Valkee headset to a team.
We are still adding more prizes to the teams, but remember that the best prize is the feedback from all voters and our jury.
Early startups need funding, but also advice. This is what business angels do.
We are proud to announce that also FiBAN (Finnish Business Angels Network) is our sponsor. We have already collaborated earlier with BAF (Business Angels Finland Oy).
What this means for our competitors that they get visibility in a large network of business angels who are looking fundable startups.
FiBAN gives a very valuable prize to one of the top five teams: a lunch meeting with selected investors.
Things keep getting better and better.
What is the single most important thing when you have a business idea? To get feedback on your idea from different people.
It doesn’t also hurt to get your idea and team heard by potential investors, but most important is that you know how to develop your product or service to more user attractive direction.
SomePitching gives you both: a) analytic feedback from tens or hundreds of potential customers and experience people, and 2) publicity amongst tens of potential investors.
Previous winners (and top 3 teams) have gone to raise funds and created better products party because of the feedback and publicity through SomePitching.
So think about it. For doing a 60 second video and without any travelling or money, you can get visibility from public and jury that you cannot get even with money. Where else you have chance like this?
Our main goal is to empower anyone, from anywhere, to get feedback for their ideas. However, a winner must be chosen or otherwise this wouldn’t be a competition.
We have nine categories which we use to rate each idea from business potential to the traction. The winner is chosen based on the combined rating the idea gets from all categories. Simple as that.
However the idea must get a minimum rating from all categories (Check rules) to have a chance to win. If an idea doesn’t get a minimum rating from one or more categories, it will be sent back to the team for revision.
Few things about the material
The only mandatory material is the video. However, we suggest that you would create a simple slide deck for the jury so that they can give you better feedback.
Go crazy with the video, but do remember the categories the raters are using the judge you.
As you may have noticed in the business news, the Finnish Minister of Economic Affairs Jyri Häkämies has agreed to give his support to SomePitching, and is officially the ‘protector’ of SomePitching for the second time. We appreciate this recognization highly, and the Minister has also agreed to be sharing his time with our winners the November 7th in Helsinki, Finland. So be prepared, should you be among the winners, there’s a chance to meet the Minister face-to-face in the given timeslot. The competition ends November 4th, so there’s not too much time to arrange the flights, so be warned upfront, this chance comes with short notice!
In a typical idea or startup competition the winners get money or resources. Yes, they get feedback also, but from a selected few people. However, what they don’t get is feedback from hundreds of potential customers, and a chance to iterate their idea and graduate.
Business idea competition + virtual accelerator = SomePitching
SomePitching competition combines idea competition format with virtual accelerator program. What this means is that instead of just selecting the winners, all participants get crucial feedback to their idea. So actually, everyone wins something.
During a three week period, ideas will progress through eight levels based on user and jury feedback (see rules). An idea needs to get a minimum score to progress to the next level. Each level has different rating purpose from traction to market potential. If an idea passes all levels, it will graduate. The winners are selected from the graduated ideas based on combined feedback from all levels.
If an idea doesn’t pass all levels, it will be sent back to the team with analytics. The team can iterate and send the idea back to the competition inside the three week period.
What this means for the teams is that they can test and improve their ideas while the competition is ongoing. Also all good ideas will be rated by public and jury. Everyone gets lots of feedback to their business ideas.
Win, win and win for everyone.
So we’ve reached the moment when the actual countdown starts, the 4th competition is closing in on us. Competition starts October 15th, so start preparing your competition video!
This time (again) we wanted to bring you something very new. We’ve developed the competition concept significantly each time, and as some other business idea competitions have started copying our methods, we’ve wanted to take new and even more exciting paths (and extra miles) to provide You the best possible competition mode ever.
This time the competition’s technology platform and process is from our close collaboration partner Innozed, a new and exciting startup from Finland, soon launching operations in the U.S. The technology enables the analysing, rating, and developing of ideas with a real-time gamified and automated process, and for us it means that the competitors may re-enter the competition if they don’t make it to the final stage. So even if your idea don’t make it all the way at first, we’ll return it to you with feedback, and you can re-enter with a new and improved version of your idea all the way until the very last week of the competition.
Competition mode is still video, but now only 60 seconds long. As in the last competition, it is free form. Any type of video or animation describing as well as possible your idea – the problem you’re solving, and how you’ve solved it. Prepare an additional slideset of 10-12 pages that the Jury may see if you make it to the final stage of the competition. There is no set number of companies that will make it to the finals, the ‘goodness’ of ideas defines how many will make it through the process. The process tests various sides of your idea with the help of general public, the public voters, and only ideas that pass the audience review with good enough grades make it to Jury stage.
In the Jury we have (again) the best and most competent Jury in the world, including globally recognized professionals of various fields. See our last competition Jury and you’ll see the idea… This time the first Jury member that we announce is truly worldclass, one of the best known startup VC people in the world, from Silicon Valley. We’ll announce the name Tuesday morning!
Prizes and sponsors will also be published all the way until the competition ends, stay tuned for our first announcement Tuesday…
Best of luck to You all who may enter the competition! It’s startup hunting season!
In a typical startup competition you have few minutes to pitch your idea, maybe with slides. This might be enough for pro jury to judge you, but its not good for getting analytical feedback from potential customers and users, or anyone else.
When we decided to go online, the video was the only practical format to use for pitching. In the first competitions the video pitch was supposed to simulate pitching onstage (i.e. talking heads with slides), but later we realized that people are more creative than that.
In SomePitcing 4.0 you have the freedom to do any kind of video from animation to acting, as long as it relates to your business idea and product. So just create your 60 second video with mobile phone or camera and send it to the competition for feedback.
P.s. check examples from earlier competitions from our youtube channel.
Our vision is to allow any startup, from anywhere in the world, to have an access to quality feedback about their idea. This is not possible in traditional startup competitions, not even in big cities.
Changing the game
Even though Oulu is not a village, it is far from the center of the world. Our biggest struggle was to get feedback to our ideas. There’s a place for pitching in front of real people and in one-to-one sessions, but that takes lots of time and resources, and it’s not accessible to many young entrepreneurs.
You need more versatile feedback than just from local investors or other entrepreneurs. You need feedback from potential customers, users, from other countries, from women and men, from experienced entrepreneurs, and so on. How to do this when you have no money, no connections or other resources.
SomePitching was created to solve this problem. We wanted everyone to have the same opportunity to get feedback and visibility, not because they live in big cities, but because their idea and vision is worthy of the interest.
The biggest jury in the world
From the beginning of SomePitching our aim was to gather the biggest group of experts, investors and entrepreneurs from around the world to help us rate new ideas. In first competitions we couldn’t handle a big crowd because we analysed the results manually.
This time we have no limits on the jury size. Innozed platform allows us to gather unlimited number of experienced people to give feedback in different roles, and also unlimited number of anyone (your potential customers) to have their say.
So let’s make SomePitching the biggest crowdsourced startup competition in the world.
